Recipe for homemade foccacia bread

For us, the perfect foccacia bread should be completely soft and juicy inside and golden crispy on the outside. With a lovely taste of salt and olive oil, and a slightly greasy surface, without the bread being too oily. This recipe for homemade foccacia with rosemary is just that. In short, it is the best and easiest foccacia bread, and we hope that the recipe will be a winner with you too. At home, foccacia is a sure winner for a tapas table with cheese, sausage and all sorts of delicacies (and red wine!). But it is also a true everyday hit, because the bread is incredibly easy to mix together, even on a weekday evening. For example, we use it to make leftovers from the fridge a little more exciting - then leftovers suddenly feel like everyday tapas in the form of good bread and various snacks. 

TIP: Serve your foccacia bread with Italian vitello tonnato as a delicious appetizer.

How do you bake foccacia?

Don't think that it's difficult to bake this amazing Italian flatbread. On the contrary, it's really easy - so easy that the recipe almost can't go wrong! Focaccia is made from a dough of flour, water, olive oil, and salt. Either yeast and/or sourdough are used to make the bread rise. Sourdough gives the bread a good taste and increases its shelf life - but it also makes the process considerably slower, as sourdough takes a long time to rise. That's why yeast is used in this recipe, so the bread only needs to rise for 1 hour. This makes it realistic to bake the bread on a weekday evening, but if you have more time, you can use less yeast and let the bread rise for a longer time. You can also choose to let the dough rise in a cold place, which is described further down in the blog post. Foccacia dough can be easily kneaded by hand, but it's even easier to mix together if you have a mixer. The dough should be fairly sticky, because the bread definitely shouldn't be dry. But since you don't have to shape the dough, the sticky dough is easy to work with. It should first rise in the bowl before it is transferred to an ovenproof dish greased with olive oil and then rise again. Next, you top the bread with olive oil and salt and perhaps other treats before baking it in the oven until golden and crispy. 

Foccacia bread with flavors and toppings

Here is also a delicious recipe for foccacia topped with olives, feta and red onion. It is highly recommended, and other good ideas for what to flavor your foccacia bread with are:

• Sun-dried tomatoes
• Fresh tomatoes, either small whole or larger tomatoes in slices
• Thinly sliced ​​red onion
• Feta cheese or goat cheese, crumbled into coarse pieces
• Whole garlic, peeled
• Fresh herbs such as thyme, basil, sage
• Meats such as serrano ham and chorizo ​​sausage

Bread in a baking pan

You can bake foccacia as the most delicious, easy bread in a large baking pan. It is fantastic if you need to make bread for a buffet or many people. It is both incredibly easy and quick to bake one loaf, instead of many smaller ones. For my foccacia recipe, the amount fits a larger baking pan if you double the recipe. That way you get bread for about 16 people as an accompaniment to a starter, main course or as part of a buffet.   

Questions and tips for the best foccacia

Below you can find answers to the most common questions about the recipe. If there is anything else you are wondering about, please feel free to send us your questions in the comments section.

How do you make cold-risen foccacia?

You can easily make cold-risen foccacia and let the dough rise overnight in the refrigerator. Here you only need 5 g of yeast, and then let the bowl of dough rise in the refrigerator. The next day, spread the dough in an ovenproof dish, where it is allowed to rise for 30 minutes, as the recipe describes.

Can foccacia bread be used for sandwiches?

Foccacia is great for delicious sandwiches. Divide the bread into squares and cut them in half, and you will have the most delicious sandwich bread. It is recommended to make veal tonato sandwiches or a sandwich with pesto, tomato and mozzarella.

Can foccacia bread be frozen?

Foccacia bread can easily be frozen. You can either freeze the bread whole or cut it into squares so you have sandwich bread in the freezer, ready to take out and warm in the oven or on the toaster.