- Today we're making panzanella salad.
It's a healthy, delicious treat,
but, I mean, just don't eat too many of these croutons
because they are homemade brioche croutons.
So delicious.
All butter.
And olive oil too, because we're being healthy.
There's a quick, pickled red onion in here
with lots of acid and snap.
You've got the feta, the heirloom tomatoes,
the cucumbers, and an herbal vinegarette
that will blow your mind.
Let's get started.
I wanted to make a really indulgent crouton for this,
so while you could use just any stale bread,
bake it up, toast it up, it will be really nice
and absorb all of that liquid from the dressing,
you could go a little bit extra
and use a delicious and rich, beautiful loaf
of fresh brioche bread, like I am.
Oh my gosh.
This is basically cake.
Brioche is a very rich eggy bread, in case you don't know,
and a lot of supermarkets have it.
This is the crack version of bread.
Give it a try.
Because this is an indulgent crouton,
I'm gonna cut the crusts off,
although I will totally save those to snack on later.
This, a little butter, a little jam.
(popping) Perfect.
Just like in life, it's all about looks,
so, no crust, we want it to be a nice, uniformed.
Oh my God, there's so much sugar
in the butter in that bread.
Okay.
Save this.
Put it in a bag, have it in the morning with some eggs.
Nom.
Put that aside now, and we're just going to cut this
into kinda like cubed shapes,
or you can use rectangular prisms, whatever you like.
All right, and now,
something so satisfying about cutting bread
into perfect cubes.
This is when having a really sharp serrated knife
is totally worth it.
We all know that the best bread for croutons
is gonna be a bit stale,
but I kinda like it really crispy on the outside,
and kind of tender on the inside,
so that dressing will be absorbed.
It will be really delicious.
Let's transfer this to a baking sheet now.
Nice and easy.
And then we're gonna drizzle it with some olive oil,
a little salt and pepper, just season it.
You can kind of eyeball this,
but I would say, a couple tablespoons.
I love it when people on food videos
say an exact measurement,
but they're just totally pouring in
something blindly like, "oh, half a teaspoon of vanilla."
(imitating shaking sound)
(gurgling)
And we're gonna toss this around
so it gets more evenly coated. (gurgling)
Love that sound.
(gurgling)
Is this an ASMR video?
I can't tell.
There we go.
Now I'm gonna sprinkle it with some salt,
and pour the salt.
1/8 of a teaspoon exactly.
(chuckling)
And now, the pepper.
You can also pan fry these, by the way.
That works totally well too.
And if you wanted to, you could add some chopped up thyme,
or other herbs that you enjoy.
This is gonna go into the oven at 350
for maybe 10-ish minutes.
If you notice any pieces that are oversized like this,
just give them a little cut.
We want everything to kind of bake up
nice and evenly, and be uniformed.
And make sure you toss it halfway through baking,
so take it out, and use some tongs,
and just turn everything over
so you get a nice, even browning.
Ready to go into the oven.
The salad is gonna be delicious, I'm excited.
Now I have a red onion.
I'm gonna use most of this, not all,
that's a lot of onion,
and I'll be soaking it in vinegar.
But first, let's give it a nice thinning.
Get that outer layer off.
When you soak an onion in vinegar,
it is gonna be, really, much more mellow.
It's almost like pickling it.
So, normally, I don't eat raw onions, that's not my scene,
but if you add them into vinegar,
it takes all that bite away,
so you have a really delightful flavor,
and it's very acidy too.
Look how beautiful this is.
Look at that.
Love red onions.
So I'll add in half an onion here,
and just a couple more slices, it's really up to you.
If you love onions, add the whole thing in.
There you go.
And now we're gonna submerge it
in some white wine vinegar.
Really, any vinegar is fine though.
Not completely submerged, but you can toss them around,
and it will mellow and marinate
while we work on the rest of the salad,
which is almost done, so easy.
For the dressing, I'm using about a half a cup
of olive oil.
Pour that in there.
I'm adding in a couple tablespoons of white wine vinegar,
but you could use champagne vinegar,
you could use a nice balsamic, it's really up to you.
I'm in a rut of just loving an aged balsamic,
so I'm trying to switch it up.
Two.
Three tablespoons.
And because I feel it's like a really mediterranean salad,
and I love the flavor,
I'm adding in the juice of half a lemon.
Just strain it out.
I feel like I should have used a larger container for this.
