Classic Panzanella Salad (Tuscan-Style Tomato and Bread Salad)

panzanellaEssential Puree offers the puree chef the 4 T’s: Tips, Tricks, Tools and Techniques for Puree. This recipe is about the technique for making a pureed salad.

Panzanella is a classic dish from the Italian kitchen. The dish uses Italian bread. The user who desires a gluten-free dish may substitute any type of bread for the puree.

Ingredients and Directions

Follow the ingredients and directions in the recipe from the Serious Eats website and prepare the salad. For Puree Instructions, come back to Essential Puree website. 

Tip on Technique: The trick is not to dry the bread so much that it gets burned edges, but to create a golden bake on the bread. The bread will then absorb all of the salad dressing and will puree beautifully. That is the trick, the technique to deliver excellent flavor and servings of veggies. You could add marinated artichoke hearts to this recipe as well.

For the Puree

Take a half cup to a cup of this salad and put in the bowl of a food processor or blender. Pulse until the ingredients form a smooth puree.

This beautiful panzanella can be adjusted to the desired thickness of puree for all levels of the NDD, National Dysphagia Diet.  

Alternative thickening method: eliminate the bread, create the salad and thicken with a commercial thickener. See directions on this website.

Image Courtesy of Adactio via Flickr Creative Commons