Focaccia Bread is the perfect beginner bread recipe for the home baker. This overnight no knead focaccia bread recipe makes a soft tender Italian loaf full of flavor, using your favorite toppings of herbs, tomatoes or kalamata olives with a sprinkling of sea salt. This is the most addictive bread recipe I have ever made. Don’t get me wrong, I love all homemade bread, but focaccia is hands down my favorite. Dip in oil, soak up pasta juice, make a sandwich or a pizza. Any way you decide to enjoy it, I know it will be amazingly delicious!!
What is Focaccia Bread?
Italian origin bread recipe that is crisp on the outside with a pillowy soft and chewy texture on the inside. Similar to pizza dough, focaccia is a yeast bread with high hydration that is baked flat and flavored with olive oil.
Enjoy homemade no knead focaccia bread as side dish dipped in olive oil, or part of a charcuterie side. If you love a good flatbread sandwich, slice it length wise and fill with your fave ingredients. To make a thinner focaccia bread for slab sandwiches, use a 13×18 in rimmed baking sheet and skip the toppings. The best focaccia sandwich I’ve ever eaten was from All’antico Vinaio in Florence, Italy.
Tips for Making this No Knead Focaccia Recipe
- Make sure to use warm water at 110 F, nothing hotter or it will kill the yeast.
- Yeast loves sugar, so I use honey for this recipe.
- Use a rubber spatula or your hands lightly coated in olive oil to gently shape the dough into a large ball.
- For the second rise, place the dough in the oven with just the light on for a draft free, slightly warm environment. Or use the proofing setting on your oven if you have one.
- Gently use your fingertips to stretch the dough to fit the pan.
- Bake your focaccia on the middle rack of the oven for even brownness.
How to Add Toppings and Ingredients to Focaccia Bread Dough
Adding Fresh Herbs to Focaccia Dough
- Add herbs to the top of your dough. Sprinkle chopped herbs onto dimpled dough, lightly drizzle with olive oil before baking.
- Add herbs directly into the dough mixture. When whisking together the flours and salt, simply add half of the chopped herbs to the flour mixture. Make the dough according to the recipe and use the remaining half of the herbs as a topping before baking.
Adding Tomatoes and Olives to Focaccia Dough
- Slice cherry tomatoes and olives into thirds and place into the dimples of the dough before baking.
What Size Pan To Use for Baking No Knead Focaccia Bread?
Depending on the type of focaccia bread you are craving, I would suggest two different baking pan options for this recipe.
Focaccia using a 13x9x2 inch Baking Pan
Using a 13x9x2 inch baking pan will result in a thick fluffy and pillowy focaccia bread for dipping, snacking, and making sandwiches. This is my go to choice of pan when I want to serve focaccia as a snacking bread with cheeses and meats.
Focaccia using a 13x9x2 inch Baking Pan
Baking Focaccia with a 13×18 inch rimmed baking pan creates a thinner focaccia bread that is often seen in Florence, Italy for making slab sandwiches. You may have to stretch the dough a bit more with your fingers to cover more of the pan before adding toppings.
How to Store Focaccia Bread
Fresh homemade focaccia bread is best stored wrapped in aluminum foil or in an air tight container. The baked Focaccia bread will keep fresh for up to one week after baking at room temperature.
Ingredients
Bread Dough
- 2.5 tsp Active Dry Yeast 1 yeast packet
- 1 Tbsp Local Honey
- 2 ½ Cups (375 ml) Warm Water
- 4 Cups (500 grams) All Purpose Flour
- 1 Cup (125 grams) Bread Flour
- 5 tsp extra fine sea salt
- 6 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil, divided more for hands and topping
Toppings
- 1 Cup Cherry Tomatoes sliced (*option to divide or replace with olives)
- ¼ Cup Chopped Fresh Basil
- ¼ Cup Chopped Fresh Sage
- ¼ Cup Chopped Fresh Oregano
- Flaky Sea Salt for sprinkling
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer gently hand whisk together yeast, honey, and warm water (110 F). Let yeast mixture sit for 10-15 minutes until frothy. *If mixture is not frothy, check for expired yeast date and start again.
