Green Summer Panzanella Recipe
Try this fun spin on panzanella with this green summer panzanella recipe, made with crispy ciabatta croutons, thinly sliced cucumber and zucchini, white beans and basil! All tossed in a garlicky red wine dressing. The perfect light summer dinner!
Have you ever caught yourself eating a nice, light and crisp vegetable salad and thought to yourself, "Tasty, but you know would make this salad better? Big 'ole hunks of toasty, crusty, olive oily bread!"
If so, I think you'll like panzanella. Also, you're my kind of person.
Panzanella is a Tuscan salad, traditionally made with stale bread, juicy summer tomatoes, onions, and plenty of olive oil and vinegar dressing. Often, there are cucumbers and basil involved too. It's possibly the second most delicious thing you can make to show off fresh, heirloom tomatoes (the first most delicious is my chopped Caprese salad).
But as you can tell from the photos, there are no tomatoes in this green summer panzanella. Our backyard tomatoes are still green on the vine (who else started singing Strawberry Wine?), but we’ve got a refrigerator full of zucchini and cucumbers from a CSA box, so I thought it might be a fine time to revisit this recipe I originally posted in 2015.
One of the things I love about sharing recipes on my blog (and in my upcoming book) is that it’s a way to help normalize all foods, and to help chip away at preconceived notions that foods can be good or bad. A lot of times we focus on the “bad” foods - I mean, a donut is practically our mascot. But I think it’s also important to rethink the “good” foods, like salads. What would it be like to prepare a salad with the focus on satisfaction? What would it be like to make a salad for a meal because it tastes good, not because you’re trying to be good? I hope this green summer panzanella recipe shows that salads can be built for satisfaction!
What Kind of Bread to Use for Green Summer Panzanella
Being a bread salad and all, as you can imagine, bread is a really important ingredient here. Nope, sandwich bread isn’t gonna cut it! Just don't. My favorite type of bread to use in this recipe is ciabatta, which is easy to tear into chunks, and crisps up nicely with all it’s air pockets. Other types of artisan breads will work well here too, like sourdough, semolina, boule or even a baguette.
How to Slice Vegetables for Summer Panzanella
One very important aspect of making this salad is very thinly slicing the cucumber, zucchini and onion. It allows for it to soak up the dressing a bit and almost get a light pickle action going. It makes them soft and pliable, but still crisp, so your green summer panzanella doesn’t just a bunch of raw veggies and bread. If you’ve got good knife skills, great, but I don’t so I use a mandolin slicer. Mine is pretty big and takes up a bit too much storage space, so if I were to get a new one, I’d go for a Japanese style slicer like this one.. Still, despite my propensity for slicing my finger open, I use mine all the time for getting those perfect paper-thin slices.
Summer Panzanella Recipe Adaptions and Additions
Usually I like to serve this summer panzanella with some type of cheese, like feta, goat or mozzarella, but feel free to experiment with chunks of other Italian cheeses, like asiago. You could also switch up or add to the protein source in this recipe, by adding grilled shrimp or chicken.
If your summer tomatoes are ripening faster than mine (I think they need to change that watched pot adage to a watched green tomato), feel free to add that to this recipe. To boost the flavor even further, this is also delicious with sun-dried or roasted tomatoes, capers or olives.
If you like this green summer panzanella recipe, follow my seasonal summer recipes pinterest board for more recipe inspiration.
This green summer panzanella recipe was originally posted in June 2015. Recipe, images and text have been updated to give you the best content possible.
Green Summer Panzanella Recipe
Serves 4ish
Ingredients:
6-8 cups torn ciabatta bread
1 large zucchini
6 small Persian cucumbers
1/2 large red onion
1 can cannelini beans, drained and rinsed
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, loosely packed
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1 garlic clove, peeled and minced
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread bread evenly on a large baking sheet and toast for 10-15 minutes until crispy. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.
While bread is toasting, use a mandolin to slice the zucchini, cucumbers and red onion into paper thin rounds. Toss with 1/2 teaspoon salt and set in a colander to drain for 15 minutes. Briefly rinse.
Toss bread, vegetables, cannellini beans, and basil in a large bowl. Whisk together olive oil, vinegar and garlic and season with salt and black pepper. Pour over the panzanella and let sit 10 minutes before serving.
If you like this green summer panzanella recipe, you might also like these summer salads:
Grilled Halloumi and Peach Salad with Lemon Tahini Dressing
Chopped Heirloom Caprese
Tropical Tofu Salad with Mango-Macadamia Dressing