Might have to transfer.
Now, I have some beautiful herbs here.
I'm gonna add in some fresh oregano.
Mm, I love it.
I'm just gonna rip it up a bit.
That will absorb flavors too,
and kind of steep inside of there,
and when you crush it,
it kinda helps release the oils in there.
How about some fresh thyme?
Why not?
Crumple it up.
So you could say a teaspoon of fresh thyme,
maybe two teaspoons of fresh oregano,
but it's up to you, I like to add a lot in.
I've had this shallot hanging around for a while,
and they don't last forever,
so I'm gonna use part of it,
and just mince it up, add it in there.
Just like with that red onion,
this will mellow out too,
and shallots are very mild anyways.
Think of a shallot as like a friendlier onion.
All right, let's give it a nice mince.
Just really start of with a thin chop,
use your fingernail to guide the knife,
when you're doing this, or you can use your knuckle,
but it's hard to use your knuckle
because it's so small, so go slow,
fingernail, and then once it falls over,
just go in the other direction,
and then cross directions.
You should have a nice,
a nice, easy mince.
I mean, technically, this is a horrible mince,
but, you know, it's home cooking, people.
All right, so I'm adding in,
ooh, it's like a good two tablespoons
of minced shallots in there.
And now, a little bit of pepper.
A pinch of salt.
Let's give it shake, and see what's up.
There's no sweetness in here at all,
so I don't know if it's gonna be a bit astringent.
We will see, but look how pretty that is.
So beautiful.
I think that buying salad dressings
makes you so much less likely to eat salad,
because there's just something about them
that it's not the same as making it at home.
Okay, let's give that a taste.
So, just dipping a little bit of rocket in there.
Mm.
I mean, this is very me.
It's like,
very acidic.
I love a bite,
so I really like that.
I'm gonna close this up.
If you want things a bit sweeter,
you could try adding in a tablespoon or two of honey,
but I don't think it needs it.
So my croutons have been baking for a bit,
and you can see on the bottom,
they're beautiful golden brown,
and on top, they're just getting golden,
so we're flipping them over, so they get nice and even.
This is some snacking material here,
but I'm gonna wait.
Back into the oven you go.
Now, let's get those cucumbers.
Just a little bit more prep work,
and then we're ready to assemble.
This is so easy.
We're gonna trim two cucumbers,
and then cut them in half.
All right, oh, I love cucumbers so much,
and I don't mind the seeds, just one little bit,
but in this salad, you would traditionally deseed it,
so you have kind of crescents of cucumber.
You could also peel the cucumber,
or do the stripes, if you want to,
but we're gonna leave the skin on.
Just a little bit of pressure,
and now we're gonna give it a thin slice,
just pieces that you would like to eat in your salad,
think about that.
It could be thick, thin, whatever you want.
This is a pretty rustic salad too,
so there's no rhyme or reason.
Once that's done, add it into your bowl.
For these last two halves,
I'm just gonna cut them in little half circles.
I like the seeds, I can't not eat them all.
Add some beautiful heirloom tomatoes.
I'm gonna take the stem out.
The trade off with heirloom tomatoes is,
delicious, but they bruise more easily,
and they tend to have a thicker,
more woody section in the core,
so you have to really remove it.
All right, and then a traditional way of doing this
is to kind of cube them.
So we will cut this into our version of cubes.
Mm, so beautiful, like little watermelons, almost.
We're gonna get some color in this salad,
by hook or by crook.
Oh, hello?
Gosh, you are gorgeous.
That gradient.
That could be in a cake,
like a lemon, lime cake.
I'm obsessed with these tomato pieces, they're gorgeous.
And then,
I'm gonna do just one more, maybe half a tomato.
It's kind of up to you, but I think that's a good balance
for all the cucumber in there.
If you hate tomatoes, by the way,
you don't have to put them in here.
You could skip the tomato part,
even though it is a very main ingredient,
it's a salad, so you can do what you want.
I really did not like tomatoes until I was in my...
Mid twenties.
I would eat cooked tomatoes, of course,
but raw tomatoes, I don't like.
This is looking nice.
So, what do we have next?
We have some of our marinated red onions.
You can see they're getting kind of more purple
and bleeding a bit.
That's good.
I would never eat an onion like that,
but it tastes like a nice pickle.
Mm.
Really bright.
A lot of acid in there.
All right, I'll put those in last though.
