Valentina Ablaev
This focaccia bread recipe makes the most delicious bread, there’s nothing quite like it. An Italian-inspired bread that’s similar to a flatbread oftentimes baked as a rectangle with personlized toppings or plain.
Baking your own bread is the best way to level up your homecooking. Use this focaccia as an appetizer paired with a homemade olive oil dip, or even serve alongside a creamy potato soup.
A traditional focaccia bread is so easy to make and is the perfect loaf for beginner bakers. The dough is so easy to make and makes the most flavorful bread. You can decorate your focaccia with all your favorite toppings. Though we love classic sandwich bread, this focaccia bread takes homemade sandwiches to the next level!
Why You’ll Love This Focaccia Recipe
- Classic baking. Learning to make focaccia bread is a great entry to making your own bread.
- Tastes incredible. Focaccia is such a flavorful bread you won’t be able to get enough!
- Easy to make. This bread is so easy to make and looks stunning and impressive.
Ingredients for Focaccia Bread
- Flour – all purpose flour worked great for this recipe, but you can also use bread flour.
- Salt – adds a great flavor to this bread.
- Water – warm water, at around 110°F is perfect for activating yeast.
- Yeast – you can use instant yeast or active dry yeast.
- Sugar – helps to activate the yeast.
- Oil – good olive oil is key for giving this focaccia a great crust.
See the recipe card below for a full list of ingredients and quantities.
Customize Your Focaccia Bread
The beauty of focaccia is that you can customize the top to make it your own. Here are some of our favorite toppings:
- Cherry tomatoes
- Red onion
- Fresh basil
- Sliced garlic
- Parsley
- Sliced olives
- Fresh rosemary
How to Make Focaccia Bread
1 – In a large mixing bowl, add flour and salt. To a well in the center, add warm water and oil to the center. Sprinkle the top with yeast and sugar. Allow to bubble and become foamy.
2 – Mix the dough until it’s combined and set aside to proof.
3 – Do stretch and fold every 30 minutes, three times.
4 – Once the dough has doubled in size, it is ready to be transferred.
5 – Grease a baking dish with oil and add the focaccia dough to the dish and spread it out. Let the dough rise for another 30 minutes.
6 – Drizzle the oil over the top of the dough and use your fingers to create dimples in the dough, making indentations all over the dough.
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the top of the dough is crispy and golden brown.
Our Expert Tips for the Perfect Focaccia Loaf
- Use good yeast: It’s important that your yeast is still alive for this recipe! Test your yeast in warm water before trying this recipe to make sure it still bubbles up.
- Correct temperature: Make sure the water you use is at 110°F for the yeast to activate correctly!
- Good quality ingredients: For the best focaccia bread, use high-quality extra virgin olive oil.
- Garnish: Top your focaccia loaf with flaky sea salt and fresh herbs for a perfectly flavored focaccia bread.
How to Use Stale Focaccia?
If your focaccia bread is a little hard or stale, you can turn it into the most delicious croutons!
Follow our easy crouton recipe to turn this focaccia into the best croutons!
Serving Suggestions
- Sandwich: Focaccia bread slices taste incredible with sandwiches! The flavorful crisp bread is exactly what a homemade club sandwich needs!
- With soup: This bread tastes incredible with a creamy dipabble soup, like our chicken pot pie soup. Make a simple grilled cheese sandwich with our homemade focaccia and pair with a creamy basil tomato soup!
Recipe FAQs
This could be a result of not enough moisture. Make sure you are using the right amount of water and flour for this recipe.
The dough might not spread easy when you transfer it to the baking pan, once it rests in there and doubles in size, it will spread easier.
The dough will seem wet and that’s exactly how you want it. It should stick to your hands.
You will want to do 3 sets of stretch and folds and each time you perform these do 4 stretch and folds.
Store & Reheat
- Storage. Wrap the bread tightly in plastic wrap and store at room temperature for 1-2 days. Store for a few additional days by keeping the bread inside the refrigerator.
- Freeze. Keep the bread fresh longer, you can store it in a freezer-safe bag and keep for up to 3 months in the freezer. Thaw: Place the bread in the fridge overnight. Reheat the bread by placing it in the oven at 350°F for 5 minutes.
More Bread Recipes
If you enjoyed this focaccia bread recipe, be sure to try our other popular home bread recipes; here are some of our favorites:
If you tried this homemade focaccia bread recipe or any other recipe on my website, please leave a star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below – we appreciate it!
Focaccia Bread recipe
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425°F at step 8. Add a baking dish with hot water to the bottom rack of the oven.
- Add flour and salt to a bowl. Create a well.
- Add warm water and oil. Sprinkle yeast and sugar.
- Allow the yeast to sit until it’s active and bubbly.
- Mix dough until combined, cover and set aside to rest.
- Stretch and fold every 30 minutes, 3 times. After 3rd streth, rest 1 hour.
- Grease a 9”x13” baking dish with 2 Tbsp oil. After third stretch add the dough to the baking dish and spread as much as you can.
- Rest another 30 minutes. Pour remaining 2 Tbsp oil over bread. Use your fingers to make indentations across the surface of the dough, pressing through the dough to the pan.
- Bake 25-30 minutes or until the top of dough is crispy.
Notes
- Use good yeast: It’s important that your yeast is still alive for this recipe! Test your yeast in warm water before trying this recipe to make sure it still bubbles up.
- Correct temperature: Make sure the water you use is at 110°F for the yeast to activate correctly!
- Storage. Wrap the bread tightly in plastic wrap and store at room temperature for 1-2 days.
- Freeze. Keep the bread fresh longer, you can store it in a freezer-safe bag and keep for up to 3 months in the freezer. Thaw: Place the bread in the fridge overnight. Reheat the bread by placing it in the oven at 350°F for 5 minutes.
