Italian Bread Salad (Panzanella)
Published September 11, 2008
Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times
- Total Time
- About 30 minutes, plus 1 hour's refrigeration
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
1 pound stale country bread or baguette, cut in thick slices
1 small red onion, sliced very thin
Cold water
1 pound ripe tomatoes, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar or sherry vinegar (more to taste)
1 large garlic clove, minced or crushed in a mortar and pestle
Salt and freshly ground pepper
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
Nutritional analysis per serving (6 servings)
41 grams carbs; 309 calories; 7 grams monounsaturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 13 grams fat; 4 grams fiber; 424 milligrams sodium; 9 grams protein; 7 grams sugar
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
- Step 1
If your bread is very hard, douse it with water first and saw it into a few pieces that will fit into a medium bowl. Cover with the onions. Pour on cold water to cover and let sit for 20 minutes. Lift the onions off the bread and rinse in a strainer. Drain the bread, squeeze out excess water and crumble the bread into a salad bowl.
- Step 2
Add the tomatoes, basil, and parsley to the bowl. Mix together the vinegar, garlic, salt, pepper, and olive oil, and toss with the bread mixture. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour or longer before serving.
Private Notes
Comments
I crisp up the bread in a pan with olive oil and rub each piece with garlic clove. Then omit the garlic from the rest of the dish. Add good kalamata olives and some Parmesan and we're good.
I use this as a base recipe and as many others do, instead of soaking the bread in water, I toast the bread and then allow them to absorb the dressing and juice from the tomatoes. Sometimes I add black olives or capers. Last night I had an avocado that was just perfect, so I threw that in as well. For those who don't like raw onion, soaking in ice water helps remove some of the sharpest flavor. You can also add a touch of vinegar to the ice water to further reduce the sharpness.
If the bread is saturated with cold water, it doesn't seem to me that it will absorb the yummy tomato juice. And cold tomatoes have no flavor!
I like the bread soaked in water and squeezed. But the recipe calls for too much red onion. My husband picked it out. Garlic seems necessary but some say Italians don’t put raw garlic in the bread salad?
I used stale bread from the sour dough bakery. Soaked and squeezed still left a wonderful texture.
By soaking the bread it became mush and really wasn’t very nice texture wise. I would defiantly toast bread and toss in dressing instead next time.