Tuscan Panzanella Salad came to me on a slow August drive between Florence and Siena, when the rental car’s air conditioning gave up somewhere past Greve in Chianti and I pulled over at a little roadside trattoria with three plastic tables under a fig tree.
The owner’s grandmother was there. She lived in the apartment above the kitchen, and her grandson was the one cooking dinner service. She came down for lunch in a faded blue housedress and sat at the table next to mine.
She watched me read the menu. Then she said something to her grandson in Tuscan that I did not catch, and a few minutes later a deep ceramic bowl appeared in front of me. Cold, glossy, smelling of vinegar and basil and warm tomato. She nodded once and went back to her bread.
The Bowl Under the Fig Tree
Her name was Nonna Liana. I learned that later, when I went back to ask how she made it.
The grandson, Matteo, did the dinner version with grilled bread and a little anchovy. But Liana’s lunch panzanella was the old way. Stale loaf, water, tomatoes, onion, oil, vinegar. Nothing else. She rolled her eyes when I asked about balsamic. She actually rolled them.
She told me, through Matteo translating between bites, that her mother had made this every summer of the war and after. The bread in Tuscany is unsalted, what they call pane sciocco, and it goes stone hard within two days. You either soak it or you throw it away. Tuscans do not throw food away. Non si butta via niente, she said. Nothing gets thrown out.
What the History Actually Says
I went looking into the dish once I was home, partly because Liana had been so firm about what did and did not belong in the bowl, and I wanted to know if she was right.
She was. Panzanella has been a fixture of Tuscan cucina povera since at least the 14th to 16th century, built by contadini around the problem of stale saltless bread. The Florentine painter Bronzino, in the 1500s, wrote about a salad of onions, purslane and cucumbers soaked with bread. That is essentially panzanella before tomatoes.
The tomatoes only joined the party in the 20th century. For most of the dish’s life it was bread, onion, vinegar, oil. That changed my whole way of thinking about it. The tomatoes are guests. The bread is the host.
The name itself is a portmanteau of pane (bread) and zanella, a kind of deep soup bowl. Which is exactly what Liana served it in.
Bringing Tuscan Panzanella Salad Home to My Kitchen
Back in my apartment off Sunset I tried to make it the next weekend. The first attempt was bad. I used a fresh sourdough boule because the bakery down the street had just pulled them from the oven and I was impatient.
Soft enriched bread turns to mush. Liana would have rolled her eyes again.
The second weekend I bought a rustic loaf on Friday and let it sit out, uncovered, until Sunday. By Sunday morning it was a brick. That is what you want. I tear it into chunks the size of a walnut, crust still on, and drop them into a bowl of cold water with a splash of red wine vinegar in it. Liana’s trick. The vinegar in the soaking water seasons the bread from the inside.
The kitchen starts to smell like a tomato vine and a wine cellar. That happens about five minutes in. It is the moment I know the salad is going to work.
What I Used
- One pound of stale unsalted Tuscan country bread, 2 to 3 days old, crust on
- Three cups cold water, for soaking
- One and a half pounds of ripe summer tomatoes, a mix of vine-ripened and plum, at room temperature
- One medium red onion, thinly sliced
- One medium cucumber, peeled in stripes and sliced
- One cup loosely packed fresh basil, torn
- Six tablespoons of the best extra virgin olive oil you have
- Three tablespoons red wine vinegar, divided
- One teaspoon fine sea salt, plus more to taste
- Half a teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
The tomatoes I get from the Hollywood Farmers Market on Sunday morning, the stall on the north end that sells the heirlooms with the cracked shoulders nobody else wants. They are the best ones. Liana would approve.
The Smell of the Kitchen, Step by Step
I soak the onion in cold water for ten minutes while I work. This is non negotiable. Raw red onion in a panzanella will bully every other flavor in the bowl. Ten minutes of cold water takes the bite off and leaves the sweetness.
I cut the tomatoes over the big bowl so I catch every drop of juice, sprinkle them with salt, and walk away for five minutes. The salt pulls more juice out. The juice is the actual dressing. The olive oil and vinegar are just helpers.
Then comes the part I love. I lift each handful of soaked bread out of the water and squeeze it between my palms until water runs out between my fingers and the bread is a damp clump. The clump crumbles into the tomato bowl. The smell at this point is incredible. Wet bread, ripe tomato, sharp onion, the faint grassy edge of good olive oil hitting it.
Basil last. Torn, not cut. A knife bruises it and turns the edges black.
Twists I Will and Will Not Allow
I have made it with grilled peaches instead of cucumber once, in late August when the peaches were better than the cucumbers. It worked. I would do it again.
I have also seen people add capers, white beans, mozzarella. I tried mozzarella. I did not love it. The bread is already doing the soft work. Cheese makes it heavy.
What I will never do is toast the bread. A panzanella with toasted croutons is a different salad with a different name. The whole point is rehydration. The bread takes the dressing into itself and gets pillowy.
What I will also never do is reach for the balsamic. Liana would come back from somewhere and find me.
Eating It
I let the finished bowl sit on the counter for twenty five minutes, uncovered, before anyone touches it. The flavors need that. Cold from the fridge it is sad. Cool room temperature, with the windows open and something dry and Tuscan in a glass, it is the closest I get to that fig tree in Greve.
I eat it standing up at the counter, usually. One forkful, one sip. The bread has taken on everything.
I have not been back to Liana’s trattoria yet. I hope she is still at the table next to the kitchen door. I hope she rolls her eyes at me one more time.
Tuscan Panzanella Salad
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Tear the stale bread into rough 1.5-inch chunks, leaving the crust on. Place the chunks in a medium bowl and pour the cold water over them along with 1 tablespoon of the red wine vinegar. Press the bread down gently so it submerges, and let it soak for about 5 minutes, until softened all the way through but not falling apart.
- While the bread soaks, place the thinly sliced red onion in a small bowl and cover with cold water. Let it sit for 10 minutes to take the harshness off, then drain well.
- Cut the tomatoes into rough wedges or large bite-sized pieces, working over a large mixing bowl so you catch all the juice. Sprinkle the tomatoes with half a teaspoon of the sea salt and let them sit for 5 minutes to draw out more juice.
- Lift the bread from its soaking water a handful at a time and squeeze it firmly between your palms to push out the excess liquid. The bread should hold together in damp clumps. Crumble each squeezed handful into the bowl with the tomatoes.
- Add the drained red onion, the sliced cucumber, and the torn basil leaves to the bowl.
- Drizzle the extra-virgin olive oil and the remaining 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar over the salad. Add the remaining half teaspoon of sea salt and the cracked black pepper.
- Toss everything together gently but thoroughly with clean hands or two large spoons, making sure the bread chunks soak up the tomato juices and dressing.
- Let the salad rest at cool room temperature, uncovered, for 25 to 30 minutes so the flavors meld and the bread takes on the dressing.
- Taste and adjust with a pinch more salt or a splash more vinegar if needed. Serve at cool room temperature, never cold from the fridge.