Crisp and Fluffy Sourdough Focaccia
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A very easy focaccia recipe made with sourdough starter. This sourdough focaccia is fluffy, crispy and very light. Switch up the toppings, turn it into a pizza, or even sandwiches! Very good!!
Like so many other recipes, focaccia making is almost more about technique than it is about ingredients.
Why Focaccia and What Makes a Good One?
Focaccia is an Italian rustic flatbread that is very versatile.
According to master baker Jeffrey Hamelman, it may have herbs and oil in the dough or it may be plain. Traditionally, people made it with whatever was in season or whatever they had on hand.
At its simplest and as is shown here, it is made with olive oil, rosemary, and a sprinkling of coarse salt. In Florence, it is popular to use grapes and fennel seeds (As described in “Bread, A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes”).
Many suggestions are shown below under “Variations and Topping Ideas” – just make sure not to overload your focaccia with too much toppings and ensure that you do spread them evenly.
So…there are a million focaccia recipes out there, but what really makes a good focaccia?
Well, my ideal focaccia it must be flavorful with a soft chewy fluffy interior yet crispy on the outside. I also prefer my focaccia on the thick side, but that’s not an absolute must.
A Few Important Tips!
- A long slow rise or overnight cold rise gives the dough that delicious taste that you can only get from a slow rise, much like my favorite NY Pizza dough. Some people may also use a preferment like a biga to get good flavor.
- To get a good crisp, you need the dough to be well developed (long rise) and also need to baking on a baking stone/steel OR in the bottom third of your oven.
- A fluffy interior comes from a long final rise, and the right amount of starter or yeast (must be active)!
- Also, we can’t forget, a high amount of water is going to help give you that beautiful crumb inside.
- Using the right amount of dough for your pan will give you the desired thickness.
This recipe also contains a bit of oil in the dough for more of a chewy crumb.
I love focaccia because it is delicious, soft and chewy on the inside with a crispy crust, and it is so incredibly versatile. Change up the toppings or make it into a sandwich. The options are plentiful.
Read more tips from an Italian baker who shares a top 10 list of tips.
Variations and Toppings Ideas
Here are some focaccia topping ideas (always with salt and a drizzle of olive oil).
- Rosemary, coarse salt, and olive oil
- Red and green grapes with fennel seeds 🍇
- Pesto and chicken 🐓 (precooked chicken)
- Pizza sauce and cheese 🧀
- Olives and lemon zest 🫒
- Oregano, red pepper flakes 🌿
- Garlic, olive oil, and fresh herbs
- Tomatoes, olive, feta 🍅
- Roasted eggplant or zucchini (lightly roasted) 🍆
- Fresh tomatoes, cheese, basil
- Cherry tomatoes and pesto
- Sausage and cheese (precooked meat)
- Artichoke and spinach
- Caramelized onions 🧅
- Pepperoni and cheese
- Roasted garlic and oregano 🧄
- Balsamic reduction
- Thinly sliced potatoes and rosemary 🥔
Focaccia Sandwich Ideas
Thick sourdough focaccia can be easily sliced open to make a great sandwich or, for bigger appetites, use 2 pieces. You can also make paninis by grilling any of these sandwich combinations.
Some ideas for making a delicious focaccia sandwich include:
- Mixed cheeses
- Ham and cheese
- Caprese (tomato and cheese)
- Meatball sandwiches
- Italian meats (ie, proscuitto, capicola, salami, etc)
- Bacon, lettuce, and tomato
- Club sandwiches with turkey
- Grilled vegetables with pesto
- Egg salad or chicken salad
- Cuban sandwich
- Chicken breast with spinach, roasted peppers
Leftover Focaccia
I doubt you’ll have leftover, but just in case here are some ideas….
- Cut and use focaccia to make plain croutons or flavored croutons
- Dry the focaccia and make breadcrumbs (plain focaccia)
Storage, Make Ahead, Freezing
The dough can be made the night before and is best tasting after a long cold proof in the refrigerator.
After baking, the focaccia is best enjoyed the same day.
To freeze place slices in freezer bag for up to 1 to 3 months.
You can flash freeze sliced focaccia on a cookie sheet and then transfer the pieces to a freezer bag or you can wrap pieces in plastic wrap and then place in sealed contained in the freezer.
If you tried this recipe, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below!
