Rosemary Focaccia Bread

Another of our weaknesses in Italian staples is the rosemary focaccia bread. Today I share with you my version of this famous Italian staple.

After spending a few years in Italy, we frequently brought home-baked focaccia bread, and our local friends would often inquire, "Where did you get this focaccia?" Then came that moment… I finally felt like I had truly perfected our focaccia recipe!

Jump to:

• 🤔 What is Focaccia?
• 🧾 Ingredients
• 🔪 Instructions
• 🥢 How to serve
• 💡 Toppings
• 📖 Variations
• 🥖 Tips if new to bread baking
• 🥡 Storage
• ❓ FAQ
• 🇮🇹 More Italian Inspiration
• 🍞 More easy bread recipes
• 📋 Recipe
• 💬 Reviews and Comments

🤔 What is Focaccia?

Focaccia is a flat oven-baked Italian bread similar in style and texture to pizza dough. It is naturally vegan, and you can use it as a side to many meals or as sandwich bread.

In Italy, it is even a snack. It is common to go into a bakery and ask for a piece of this delicious bread.

Italians consider Focaccia a Ligurian bread, but there are many different variations in Italy’s regions and various ingredients are commonly added to it.

There’s the focaccia alla Genovese, Focaccia al Rosmarino (like this one), Focaccia with Onions, and Focaccia with Cheese—the list goes on and on.

Tomatoes, onions, and olives versions are commonly found even in mainstream supermarkets, and I recommend them if you want to make an interesting variation.

Just as with pizza, there are countless versions, so I am taking the liberty of calling this my Focaccia version.

🧾 Ingredients

• Bread wheat flour (0 Type, manitoba)
• Instant yeast (quick rise)
• Sea salt
• Brown sugar
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Fresh rosemary (optional).
• Semolina (optional)

See quantities and complete instructions in the recipe card.

🔪 Instructions

Let me carefully go through all the steps to make it just perfect!

Make the yeast mixture.

In a small bowl, add the yeast and brown sugar to the warm water and let it rest for ten minutes.

Mix the dough ingredients

Add the yeast mixture to the bread flour, semolina, and olive oil in a large mixing bowl. Once integrated, add the fine sea salt.

Mix and knead

Mix until you have a homogeneous dough and transfer to a lightly floured surface to knead and stretch the dough.

Continue kneading for fifteen minutes in total; until you have a soft, firm dough that doesn't stick to your fingers.

Separate in two balls and manage separately. Stretch each one as shown below.

First dough rise - 30 minutes

Divide the dough into two balls and let it rise for 30 minutes, covered in a prepared pan with some olive oil and plastic in contact.

The olive oil on top of the dough ball will prevent the plastic wrap from sticking to the dough. (See the recipe card for detailed instructions at the bottom of the page.)

Second rise

Put the dough on a rectangle baking sheet, gently stretch it into a rectangle shape, press with your fingers, and cover it with olive oil and fresh rosemary.

Cover the baking sheet with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm room for one hour. If you want, top with halved cherry tomatoes or even roasted garlic. Get creative.

Bread baking

Pre-heated the oven at 480 ºF (250ºC). I like using my oven in fan mode to ensure the heat is even.

Sprinkle some extra virgin olive oil and flaky sea salt (coarse salt) and bake the focaccia for ten to fifteen minutes, until golden brown.

Remove the baking sheet from the oven and wait about five minutes before removing it from the baking sheet.

Watch out! The focaccia dough will get golden brown quickly; don't leave the oven unattended!

🥢 How to serve

Serve warm or at room temperature.

In Italy, focaccia is usually cut into medium to small rectangles, depending on its use.

For apperitivo hour (happy hours), they usually cut it into small pieces and serve it with olives and assorted appetizers.

You can also pour some olive oil into a small ball and add balsamic vinegar from Modena for a delicious and simple dipping option for baked focaccia.

You can also make a focaccia sandwich. This thick focaccia works great for that. Just cut it right in the middle, lengthwise, and make a sandwich as you would any other sandwich.

