Panzanella salad recipe: how to make a delicious authentic Italian bread salad

Step by step panzanella recipe: learn how to make this authentic Italian tomato and bread salad perfect for summer. Traditional panzanella salad recipe and suggested variations.

Panzanella is a popular summer Italian dish from Tuscany.

It is often described as a tomato and bread salad as tomato and bread are its star ingredients however, it is more than that.

Panzanella is a complete meal perfect for a summer lunch in the country, a refreshing meal after a day on the beach or a fun addition to any summer buffet.

The main ingredients of panzanella are bread, water, tomato and olive oil, to which you add whatever ingredients are in season.

Panzanella is a ‘poor’ dish, born in the country, where the ingredients available are those coming from the land and the leftover of previous meals.

Fresh, local ingredients are what make this dish so tasty. These, coupled with the ease of preparation, make it a winner whenever you are looking for an easy family meal that is stress-free, filling, refreshing and delicious!

What is panzanella: traditional panzanella ingredients

Panzanella is a wet bread salad.

The main ingredient for panzanella is dry bread, softened in water, shredded and dressed with fresh tomatoes, olive oil, red onions and any other ingredient you happen to like.

The preparation is very simple and required no cooking nor cutting, so this is a good Italian dish to make with kids too!

Traditional panzanella salad ingredients are:

• 8 slices of one day old Tuscan Bread (Pane Toscano, aka with no salt)
• 2 Fresh tomatoes
• 1 Red Onion
• 1/2 fresh cucumber
• Olive Oil for dressing
• Fresh basil for dressing
• Salt and black pepper (optional) for dressing

Fun fact! Do you know why Tuscan brad is salt-free? It has to do with the old rivalry between Florence and Pisa. Pisa, in control of the coast, imposed a tax on salt. Rather than pay it to their enemy, Florentine people came up with a delicious bread that needed to salt at all – a Tuscan delicacy was born! You can learn more fun facts about Italian food here.

Othe ringredients you can add to your panzanella salad

You can add to your panzanella any fresh ingredient you have in the fridge or pantry. Some that work particularly well are:

• Chickpeas
• Avocado
• Tuna
• Anchovies
• Radishes
• Arugula

Where is panzanella originally from?

Tomato and bread salad is a dish typical of central Italy. You find it with different names almost everywhere on the peninsula, with prevalence in the regions of Tuscany, Marche, Abruzzo and Lazio.

How to make panzanella

Making Tuscan panzanella is very easy:

Take your Tuscan bread, break it into chunks, put them in a large bowl or tray and dampen it with water.

Leave to soak up the liquid for about 20 mins, then use your hands to break the chunks into a pulp.

The tricky thing here is adding the right amount of water: since each piece of bread is different, measurements are just indicative and you will need to proceed with trial and error.

I find the best way to avoid a disaster is to add small quantities of water (you can always add more but not take it away!).

I pour a little of it on the bread, use my fingers to break the bread into smaller chunks and consider it done when I have a pulp that is wet but not dripping with water.

If you add too much water, no worries: just take your bread, squeeze out the excess water and use a different bowl for serving – unless you added so much water that the bread has turned into a watery mess, the situation is easily salvaged!

Once your bread is ready, you simply add your other ingredients.

In the simplest version, you chop up a red onion, a tomato (I find beefsteak tomatoes the best for this) and fresh basil, but I also like to add row carrots and chickpeas or, if I feel like a fish version of panzanella salad: tuna.

Add all the ingredients to the bread, dress with olive oil, a bit of salt and leave everything to rest in the fridge for about 1h.

The bread will soak up all the tasty flavors of the vegetables and the dish will turn out delicious!

Top tip: raw onions are an important ingredient for a successful panzanella salad however, they can be hard to digest. A good way to make onions more digestible is to marinate them in vinegar and water for 30 minutes before adding them to the dish. To marinate them, slice them into onion rings, immerse them in a solution of water and vinegar and leave them to rest. They will come out soft, tasty and easier on the stomach!

What type of bread for panzanella?

The best bread for panzanella salad is Tuscan bread, so bread with low or no salt, a hard crust and soft center, ideally one day old (aka: gone dry but not so old to be moldy).

If you cannot find this type of bread, you can use almost any other artisan bread type: just avoid anything like prepackaged soft rolls like burger buns or sliced bread of the type you’d use for toasts as it simply does not come out nice enough.

What do you serve with panzanella salad?

Panzanella is a complete meal and you can serve it on its own, ideally accompanied by a small glass of Tuscan red wine.

If you want to add something to your meal, you can serve beside it frittata, also easy to make ahead and refreshing or serve with it a plate of cheese and cured meats, also perfect for the Tuscan theme of your meal!