The Easiest Italian Focaccia Recipe

This is truly the easiest Italian focaccia recipe you’ll ever find, for two reasons:

1- You don’t have to knead it

2- It doesn’t really matter how much time you’ll let it rise.

I made this focaccia bread recipe so many times that I can assure you it will always come out perfect! Even if you don’t have much time to invest in the rising process. Why? it’s very simple. When you use a high amount of yeast your dough will always rise, but the final product will be more or less digestible. So my general recommendation is to always opt for a longer rising process, either when you make bread, focaccia or pizza. But, if you really lack time, you can still use this recipe and speed up the rising step following the small trick explained in the ingredients list.

Back to our step-by-step recipe! The dough takes only 5 minutes to prepare because you won’t need to knead it. There’s also lot of water in it, which makes the dough crunchy and airy.

Easy Italian Focaccia Ingredients

• Flour – I recommend a strong flour, which is usually the type of flour you’ll use to make bread. If you don’t have bread flour, you can try to use all-purpose flour.
• Water – cold water if you choose a long rising (overnight rising) while lukewarm water in case you need to speed up the rising process.
• Yeast – I usually use dry yeast. Always make sure that your yeast is not expired, I also recommend you’ll store it in a glass jar in the fridge.
• Salt and Sugar
• Oil – High quality extra-virgin olive oil is always recommended. Do not use any other seed oil, it will affect the final taste of the focaccia

The Easiest Italian Focaccia Recipe

Recipe by GiadaCourse: AppetizersCuisine: ItalianDifficulty: Easy

Servings

4

servings

Prep time

5

minutes

Cooking time

15

minutes

Resting Time

12

hours

Ingredients

• 500g Flour

• 10g Dry yeast

• 2 Teaspoon Sugar

• 1 Teaspoon Salt

• 1/4 Cup Extra-virgin olive oil

• 2 Cups Water

• Topping of your choice (herbs, tomatoes, olives)

• 2 spoons of water + 2 spoons of oil for the topping

Directions

• Make the dough. In a large bowl put flour, yeast, sugar and salt. Mix it with a spatula
• Add water (cold water if you choose the long rising process, while lukewarm if you choose the quick one) and oil. Mix until well combined. The dough needs to look hydrated but not watery. If it’s to watery add 1 spoon of flour and mix again. On the contrary if it looks too dry add some more water.
• Let the dough rise. Cover the bowl with cling film and refrigerate for 12h (longer rising) while keep your dough in a warm room if you need to make the focaccia quickly. In this case you will wait until the dough has double in its size and then proceed as explained on step 5.
• Preheat the oven to 230°/240°C.
• Once the focaccia dough has risen, cover a baking dish with parchment paper greased with oil. Then, transfer the dough on the parchment paper to shape your focaccia. Start pressing it down with the whole palm of your hands. Push it gently and follow the shape of the baking dish. Don’t use a rolling pin for this step (the rolling pin will push out the air inside the dough, no air = no bubbles).
• Make the typical focaccia holes. Mix 50ml of water with 2-3 spoons of oil. Pour it gently over the surface and press a little bit the dough with your fingers.
• Bake. Add your favorite toppings, in my case I chose rosemary and salt. Bake until golden on top, this will take about 15 minutes.
• Let your focaccia to cool down on a baking rack before serving

Notes

• If you have time you can let the dough rise a second time before baking it. About 2 more hours.

Other Recipes you may like

• No-knead Spelt Olives Bread
• Focaccine – Mini Italian Focaccia Bread
• No Knead Bread Recipe – Easy Pane Pugliese