📖 Recipe
Thick Soft yet Crispy Sourdough Focaccia Recipe
Equipment
- 13 x 9, baking sheet, small sheet pan, casserole dish For rectangular focaccia
- 10-inch cake pans (two) For round focaccia
- large mixing bowl
- baking stone or steel optional but highly recommended
Ingredients
- 125 grams (0.5 cups) mature sourdough starter
- 375 grams (1 2/3 cups) water
- 10 grams (2.5 tsp) sugar
- 500 grams (4 cups) bread flour
- 15 grams (1 tbsp) olive oil
- 10 grams (1 3/4 tsp) salt
Instructions
To Mix the Dough
- Mix the mature sourdough starter, sugar, water and flour into a shaggy mass of dough and set aside, covered, in a warm spot for 1 hour.
- After 1 hour has passed, add the salt and olive oil to the dough.
- Mix the dough well after the salt and oil have been incorporated. I like to scrunch/pinch it in, you can use your fingers to press it in and keep folding the dough until incorporated.
First Rise of the Dough
- Place dough in a covered container to let rise for a total of about 1.5 hours in a warm spot. Every 30 minutes, stretch and fold the dough. Try to form a square like shape – a square baking dish helps here. You can also coil fold the dough, which is a simple and very effective technique.
Final Rise of the Dough
- Place the dough on your baking sheet (which must be well-oiled) and allow it to rest at room temperature in a warm location for 3 to 4 hours until it's nice and bubbly. It should spread out naturally on its own, but if it needs some help, gently stretch it.
- If you are using cake pans (10-inch), divide dough in half and gently place into the cake pans. (500 grams or 1 lb of dough in each one).
- Alternatively, instead of the 3 to 4-hour warm rise, place in the refrigerator overnight (or up to 2-3 days), cover loosely with oiled plastic wrap (so it doesn't stick to the dough), and bake the next day. The focaccia can be baked directly from the refrigerated state.
Baking the Focaccia
- Preheat your oven to 450 degrees and insert a baking stone or baking steel if you have one, in the center of the oven.
- Before baking, dimple the top of the focaccia heavily by pressing your fingers in the dough and pushing all the way down to the bottom. Do this repeatedly all over the top of the focaccia.
- Top your focaccia with olive oil, salt and rosemary (or whatever topping you'd like) and bake on the baking stone or steel for about 20 minutes until golden and the bottom is crispy.
- IMPORTANT: If you don't have a baking stone or steel, ensure you are baking the focaccia in the bottom third of your oven so the bottom gets nice and crispy.
- To finish, drizzle the baked focaccia with additional olive oil l
Just making this recipe now. I am wondering if I should leave it on the counter to rise if I want to put it in the fridge overnight to give it a better flavor? Can I do both, counter and fridge at the same time?
Recipe looks so awesome, just what I am looking for I think, hope it will turn out for me.
Thank you for any reply
The recipe was tested using the extended warm rise OR the overnight rise in the fridge. The fridge rise works as dough continues to rise until the temperature has been reduced to the fridge temp, and so if you do both counter and cold rise, your dough will have a final rise of much more than 4 hours. It may work, but it may not – I’m sorry, I can’t say. If you want to try it, let us know how it works!
What size is the sheet pan in your images and how much dough are you using?
The recipe makes about 1000 grams of dough (~2 pounds) and I used a quarter sheet pan (9 x 13) – I also give instructions for using cake pans (two 10-inch pans).
I made this and we ate it with barbecue pork. I have never had so many people rave about anything I’ve ever made before like they did with this! This is a fantastic recipe, definitely a keeper!
How do I make this into pizza? Do I cook the foccacia partway first then add toppings? or put toppings on the fresh dough and cook as per usual? Any tips that you can share would be greatly appreciated as there seems to be different ways to do this according to my search!
Thank you!
Great question! I would par-bake it for about 5 to 8 minutes (same temperature as for focaccia; no toppings), then take it out of the oven, sauce it up, add the toppings/cheese, and return to bake for the remaining time (up to 15 to 20 minutes). You can start baking on the rack just below the center, and if you find the top is getting browned/baked sooner than the bottom is getting enough color, move the pizza down. If you put the dough in the oven directly from the fridge (assuming you do a cold-proof), it will bubble a ton, so I’d suggest bringing the dough to room temp to prevent that.
so clear, thank you very much for the quick and clear response! And by the way, I absolutely love this recipe! My friend that bakes a ton says it’s the best focaccia she has ever had and my other Italian friend says that it is delicious! Our family enjoys eating this often 🙂
I was very excited to make this sourdough focaccia bread. I have made many loaves of sourdough bread on parchment in a Dutch oven, to great success, and have been baking for 50 years. So, I followed your recipe. The dough had a nice consistency and I got a decent proof out of it.
