spring panzanella salad
29. Apr, 2011 
7 Comments
Panzanella salad is one of those totally adaptable recipes that uses any medley of spring vegetables that you might have sprouting in your garden or calling out to you from the fridge. It simply means an Italian bread salad that uses the flavorful pan juices from sautéing vegetables for a light dressing.
This recipe is liberally adapted from Heidi Swanson\’s Spring Panzanella, which uses fresh peas and asparagus for a touch of spring. For those of you who have not discovered Heidi’s blog, 101 Cookbooks, watch out, your pantry is about to be overrun with beans and whole grains after reading these recipes. In addition to her two cookbooks, her brand new Super Natural Every Day and Super Natural Cooking: Incorporating Whole and Natural Foods into your Cooking, she regularly posts new recipes. This week’s tastes: Faro and Millet Risotto, Liptauer Cheese Crostini, and Spring Pasta. I’ve bookmarked so many of her recipes since discovering her a few weeks ago that I have a separate folder for her recipes. It’s that good.
Anyways, enough of a plug, you’ll be seeing plenty more of her adapted recipes from me this summer. Instead of peas and asparagus like Heidi, I used green beans, fresh fennel bulb, leeks, kale and black eyed peas for some light protein. Lightly blanching the vegetables brings all the flavors out with the olive oil and salt, but doesn’t overwhelm the natural juices of the vegetables with oil. I particularly loved the subtle fennel flavors; I have never cooked with fresh fennel before, and it has a much more soft and round flavor than the seeds, which can sometimes make me pucker.
Use any day old bread that you have around to make the croutons. I happened to have a bit of homemade Spring Harvest Bread left from earlier in the week that worked great. Any whole grain or seeded bread will work, and in case your bread has no herbs baked into it already like mine did, there are “optional” spices you should absolutely add to the bread chunks.
Shared with full plate Thursdays, Friday Potluck @ Ekats kitchen and Food on Fridays.
Spring Panzanella Salad
Makes 6 servings. Total time: 20 minutes.
- 2 cups of green beans
- 1 cup of kale, stems removed
- 1/2 small fennel bulb
- 1 small leek
- 1 cup black eyed peas, soaked
- 1/2 lbs loaf of day old bread
- 1 tablespoon fresh thyme (“optional”)
- pinch of salt
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1/4 cup small basil leaves
Preheat the oven to 375. Cut bread into one inch cubes and toss with olive oil, salt and thyme (use thyme if no herbs baked into the bread). Spread evenly on a cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes, until golden and crispy.
In the meantime, soak the beans if you bought them dry in a bag by letting them simmer for 30 minutes until just plump but not mushy. Pull the ends off the green beans and cut into thirds. Heat a splash of olive oil and a splash of water in a large pan and add green beans and kale. Cover and cook for about one minute. Add the fennel and leek, cover, and cook for one more minute. Add the black eyed peas (drained), cover, and cook for thirty more seconds.
Put the bread chunks in a large serving dish. Top with the blanched vegetables, and be sure to pour all those juices in too. Give it a good toss and season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the basil leaves and toss again.
Hello,
This looks like a wonderful salad. I just love a Panzanella Salad and your recipe looks delicious. I will give it a try. Thank you so much for sharing with Full Plate Thursday and hope to see you next week!
Fascinating combination of flavors, with the bread and veggies. I’m intrigued! And, interestingly, I have some bread I could use. So glad you linked to Food on Fridays.
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Good info. Thanks.
Very impressive!