Barefoot Contessa's Panzanella Salad Recipe - Food.com (2024)

FAQs

What are the ingredients in a panzanella salad? ›

In a large bowl, mix the tomatoes, cucumber, red pepper, yellow pepper, red onion, basil, and capers. Add the bread cubes and toss with the vinaigrette. Season liberally with salt and pepper. Serve, or allow the salad to sit for about half an hour for the flavors to blend.

Meaning of panzanella in English

an Italian salad made with stale (= not fresh) bread in oil and tomatoes, and often other vegetables: Stale bread can be used in panzanella, a Tuscan bread salad.

It's also a great starter to a fun Italian menu with anything including sundried tomato pasta, eggplant parmesan, chicken pesto, or Fish of your choice. Panzanella can also be the perfect summer salad for your next BBQ with things like chicken kabobs, lamb burgers, or grilled shrimp.

Panzanella originated in the central Italian countryside, where farmers combined surplus vegetables with old bread to cut down on waste. They soaked the bread in cold water to give it a chewy texture, then tossed it with vinegar, herbs, and onions for a wonderfully tangy bite.

Panzanella comes from the regions of central Italy: Toscana, Lazio, Umbria, Marche and Abruzzo, but the Tuscan one is perhaps the most famous. At its most basic, it is a mix of old, dry bread, soaked, squeezed and crumbled, tomatoes, red onions and basil, dressed with oil and vinegar and eaten slightly chilled.

Cherry tomatoes are small, round tomatoes that are perfect for snacking and salads. As their namesake suggests, they are about the same size and shape as a cherry. Most cherry tomatoes are red, but they do come in other colors like yellow and orange.

Earthy beets, vibrant orange, and fresh herbs like dill, parsley, tarragon, and mint add depth to the entire dish. Food and Wine's roundup of eighteen amazing Italian salads including a panzanella recipe is a great place to start. The options are endless and will leave your mouth watering.

The name is believed to be a portmanteau of "pane", Italian for 'bread', and "zanella", a deep plate in which it is served.

It was adopted by Jewish immigrants to the Levant in the late 19th century, who found the locally grown Kirby cucumbers and tomatoes in popular local salad. It was popularized in the kibbutzim, where the Jewish farmers had local fresh produce at hand. The name Israeli Salad is used mainly outside of Israel.

When was panzanella invented? ›

It is believed that panzanella was invented out of necessity, as a means to utilize unwanted ingredients, such as stale bread. The salad was first described in the 1500s, in a poem by a famous artist and poet named Bronzino. The name of the dish comes from two words: pane, meaning bread, and zanella, meaning soup bowl.

The first recordings of people enjoying salad date back to Ancient Roman times. The salads of that time were not much different than the modern-day garden salads of today. They consisted of fresh, edible herbs, lettuce, and raw vegetables, and the dressing of the time was a simple mixture of oil and salt.

Salads have a surprisingly ancient history, with roots tracing back thousands of years. The ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans were known to consume mixed greens with a combination of salt, oil and vinegar.

Its name in Greek is “Horiatiki” => Village salad, but Greek villages are not its birthplace. The story has it that our national salad was invented by restaurant owners in Athens who wanted to charge customers more during the rise of tourism in Greece.

Bound salad: ingredients such as meat, poultry, fish, egg, or starch such as potato, pasta, or rice and bound with mayo. Vegetable salad: cooked and/or raw vegetables (coleslaw); can be bound with mayo or mixed with vinegar/oil dressing.

ADD A MIX OF COLORFUL NON-STARCHY VEGETABLES.

Throw in some orange veggies such as carrots which are rich in contain beta carotene and add tomatoes which contain lycopene. Other great options are vitamin C-rich yellow and red peppers, broccoli, cucumbers, and mushrooms.

Bound salads are probably not the healthiest option in the land of salads, but they are so delicious! The reason they are a less-healthy option is that the binding agents are typically mayonnaise-based. Some of the most popular bound salads are egg and tuna.