- In a separate whisk together all purpose flour, bread flour, and fine sea salt to evenly distribute.
- Once the yeast mixture is frothy, fit mixer with dough hook. Slowly spoon in flour on low to medium speed. Mix slowly until all flour is incorporated and a shaggy wet dough is formed. Don't over work your dough.
- **Option to make dough in a large bowl without using stand mixer. Simply start with yeast step, wait until frothy. Then, slowly add flour while gently mixing with a rubber spatula . Use your hands lightly coated in olive oil to shape the mixture into a shaggy dough. Don't knead, just use hands to form a shaggy dough ball.
- Pour 1 Tablespoon of olive oil over the top of the dough. Lightly coat your hands in olive oil and gently shape the dough into a ball. This is achieved by taking your hands along the bowl and lifting the sides of the dough gently back onto itself toward the center.
- Pour 4 tablespoons of olive oil into the bottom of a large bowl. Transfer the dough ball into the large bowl, nestling it into the oil. It will look like a wet ball of dough sitting in a shallow olive oil bath.
- Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator. Allow dough to rest in the cold fridge for 8hrs and up to 16 hrs. I prefer to make my dough the evening or night before I want to bake focaccia.
- When ready to make your focaccia, remove the bowl from the fridge. The dough will have absorbed all the olive oil and doubled in size.
- Prepare a 13×9 inch baking pan with a light coating of butter, making sure to rub into the corners.
- Transfer the dough from the bowl into the prepared pan. Loosely cover with plastic wrap.
- The dough now needs a second "warm" rise to come to room temperature. Place the dough in a warm spot or in the oven with just the light on. Allow the dough to rest for 1-2 hrs until doubled in size and filling up the pan.
- Preheat Oven to 450 F (230 C) while dough is resting.
- Remove plastic wrap from the pan. Lightly coat your hands in olive oil and gently use your finger tips to guide the dough into filling up the pan.
- Then take your fingers and press down into the dough, creating small dimples or wells across the surface. (Be careful not to tear holes in the dough.)
- Softly press your sliced tomatoes and/or olives into the dimples you just made. Don't press all the way down. Sprinkle the chopped herbs across the dough. Drizzle the final 1 Tablespoon of Olive Oil across the dough. Follow with a sprinkle of flaky sea salt your liking.
- If you jiggle the pan the dough should wobble back and forth.
- Place pan on the middle rack of the oven and bake for 20-28 minutes until the bread is lightly golden on top.
- Remove pan from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool completely.
- Slide a knife around the edges of the bread and lift it from the pan. Place on a cutting board and using a serrated knife cut into slices to serve. Or cut loaf into thirds and then each piece into half for sandwiches.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
Jan Davis
This bread is amazing!! It is so delicious that I could hardly stop eating it. I know you will love it too!!
Jenn
So glad you enjoyed it!
Dee
This bread looks as soft as a pillow! I bet it is so flavorful with the olive oil and Kalamata, I can’t wait to try.
Jenn
It’s so so good! I had to give away half to keep from eating it all myself, haha!
Pat
Will try this weekend..I have made it with just flour many times before. With your method if I cannot get bread flour can I just use 3 cups of flour? And will I notice a difference with the bread flour? Sorry to sound dah….but I have never used two kinds of flour.
Thanks,
PAT
Lucy
Pat – I had the same question. I do not have bread flour and wanted to use 3 cups of flour. Did you make it and how did it turn out?
Jenn
Yes, you can use all purpose flour it will just have a slightly different texture.
Madhavi
I love Focaccia and I can’t wait to try this recipe. I have Saf instant yeast, can I just use that instead of the one in recipe? If so is it the same amount mentioned in the recipe? For instant yeast I suppose I can mix it in flour directly right?