So here I have, maybe,
a quarter of a pound of feta.
Up to you, however much you wanna use.
I'm gonna give it a really rough dice,
and then crumble the rest.
Actually, that's good.
Just wanted to have a little bit of structure to it,
but then destroy it all.
Okay, let's crumble that in here.
So my grandfather and his brother were from Greece,
and everyday at work, they own a machine shop,
they would have a salad with whatever they made for lunch,
and it would be tomatoes, cucumbers,
oil and vinegar, salt, and toast,
but this reminds me of that so much.
Now let's add in some of those red onions.
I'm gonna reserve some,
just because I'm going to plate this
and make it look nice at the end,
so I wanna have a couple that are not kind of mushed in.
And then by hand, I'm going to toss this.
If you have a bigger bowl, use that bowl,
this is kinda small.
I mean, this is kind of like a Greek salad,
but all those croutons we're adding
make it a panzanella salad.
Oh, look at that.
So then, to this, we can add in
a little bit more fresh oregano, a little bit more thyme,
and our dressing.
So I'm just gonna add in a couple more oregano leaves,
and just crush them up, sprinkle on top, nice and beautiful,
and then we can add in some basil leaves as well.
You could do a chiffonade of basil,
where you roll it up, and cut thin slices,
and sprinkle it around,
or you can kind of just give a nice sprinkle
of basil leaves at the very end.
It's totally up to you.
Also, if you have giant basil leaves, do the chiffonade.
If you have lots of beautiful little baby leaves,
add them in.
They'll add some nice, summery goodness,
and transport everyone to a beautiful day,
where the days aren't so short and grim.
Okay, I'm gonna pour this over it,
and then I have two choices, let me show you.
Here are my croutons.
I forgot.
I heard the timer while I was filming, totally ignored it.
A lot of them got very dark like this,
but if you know me, you know I like burnt things.
This is my secret stash.
(crunching)
So crispy,
and they are delicious, they don't taste burnt at all.
So you can toss it to the salad right now,
and they'll absorb a lot of dressing,
or you can add them at the end,
a little sprinkle of dressing on top,
or just add them separately,
and people can kind of mix it up,
and they'll stay ultra crispy and pristine.
Totally up to you.
I'm gonna do like a fifty-fifty situation.
Add in half of them, toss it up,
and then give everyone's plate a nice sprinkling of croutons
kind of wedged in there.
I'm gonna plate them individually.
Whoa.
Ooh.
More!
It's a panzanella salad.
So, just give it a toss.
Don't crunch the croutons too much, keep them intact,
but mix them nice and distribute it.
It's hard because they're the lightest thing in the world,
and the rest of the salad is, you know, sinking down.
Let's add in a nice drizzle of this beautiful vinegar.
Vinegarette.
Toss it up.
This bowl is so full.
I wanna eat this right now.
This is my plate, it's a giant bowl, hello.
Okay, that's good.
We're done.
Such an easy salad, and by the way,
these homemade croutons are seriously crack.
I know the croutons you get at the store
are not bad at all, especially those gourmet croutons
that are really crunchy, crispy.
This situation right here,
you can just feel it in your hands,
it's so light, and there's butter in the bread,
but we use olive oil.
So good, my mouth is watering.
I'm just adding in a few little leaves of basil.
They're so aromatic, a little goes a long way here.
But if you want, you can go totally crazy,
and fill the person's salad up with basil.
All right, I'm ready to taste it.
I have to tell you, I've been snacking on them croutons
like nobody's business, picking them out of the salad.
They are like magic.
Here's the deal, on the outside,
they're absorbing all of that vinegarette,
and they're just dissolving.
They dissolve in your mouth, amazing.
But on the inside, beyond crispy,
buttery, delicious, so much crunch.
All right, now for the bite.
It's like a Caprese salad,
and a Greek salad,
and some crouton sent from heaven had a baby,
this is the result.
Really light,
just like, herbally,
the right amount of acid.
Those croutons have almost a sweetness to them
because the brioche actually does have sugar in it,
it's basically cake.
You gotta check it out.
And I love the basil, a nice aromatic touch.
You've gotta make this salad.
If you have any questions, comments,
if you wanna tell me I've murdered this salad,
"that's not how a panzanella is supposed to be,"
and if you wanna correct my pronunciation,
go ahead and leave it in the comments below.
I love hearing from you.
And, don't forget to hit the like button, and subscribe.