Italian Focaccia Recipe

Homemade focaccia is easy and so rewarding with this one bowl sheet pan recipe. With a slightly crispy crust and fluffy interior, this Italian Focaccia Recipe is for making a sandwich or serving alongside soup or salad.

If making homemade bread feels a little out of your wheelhouse, toss around the idea of making homemade focaccia. This simple Italian focaccia recipe will fill your home with the smell of baking bread but —you’ll barely have broken a sweat.

Made in one bowl and one sheet pan, the only other things you need are:

• a little time
• basic baking ingredients like flour and salt
• yeast
• olive oil

How much olive oil?!

To make good focaccia bread, you have to accept that you are going to use what feels like a boatload of olive oil.

As my kids like to say, “it is what it is.”

Olive oil contributes to:

• the flavor of the dough
• the crispness of the crust
• making the perfect foundation for the flaky salt to cling to on top

This isn’t a time to use your cheapest EVOO. Use the good stuff with some flavor. (Btw – this California olive oil is one of my top picks.

In addition to olive oil, there are few techniques and ingredients that contribute to a fluffy focaccia.

Simple focaccia bread techniques

Layering of Ingredients. As with any good homemade bread dough, order matters. Actually the most important rule to remember is:

Keep the salt separated from the yeast.

Salt slows the action of the yeast keeping it from fermenting.
King Arthur Baking Company on salt

Proofing. I mentioned that focaccia needs time and that comes in the rising or hanging out stage known as proofing. You’ll proof the focaccia dough TWICE —once in the bowl and once in the sheet pan. Proofing is when all the resting and relaxing leads to rising which contributes to an light, airy texture.

Sugar. To do its thing, yeast needs to be fed and it loooves sugar.

Kneading. Whether in your mixer with a dough hook or by hand, focaccia dough needs to be kneaded (and don’t we all?) to create the texture you crave.

Finally, there’s one more critical step for this Italian focaccia bread and that comes from Samin Nosrat, acclaimed author and host of Netflix’s blockbuster Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. Nosrat went straight to Liguria, Italy, the capital and home of all things focaccia, to learn some unique techniques.

The key to great tasting focaccia bread

Samin Nosrat’s focaccia recipe incorporates the Ligurian technique of brining the focaccia dough during the second proof. The brine flavors the dough with just the right amount of salt while adding the perfect amount of moisture to the finished focaccia.

Yep, you’re going to pour a mixture of water and salt all over your bread dough in the pan.

And you’re going to be out of your mind once you taste it.

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The process

Start by stirring 105° water and yeast in a mixing bowl. Add some sugar and let it bubble for a couple of minutes.

Side note: You can use your stand mixer. I’ve made it by hand or with a mixer and I will say I prefer doing it by hand. There’s something very soulful about mixing dough by hand and this dough is so easy to work with.

Layer on the flour, olive oil and finally the salt. And then stir the whole thing together with a wooden spoon. The dough will be quite shaggy (1)

Knead together for about 5 minutes on a floured surface using about 1/4 cup of flour. Don’t over flour the dough (2)

Add the dough back to an oil wiped bowl (3) and let it rise for three hours until doubled in size (4). See the note in the recipe for a shorter rise time.

The second proof

Now is the fun part. Pour about 1/2 cup of olive oil (yes – 1/2 cup!) into the bottom of a large sheet pan. Add your dough to the pan, gently stretching it to the edges. This might take a few minutes.

Add the famous focaccia dimples by using your fingers and pressing into the dough all the way through to the pan, creating holes in the dough. Do this all over the dough and don’t worry about seeing the pan!

The focaccia brine

Pour the salt brine over the dough filling the dimple holes with the salty blessing. And now place it back into a cold oven or warm spot and let it hang out for the second proof before baking until crispy and perfect.

Make ahead

Focaccia bread is best made the day of or the day before you plan to serve it. Follow the reheating and storing instructions in the recipe below.

Focaccia toppings

While the dough rises, contemplate what you want to put on top. Some super yummy focaccia bread toppings are:

• cherry tomatoes
• sun dried tomatoes
• cured Italian olives
• rosemary and garlic salt
• figs, rosemary and prosciuitto
• a mixture of cheeses

Focaccia pairings

Stracciatella Italian Wedding Soup

Italian Arugula Salad

Stovetop Veggie Sandwich

Tips

For a few. Divide the recipe in half and use for sandwiches, to accessorize your favorite soup or salad recipes and more. Or make a pan and wrap pieces in parchment, tie with some cute kitchen twine and share with a neighbor who might be staying home.

For a crew. One pan oughta do it. Cut in smaller squares to serve for a larger gathering.