The problem was following your instruction to put the dough into a well-oiled pan. I thought, jeez, maybe I should do like usual and put in a parchment or a silicone mat, but no, I followed your recipe. Well-oiled pan, check.
And after baking, everything looked great. Until I tried to get it out. My focaccia was GLUED to the bottom of the well-oiled pan. Glued. Had to chisel that damn thing out. After hours of careful tending, the bread was ruined.
You’ve got to fix your recipe. I’d like to make this again, but I need a recipe that does not result in a glued-in loaf. I assume parchment would have resolved this, or perhaps a silicone mat. I don’t know. With my sourdough, I ferment in a regular bowl, cold ferment on a cloth in the frig, flop it out onto lightly oiled parchment and pop that into a hot Dutch oven.
I’m a little confused because I have well seasoned pans and it doesn’t matter if they are lightly oiled or well oiled – plus that’s a bit subjective. If you repeat this recipe and have success with lightly oiled pan please report and let me know? Edited to say: According to what I’m reading some solutions may be spraying pan first with cooking spray followed by olive (creates an extra layer of protection), using more oil (which clearly has not worked for you), using semolina or cornmeal with the oil (have also read that rice flour is a good choice as it doesn’t absorb into the dough), using parchment paper, or using a hotter oven to create an “immediate crust”.
For another data point, I wanted to share, I’ve made this about 6 times now and it has popped out of the pan with zero issues? Interesting to read about a completely different outcome.
You’ve got to fix your tone, Steve.
I’ve made this three times so far and each time the bottom of the bread is cemented to my pan and refuses to release! Any tips so I don’t end up ripping it to pieces trying to remove from the pan? I promise I used an insane amount of oil to grease up the pan!
Hi Kelly, you and Steve are the first I’ve heard report the sticking – Steve is going to try a lightly oiled pan. I’d suggest a parchment lined pan or perhaps just try a light oil. I have very well seasoned pans so perhaps that’s the disconnect.
So it tastes great but I had so much trouble making the bubbles when I dimpled the dough! I did it cold from the fridge. Any reason why? The second pan I did I took it out and let it room temp a little before baking but making those airy bubbles was still not easy and I only have a few small ones
My first thought is that there was not enough air in the dough. That could mean one of two things. The dough didn’t rise well enough either because of time or because maybe your starter isn’t that active? I like to see my starter double or ideally triple in 4 to 6 hours after feeding it.
I know how to use starter as I bake regular loaves all the time. My starter was extremely active and bubbly and the exact amount I needed. Maybe I needed to leave it out on the counter longer? Also— when you say shaggy for the initial mix, does that mean you don’t mix it well enough to bring all the ingredients together? I mixed it as I usually mix my regular loaves which means it forms a dough (like a stretch and fold dough shape) and I imagine shaggy means something different? TIA
By shaggy, I meant mixing to the point that all the flour has been incorporated; you don’t need to mix until the gluten starts developing. As far as dimpling being difficult, if it’s because it’s too sticky, I’d oil my hands a bit, but if you mean the dough wasn’t puffy enough to hold any dimples, I’d say a longer proof in a warm environment should do it especially if your starter is super active. Push the proofing longer.
The recipe won’t let you click on options for quantities such as 1x
1.5x can you fix it please, I love this recipe it’s my favorite and so easy.
Hi Cindy,
we are looking into this now. Thank you for your comment. I will update this as soon as it’s fixed!All fixed! Thanks for letting us knowThe best tasting focaccia bread I have made or bought!! Thank you.
Turned out beautifully! Such and easy recipe to follow. I added another set of stretch and folds and let it do the final rise for 4-5 hours (kitchen temp: 71F). Mine took 25min to bake. I will definitely be making again!
Hi Marie!
Thank you for sharing this amazing recipe.
I’m typing this as I’m sitting here enjoying a piece of the focaccia with my cappuccino.
I followed the recipe, but omitted the sugar which resulted in having to proof the dough for longer.
The result was great and this will be a regular in my weekly bakes. 🙂