Panzanella

If I’m being perfectly honest, I hate making salads. Especially in the bus, with our tiny counter and tinier fridge, it is such a hassle. One little bin of greens, enough to have salad with dinner for a few days, takes up about half of our fridge space. And that little bin of greens also mandates a whole host of other vegetables and various accoutrements. or else the salads will be incredibly boring. Then, each evening, you must remove each of these from the fridge, one at a time, and chop up a tiny bit, all to make everyone’s least favorite part of dinner. It’s a real bummer in my book. Too much work and too much space for too dull a dish. But then, what if we were to eschew all those fridge-hogging greens and instead make croutons the base of the salad?

That’s the idea behind this panzanella recipe. Crisp cubes of bread fried in olive oil tossed with chopped tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, kalamata olives, basil, Parmesan, and red wine vinaigrette. It’s all the best parts of the salad: you have fresh vegetables, aromatic herbs, sharp cheese, a tangy dressing, briny olives, and plenty of crisp bread—and you most of those things don’t even take up room in your fridge. With all the space savings, you might as well serve it with a chilled bottle of white wine, don’t you think?

Panzanella

Crisp, olive oil-fried bread cubes are the star of this salad, perfectly complemented with chopped fresh vegetables, aromatic herbs, salty olives, and a tangy red wine vinaigrette.

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Course Appetizer, Main Course, Salad

Cuisine Italian

Servings 4 Servings

Ingredients

  

• 1 medium boule or similar loaf
• olive oil
• 2 cups cherry tomatoes halved
• 1 cucumber peeled and sliced
• 1/2 red onion thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup kalamata olives
• 3 tbsp finely chopped basil
• salt to taste
• Parmesan cheese to taste

Dressing

• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1/8 tsp garlic powder
• 1/8 tsp black pepper
• pinch salt

Instructions

 

• Mix the vinaigrette in a small bowl and allow it to sit and meld while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
• Bring a large skillet to medium-high heat and add a couple good glugs of olive oil.
• Throw a couple handfuls of bread cubes into the skillet and cook, tossing regularly, until they are crisp on all sides.
• Repeat until all the bread is toasted, adding more olive oil as needed. Salt the bread cubes when they come out of the pan.
• Once all the bread is toasted, you can assemble your salad. Add all the ingredients to a large salad bowl.
• Give the vinaigrette a quick whip with a fork to emulsify and then pour it over.
• Toss the salad and garnish with as much grated parmesan as you like.