I promise you; it will be the best sandwich ever; you'll never turn back! My favorite focaccia sandwich is made with roasted vegetables (a mix of eggplants, onions, and red peppers).

You can also have your focaccia as part of a vegan charcuterie board with spiced onions and spreads like Lebanese hummus recipe, roasted bell pepper Muhammara, Roasted red pepper hummus, and a Goddess Green Sauce.

We also love serving baked focaccia with this simple but flavor-packed Italian eggplant stew or Vegan Eggplant Baba Ganoush.

💡 Toppings

My favorite focaccia toppings include:

• Fresh herbs like fresh rosemary or thyme (pick tough herbs, not soft like fresh basil or arugula, they will wilt immediately).
• Roasted garlic cloves
• Whole or halved cherry tomatoes
• Sliced plum tomatoes
• Sun-dried tomatoes
• Eggplant slices
• Zucchini slices
• Black or green olives
• Thinly sliced onions
• Roasted red peppers

Simply pick your favorite and place it on top before baking your focaccia.

📖 Variations

This classic Italian bread has many variations even here in Italy. You can find tens of thousands of variations, so how can another variation harm the world?

I love Semolina and the sandy, dusty effect it has on bread and pizza. I think Semolina makes bread, and pizzas have more of a Sourdough texture, which I am all in for. We use this type of dough for our traditional marinara pizza as well.

This is thick focaccia; if you prefer thinner focaccia, you can split the dough in four instead of two.

Ligurian focaccia is usually thinner and made with brine.

It is also widespread to make a brine for the focaccia with 1 ½ teaspoons of salt plus ⅓ cup of lukewarm water, then pour it into the raw dough during the second rise. I prefer my focaccia with flaky sea salt and without a brine, but it is a matter of taste.

🥖 Tips if new to bread baking

Flour

The bread flour type is a big deal when baking the best focaccia recipe. I learned it the hard way. You can’t use any flour for any bread or baked goods. The zeros define the amount of gluten (protein) a given flour type has, thus what the flour is good for.

The best focaccia bread is made with strong flour, but all-purpose flour also works. I have tried it with good results, but I like it better, as it makes the baked focaccia fluffier.

The fewer zeros, the more gluten, and gluten is the protein that makes dough rise. Therefore, if you use a multipurpose flour (most likely a 000), it will not grow as a 0 or 00 one.

Flours used for baking cakes are most likely the 0000 type because you don’t want your cake to lose its shape.

There is no better or worse flour; you just need to know what you want it for.

Yeast

Yeasts are microorganisms from the fungus kingdom. They are alive; they hate salt and love sugar. So when you use salt, ensure it doesn’t come in direct contact with yeast; it will kill it, as hot water does. Yeasts like warm water and sweets, don’t we all?

Instead, it would help spread the salt within the flour evenly so the yeast doesn't meet a salt cluster.

Inversely, diluting active dry yeast in warm water with sugar is a good idea.

Hot water also kills yeast.

Extra virgin olive oil

Focaccia heavily relies on good-quality extra virgin olive oil. Like most Italian cuisine recipes, this recipe uses few ingredients; quality is critical.

As you can see, there are no fancy ingredients here, so put extra effort into using a decent extra virgin olive oil. It doesn't have to be top-tier since you will still cook it.

🥡 Storage

So, Can you Freeze focaccia?

Yes, you can! Just freeze leftover focaccia covered in a sealed container for up to 3 months. Then, to defrost it, preheat the oven to 300 ºF (150 ºC) for 10 minutes and place the frozen focaccia for 7-10 minutes. Ready!

Without any other tips, here is the Focaccia! Let me know how it goes!

❓ FAQ

🇮🇹 More Italian Inspiration

• Basic Pizza Recipe + all the tips straight from Italy
• Saffron Risotto
• Lemony Spaghetti
• 3 Ingredient Pasta Sauce
• Vegan lemon basil pesto
• Vegan Arugula Pesto

🍞 More easy bread recipes

⭐ If you try this recipe, let us know! 💬 Leave a comment, rate it, and don't forget to tag us @ourplantbasedworld on Instagram. Cheers!

📋 Recipe