The Golden Rules of Panzanella (and Our End-of-Summer Recipe)

September is a bridge month. The mornings are cooler, school has started, and the peaches are past their prime — but the tomatoes are still glorious. This is their moment. Panzanella, the classic bread-and-tomato salad, is our favourite way to celebrate them — and to say goodbye to summer at the same time.

The Golden Rules:

Start with the bread. It needs real structure — a rustic sourdough or country loaf that can hold its shape. Stale is traditional, but grilling slices until they’re golden is even better. The smoky edges add depth, and rubbing one side with garlic means you don’t need to add raw garlic to the dressing. (You’ll notice in the photo above the bread is just toasted — that’s how I made it the first time. The next round, I grilled it, and I liked it even better.) The key is balance: there should be about as much bread as tomato, so neither outshines the other.

Tomatoes come next, and they need to be the best you can find. Use a mix of colours and sizes, salt them generously, and let them sit so their juices pool at the bottom of the bowl. Those juices — whisked with olive oil, sherry vinegar, and a little Dijon mustard — become the dressing. And here’s the thing: the best tomatoes deserve excellent partners. We reach for Deortegas extra virgin olive oil because its peppery, green flavour deepens the sweetness of ripe tomatoes. Belazu’s sherry vinegar is beautifully balanced — sharp enough to lift without the harsh acidity of many brands. And if you want to take it one step further, a drizzle of our Silver & Green black garlic oil adds savoury depth and a touch of intrigue that makes the whole salad sing.

Then, let the bread drink. Toss it in the juices before anything else so it soaks up flavour. Add cucumbers, fresh basil, and, in our case, shallots instead of red onion for a softer bite. (Yes, that’s another improvement I made post-photo).

Finally, give it a little time. The texture of the bread you started with will determine the right amount of rest (anywhere from 10–20 minutes). When you sit down, the bread should be chewy but not soggy, the tomatoes sweet and sharp, the herbs fragrant — a salad that tastes like more than the sum of its parts.

Some of us like rules to riff off of, but a tried-and-true recipe is always welcome. So here you go:

Panzanella
Serves 4

Ingredients
2 lbs tomatoes (about 3–4 medium / 5 cups), cut into bite-sized wedges or chunks
1 ½ tsp Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt
4 slices rustic sourdough or white country loaf, cut ¾″ thick (to yield about 5–6 cups cubes)
3 tbsp olive oil, for brushing
1 garlic clove, halved crosswise
2 tbsp Belazu Sherry Vinegar
1 ½ tsp Dijon mustard
⅓ cup Deortegas Extra Virgin Olive Oil
¼ cup finely chopped shallot
1 ½ cups diced Persian cucumbers
½ cup fresh basil leaves, torn
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Optional: a drizzle of Silver & Green Organic Black Garlic Oil to finish

Method

1. Place cut tomatoes in a large bowl, toss with salt, and let sit 10–15 minutes until they release their juices. Scoop tomatoes into a separate bowl and reserve, leaving the juices behind — this liquid is the base for the vinaigrette.

2. Heat a BBQ or broiler on high. Brush bread lightly with olive oil and grill or broil for 1–2 minutes per side, until toasted with just a hint of char. While still warm, rub one side of each slice with the cut garlic clove. Cut or tear into bite-sized cubes (about 1–1 ½″).

3. Whisk sherry vinegar and Dijon mustard into the reserved tomato juices. Slowly whisk in extra virgin olive oil. Season with pepper and stir in shallot.

4. Add bread cubes to the vinaigrette and toss to coat. Let stand 10 minutes, or until the bread has absorbed some dressing but still has chew.

5. Add tomatoes, cucumbers, and basil. Gently toss everything together, then taste and adjust seasoning. If you like, finish with a drizzle of black garlic oil just before serving.

Classic Tomato Recipes You Should Make Before Summer Ends

Because when tomatoes are this good, it makes sense to eat them every way you can:
Pan con tomate — “simple” Spanish tomato toast that I could eat any day for any meal.
From Serious Eats: The Best BLT — you don’t really need a recipe for a BLT, but Kenji’s write-up has the kind of details that make it even better.
From the NYT: Julia Moskin’s Best Gazpacho — nearly 16K five-star reviews (need we say more). Here's hoping we get one more stretch of hot days so we can really enjoy treats like this perfect cold soup.

Panzanella is proof that the best meals are often the simplest — a way to celebrate tomatoes at their peak and say goodbye to summer all at once. And if you want your tomatoes to really sing, give them partners that are up to the task. Deortegas olive oil, Belazu sherry vinegar, and our silver-and-green black garlic oil are the bottles we reach for again and again — simple upgrades that turn a bowl of tomatoes and bread into something very special indeed.