The Easiest No Knead Focaccia
The most delicious no knead focaccia bread! This recipe has 5 essential ingredients and you can top it with anything you like. You won’t believe how easy it is to make focaccia bread at home!
Servings: 1 large sheet pan
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups lukewarm water 105ºF
- 1 ½ teaspoon EACH: honey AND active dry yeast
- 5 cups 695g bread flour (see notes)
- 2 teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ cup olive oil + more
- Extras: Za’atar pesto, sesame seeds, fresh rosemary, sliced onions, green olives, garlic butter, or flaked sea salt, for topping
Instructions
- MIX: Combine water, honey, yeast, in a large bowl and let sit for 10 minutes until foamy. Stir in flour and kosher salt. Add ¼ cup of olive oil and combine with a dough whisk or rubber spatula. Rub the surface of a large bowl with a teaspoon of oil. Place the dough in the bowl, cover and refrigerate for 12-18 hours.
- PROOF: Remove dough from the fridge 3 hours before baking. Drizzle 2 tablespoons of oil on an 18x13 baking sheet and spread it out using your hands (see notes.) Dump the dough out onto the baking sheet. With oily hands, stretch the dough using your fingertips towards the edges of the pan. Stop when the dough shrinks back, cover, and try again after another 30 minutes. Allow the dough to rest for a total of 3 hours (your 30-minute stretching intervals count towards the total 3-hour time.)
- PREHEAT: When there are 45 minutes remaining, position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 425ºF. Drizzle the top with another 2 tablespoons of olive oil, rub some of your fingers too, and dimple the dough using your fingertips, pressing down on the dough to the bottom of the pan but making sure you don’t rip the dough. At this point, you can top with olives, fresh herbs, or just the flaked sea salt.
- BAKE: for 25-30 minutes or until golden. You can broil the focaccia for a minute to give it a little more color if you’d like (see notes.) Let cool for a few minutes before slicing.
Notes
- Update: 10/22 optional, but if you flip the focaccia over onto an oven-safe wire rack and broil the underside for 30-60 seconds you end up with an even crisper texture!)
- Measuring flour: If you are not weighing out the flour for this recipe (which I highly suggest) you’ll want to use the spoon and level method. Use a spoon to fluff the flour to aerate it. Then use a spoon to fill your 1-cup measuring cup. Run a knife along the top of the measuring cup without applying pressure. Repeat 5 times to get 5 cups of flour.
- Flour: If you use AP flour for this recipe, I suggest adding 1 additional tablespoon of flour.
- Baking sheet: If you use a standard sheet pan (not nonstick) you’ll need to use a small knob of butter to grease the baking sheet before adding olive oil. Unfortunately, olive oil alone does not keep the bread from sticking. Rub the butter generously on the sheet, then pour olive oil and continue from there.
