Italian Bread Salad or Panzanella
This is a lush way to also use up bread and any squishy tomatoes. Enough for 4 as a side dish.
Ingredients
- 1 small red onion (or spring onions or a shallot, thinly sliced)
- 1 tbsp red wine vinegar (cider or white wine vinegars work too but not malt)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 200g stale bread (not soft white sliced)
- 500g tomatoes (roughly chopped)
- Cucumber (peeled, seeds removed and sliced into half-moon)
- Drizzle of olive oil
- “Soft” herbs e.g. basil, parsley, rocket
- Salt and black pepper
- Optional extras: black olives, red peppers, capers, anchovies

Method
Begin by putting the onions into the base of a bowl big enough to fit everything into. Sprinkle over ½ tsp salt and the vinegar. Leave for 20 minutes.
Tear up your bread into bite size chunks.
Add the bread, tomatoes, cucumber and any of the extras you are using into the onion vinegar mix. Drizzle over olive oil and mix everything together. Let it sit for half an hour for the bread to soften and absorb the flavours. Taste and adjust seasoning – black pepper, salt, a bit more oil or vinegar to suit.
Add fresh herbs and serve.
Optional extras
Add black olives, red peppers, capers, anchovies etc.