Don’t throw out that stale bread especially if it is homemade bread or baguette. Make a bread salad. Recently I started making my own bread again for a couple of reasons. One good bread is expensive. To get an artisan loaf it is varies between $9 – $18. That’s a lot of bread for bread! Given it is only flour, yeast, salt, and water. And second, the store brought bread isn’t very good. I mean nothing really can compare to homemade bread, right?
I’ve been making a no-knead Dutch oven bread for ages using recipes of the Internet or Pinterest. While they were good, they weren’t great. So I decided to go back to the origins. The original recipe that Mark Bittman of the New York Times raved about decades ago. It was the method that Jim Lahey had developed for his bakery in NYC, Sullivan Street Bakery. I couldn’t find that recipe on the Internet so I purchased Lahey’s book, My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method. It is worth it as it gives you the full method which made the difference for me between good bread and great bread. The method is so simple.
I’m not sharing the bread recipe here. The book is worth a purchase or checkout from the library as it not only has various bread recipes, but other recipes that can accompany the bread. The one I’ve been making is his version of a bread salad or panzanella. While I have a recipe of a panzanella on Well Worn Apron already, this one does it for me. Hands down. It is beyond simple and you get to use your stale or leftover bread. No waste. I love this salad in the summer when the tomatoes are kissed by the sun and juicy, but since I had half of loaf leftover, I had to make it with store-brought tomatoes. It worked well to my surprise as it is all about catching those juices to favor the salad. Use good olive oil and red wine vinegar. Don’t skip the capers. Tear that fresh basil. Snap those green beans. And add a can of cannellini beans to add healthy protein/fiber making it a dinner salad.
So go make good bread and then don’t let it go to waste by making this bread salad.
If you want to make this one fully vegan, or swap out an ingredient for something that works better for your diet, the Well Worn Apron Recipe Rewriter can help. It’s on the ChatGPT Store now. Try it here.
Ingredients
- 2 loosely packed cups green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
- 6 slices stale, completely dry basic no-knead bread, cut 1-inch thick
- 2 medium ripe tomatoes or 4 Roma tomatoes
- ¼ medium red onion
- 1 teaspoon roughly chopped capers
- 6–7 medium fresh basil leaves
- 1 can of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, or to taste
- 1-2 tablespoon red wine vinegar, or to taste
- ½ teaspoon table salt, or to taste (3 g)
- 2-3 generous turns of the pepper mill for freshly ground black pepper
Preparation
- 1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the green beans until bright green and just tender but still crisp, about 5 minutes. Drain in a colander, then rinse under cold water or until cool. Drain well.
- 2. Put the bread in a medium bowl and cover with water. Soak until saturated, about 1 minute.
- 3.Squeeze out as much water as possible. Tear the bread into slightly larger than bite-sized pieces and transfer to a large salad bowl.
- 4. Cut the tomatoes into chunks, working over the bowl so the bread catches all the juices. (If using a cutting board, collect the juices and add them to the bowl.)
- 5. Slice the onion as thinly as possible or use a mandoline to shave the onion into the bowl.
- 6. Add the capers and tear the basil into pieces and add it. Add the green beans and cannellini beans.
- 7. Drizzle with the olive oil and red wine vinegar. Sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Toss well, then taste and adjust seasoning with more vinegar, oil, salt, and/or pepper as needed.
- Serve at room temperature within the hour.
Hello! I'm Ann Marie and I wear the well-worn apron. Join me as explore plant-based eating while I live on an island off the U.S. state of Rhode Island.