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AI-generated photograph: A wide shallow white bowl of panzanella: red and yellow tomato chunks, golden torn sourdough, pale green cucumber, thin rings of purple onion and bright torn basil glistening with olive oil

Home · Recipes · Tomato and sourdough panzanella

Italian · Lunch

Tomato and sourdough panzanella

torn toasted sourdough · sweet ripe tomatoes · basil and red wine vinegar

AI-generated photograph

Panzanella is a Tuscan bread salad: chunks of toasted sourdough soak up the juices of ripe tomatoes, cucumber and red onion in a sharp red wine vinegar dressing, with plenty of torn basil.

Contains: cereals containing gluten and sulphur dioxide and sulphites, as written. Gluten is in the sourdough or ciabatta, and sulphites are in the red wine vinegar and often the capers. Some breads contain milk, soya or sesame, so check the bread's label.

Ingredients

  • 250g day-old sourdough or ciabatta, torn into 3cm pieces
  • 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil: 2 for the bread, 4 for the dressing
  • 700g ripe tomatoes, a mix of colours if you can, cut into chunks
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cucumber, halved lengthways, seeds scooped out, sliced
  • 1 small red onion, very thinly sliced
  • 1 red pepper, cut into thin strips
  • 2 tablespoons capers, drained
  • 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
  • 1 garlic clove, finely grated
  • Black pepper
  • 20g fresh basil, leaves torn

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Let's cook

  1. Heat the oven to 200C (180C fan). Toss the bread with 2 tablespoons of the oil on a baking tray and bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until crisp and golden at the edges. Leave to cool.
  2. Put the tomatoes in a large bowl, sprinkle over the salt and toss. Leave them for 10 minutes: the salt draws out their juice, which becomes part of the dressing.
  3. While the tomatoes sit, put the sliced red onion in a small bowl with the vinegar. This softens its sharp bite.
  4. Add the cucumber, red pepper and capers to the tomatoes.
  5. Lift the onion out of the vinegar and add it to the bowl. Whisk the remaining 4 tablespoons of oil, the garlic and a few turns of pepper into the vinegar, and pour it over the salad.
  6. Add the toasted bread and the basil and toss well. Leave for 10 minutes so the bread soaks up some of the juices but still has a little crunch.
  7. Pile onto plates or a wide shallow bowl, making sure everyone gets bread and some of the juices from the bottom.

Tips

  • This salad is only as good as the tomatoes. Use the ripest ones you can find, and never keep them in the fridge.
  • Day-old bread works best: fresh bread turns soggy faster.
  • Eat it within an hour or two of mixing; it does not keep well overnight.

Swaps

  • More filling: add a drained tin of cannellini beans.
  • No capers: use a handful of halved black olives.

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