It’s now solidly strawberry season, but despite our best efforts, we can still end up with strawberries that aren’t at their ripest and most delicious. If you have some less than perfect strawberries around, give this variation on the Panzanella salad a try! The best bread for this is Challah or any kind of sweeter bread, but of course you can use whatever you have around. This salad is perfectly in between savory and sweet.
Strawberry Panzanella Salad
A salad of day old bread tossed with strawberries and cucumber.
Servings 4
Ingredients
- 2 small field cucumbers chopped (or 1 English cucumber)
- 1 lb strawberries chopped
- 4 slices day old bread cubed or torn into pieces
- basil or mint leaves finely chopped (optional)
Dressing
- 1 lemon juiced
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- salt to taste
- sugar to taste (optional)
Instructions
- If you're using field cucumbers (usually much less expensive than English cucumbers) peel them roughly to remove the tough skin.
- If your bread is still pretty soft, toast is a bit so it's crisp. This will help it absorb the juices from the dressing and the strawberries. Oddly enough, using fresh bread for this will just not work as well. You really do want the old, hard stuff!
- Mix up the dressing in a large salad bowl.
- Throw the cucumbers, strawberries and bread cubes into the bowl with the dressing. Toss everything to coat and to mingle with the strawberry juices. Let the salad sit for about 10 minutes to let the bread soak up the juices. Taste it and add more salt or lemon juice according to your taste.
- You can add a sprinkling of sugar if you want to bring out the sweetness in the salad. Add finely chopped basil or mint leaves if you have them.