Panzanella: Bread and Tomato Salad
Author: 
Serves: 4
 
Ingredients
  • 400 g (14 oz) stale Tuscan or country-style bread
  • ½ red onion, sliced very thinly
  • 500-600 g (17-21 oz) juicy tomatoes, room temperature, cut in small wedges
  • 1 small cucumber, peeled and sliced
  • a handful of pitted kalamata olives
  • 15 basil leaves, washed and dried
  • 3 Tbsp white wine vinegar
  • a nice drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil
  • sea salt
  • freshly ground black pepper
  • water
Instructions
  1. Fill a small bowl with water and add a tablespoon of vinegar in it. Soak your thinly sliced onion in this mixture for about 20 minutes.
  2. Remove hard parts of the crust from your bread. Roughly cut bread into small chunks. Depending on how hard it is, you can also try to do it by hand to obtain more irregular shapes.
  3. Fill another bowl with water. Working in batches, quickly submerge the bread chunks in the water. Squeeze all the water out of bread chunks and set aside.
  4. In a separate bowl mix tomatoes, onion, and cucumber. Dress with vinegar, extra-virgin olive oil, salt and pepper and mix well. Let stand for a few minutes so the juices will start to flow and collect the bottom of the bowl.
  5. Add bread chunks to tomato mixture. Throw in the basil leaves, torn in pieces. Gently mix it all (I like to use my hands) so the bread absorbs the juices. Taste and correct the seasoning, if necessary, adding more salt or vinegar or olive oil.
  6. Panzanella can be eaten right away but it's better enjoyed if it sits in the fridge for a couple of hours. The taste of this salad improves with time and you can also eat it the following day. Remove from the fridge 15 minutes before serving.
Recipe by Very EATalian at https://www.veryeatalian.com/panzanella/