Soft, flavorful bread with a focaccia-like texture, perfect for tearing and dipping. Try it along side a bowl of your favorite soup for a relatively easy, elegant, homemade, soul-satisfying meal.
Rosemary Focaccia
Ingredients
- 1 cup warm 105-115 degrees Fahrenheit water
- 1 tablespoon yeast
- 1 tablespoon white sugar
- 1 teaspoon Kosher salt plus more for sprinkling
- 2 tablespoons olive oil divided
- 2 tablespoons rosemary dried or fresh, divided
- 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 2 1/4-2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, combine warm water, yeast, and sugar. Allow to stand for 10 minutes or until bubbly. While the yeast is getting bubbly, combine 2 cups of the flour, salt, 1 1/2 tablespoons rosemary, oregano and garlic powder.
- Add flour mixture to yeast mixture along with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Mix well. (I put it in my stand mixer with the dough hook on). Slowly add remaining flour to make a very soft dough-- try and resist the urge to add too much flour. You want a soft, wet dough.
- Cover and allow to rise 45 min- 1 hour or until double in size.
- Lightly flour your work surface and transfer dough onto this surface. Divide in half. Shape each half into a rounded loaf and place on a greased cookie sheet or pizza stone. Cover and allow to rise another 45 minutes.
- Heat oven to 375 degrees. Use remaining tablespoon of olive oil to brush over tops of loaves, discarding excess if you have any. Sprinkle with remaining rosemary and some Kosher salt.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes or until very lightly golden-brown. Serve immediately (if you can) with olive oil and balsamic vinegar (if you want).
This bread tastes a lot like the loaves that you get at Macaroni Grill, only (at least I think) better: warm, soft, a little salty; rip off a piece (no knives here) and dip it in some extra-virgin olive oil with a dash of balsamic vinegar and some freshly ground black pepper and you have a meal! If you’re more interested in balanced nutrition, slice each loaf in half length-wise and add Garlic-Herb Sandwich Spread, smoked turkey, Provolone, tomatoes, onions, and lettuce and then cut into wedges. Or try it alongside a bowl of Italian Turkey Soup. This recipe makes 2 small loaves, and each is studded with fresh rosemary and full of flavor.
How do I start making bread?
Scared of making yeast bread? Don’t be! Follow our handy-dandy yeast tips and you’ll sail through with flying colors! You’ll start by proofing yeast– it should look nice and bubbly like this:
Add flour mixture to yeast mixture along with 1 Tbsp. olive oil. Mix well. (you can just toss everything in your stand mixer with the dough hook on).
Next Step: Create Your Dough:
Slowly add remaining flour to make a very soft dough–try and resist the urge to add too much flour. You want a soft, wet dough.
Rise and Shape your Bread Dough
After your dough rises, you’ll divide it in half to make 2 loaves and place each of these loaves on your baking sheet to rise one more time.
How to Bake and Serve your Rosemary Focaccia Loaves
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until very lightly golden-brown. This is the type of bread you’ll want to serve immediately, while it’s warm. Just tear chunks to serve.
There is something soul-satisfying about tearing into fresh bread with your hands. These loaves are so soft and tender and full of flavor.
Questions & Reviews
Shannon-
We’ve been meaning to do an entire post about salt because we get lots of questions about it. The main difference in table salt vs. kosher salt vs. sea salt is the texture. Kosher salt also has a very pure flavor, and larger crystals (like you can see in that picture). If you don’t have any, sea salt would be a good substitution. The flavor of Kosher salt is more mild than regular table salt, and sea salt is more mild as well. You could use regular table salt in the dough (where it will dissolve) and sea salt sprinkled on top.
Love Macaroni Grill! I will be trying this. Can you explain the difference between Sea Salt and Kosher Salt? Would Sea Salt work? Thanks!
Manda, these are teeny, tiny loaves–like small enough that I can fit both of them on my pizza stone and they’d easily fit on a cookie sheet. If you truly have a teeny tiny oven (like toaster oven small), then I would probably just pop the other loaf in the fridge… 🙂 Good luck! Let us know how it turns out!
Question- If I can only bake one at a time, what do I do with the other loaf? Stick it in the fridge? Leave it out? This is the main reason I don’t make bread, I have no idea what to do with the extra while the rest is baking. Help please!
Yum!! I made it tonight and oh it was amazing. I was thinking I might have some leftover to make sandwich’s with it, but no luck, it was all gone at the end of dinner!
i made this for dinner tonight and it was a HIT!!! thanks for all of your great ideas.
Great bread, Sara first made this a couple of valentine days ago and it was amazing! Better than Macaroni Grill by far…
Erin, you could use regular salt, but kosher salt is definitely better in something like this.
Does it have to be kosher salt? can regular salt work? Thanks!
Sara gave me this recipe about a month ago because I wanted to make a yummy dinner for my anniversary. I made a pasta dish with the garlic sauce and this bread, it was to die for!! I have made it 3 times since. Definitely a winner!!