This post will teach you how to make a crusty, open-crumbed loaf of ciabatta bread. Below you will find a detailed guide full of tips and tricks as well as a troubleshooting section with answers to FAQs to help you make a loaf of ciabatta bread with a crisp, golden exterior, and a light, airy crumb. Video guidance, too!
Friends, today I have a saga to share with you, one that fortunately ends happily: with a crusty, open-crumbed loaf of ciabatta bread, the recipe for which I hope you make soon and then all summer long, for beach lunches and mountain hikes, for dinner with friends and family, perhaps beside a fire or under twinkling bulbs strung from tree to tree, a pool of olive oil at the ready to dunk into at will. This has become one of my favorite homemade bread recipes.
After posting this sourdough ciabatta bread recipe in April, I felt determined to make a comparable, yeast-leavened variation. For reasons I cannot explain, when I revisited a recipe I had posted here years ago, the photos for which looked promising, I couldn’t get it to work quite as well. The rolls, while tasty, had a tight, closed crumb, not as light or as open as I remembered (or as pictured).
How To Make Homemade Ciabatta Bread
In search of that more wild, amorphous crumb, which ciabatta is known for, I turned to my various bread baking books, namely
, meaning a small amount of flour and water mixed with a leavening agent and left to ferment for a short period of time.
This got me thinking: could I replace the 100 grams of sourdough starter in the sourdough ciabatta recipe with 100 grams of
Artisan Ciabatta Bread
? I gave it a go, stirring together 50 grams each flour and water with 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast and then letting it sit for three hours. When the surface of the poolish was dimpled with holes, I proceeded with the recipe, adding water, salt, and flour; mixing the dough; stretching and folding it; letting it rise, and finally transferring it to the fridge overnight.
The following morning, I turned the dough out onto a floured work surface, cut it into eight portions, and transferred them to a sheet pan. One hour later, I baked them.
Friends! It worked beautifully. The crumb, while not quite as honeycombed as the sourdough version, was full of holes, giving the ciabatta its characteristic lightness and airiness. I felt really good about the recipe — it was simple enough, nearly identical to the sourdough version without having to use a sourdough starter, and very tasty.
Traditional Italian Ciabatta Bread Recipe
This is where the saga begins. The two loaves I pulled from the oven, while crusty and beautiful from the exterior, were … HOLLOW! I had baked, in essence, two gigantic pita breads, perfect for housing torpedo-sized falafel. (
This experience sent me on a tear to figure out where I went wrong. As I read about “tunneling”, I tried many things to fix the situation — lowering the hydration, increasing the hydration, kneading the dough, lowering the oven temperature, decreasing the amount of yeast, eliminating the cold proof — and in the process, I made many many loaves of
Ciabatta. At the risk of sounding a little dramatic, this quest paralyzed me creatively — truly: without this ciabatta puzzle solved, I couldn’t create a single new recipe for the blog.
How To Make Foolproof Ciabatta Bread
In the end, after doing a bit more digging, the fix was simple: to lengthen the final proof. Whereas the sourdough ciabatta can rest at room temperature for only an hour before baking; the yeasted ciabatta — at least in loaf form — needs much more time, more like 2 to 2.5 hours.
Why? Because, as I’ve learned, when under-proofed dough enters an oven, the yeast has lots of remaining energy, which leads to fast and furious gas production. This explosion of gas breaks the structure of the bread, causing the tunnel to form.
Friends, if I’m being honest, it is not without trepidation that I post this recipe. As I type, I have two bowls of ciabatta dough rising —
Refrigerator Dough Ciabatta
I have made more ciabatta these past two months than any other bread I think ever (with the exception, of course, of my mother’s peasant bread), and though I am now consistently met with great results — with loaves that emerge from the oven flour-dusted, golden-crusted with both a chewy and light, porous texture — I still worry. Those hollow loaves haunt me.
As you can see, I’m a bit anxious for you all to give this recipe a try. My wish, as noted at the start, is for this to become your summer dinner bread, your trusty swiper for all those delicious, oily, corn-studded, tomato-infused, basil-specked dregs. They deserve it.
With wet hands, perform a set of stretches and folds, by grabbing one side of the dough, and pulling it up and to the center. Rotate the bowl a quarter turn, and repeat the grabbing and pulling. Do this until you’ve made a full circle. (Watch the video for more guidance. I employ a sort of “slap and fold” technique, which is helpful with this very wet dough.) Cover the bowl.
Ciabatta Hybrid Method
If time permits, repeat this stretching and folding twice more at 30-minute intervals. This is what the dough looks like after the third set of stretches and folds:
This is what the dough looks like after the 4th set. Feeling the dough transform from a sticky dough ball to a smooth and elastic one is really cool.
… it doubles in volume. (Note: If you don’t have a straight-sided vessel, you can simply let the dough rise in a bowl. I personally like using a straight-sided vessel because it allows me to see when the dough has truly doubled in volume.)
Easy Ciabatta Bread Recipe (airy, Chewy, And Delicious!)
Return the dough to the vessel; then transfer to the fridge. (Another plus of using the straight-sided vessel is that it’s easier to store in the fridge than a bowl.)
… then ball it up. (Note: This is where I deviate from the traditional ciabatta-making method. If I were to follow the traditional path, I would have simply patted that blob of dough pictured above into a rectangle; the cut it in half. I find I get a more open crumb when I preshape the dough.)
Divide the dough into two equal portions. Ball up each portion. I like to do this with very little or no flour — I find I get better tension with less flour.
Chef John's No Knead Ciabatta
Sprinkle a work surface liberally with flour. Place the balls top-side down (the smooth side); then sprinkle the balls liberally with flour. Cover with a tea towel and let rest for 2.5 hours. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
Follow the recipe as outlined above or in the recipe box below until the step in which you remove the dough from the refrigerator; then, sprinkle a work surface with flour. Turn the dough out, sprinkle the surface with more flour, and pat it into a rectangle. (Note: This method, unlike above, follows a traditional ciabatta method — there’s no preshape or final shape. I prefer doing this with rolls for simplicity. It’s nice not having to ball up 8 portions of dough. If you wish, of course, you can ball up each round of dough.)
This post will teach you how to make a crusty, open-crumbed loaf of ciabatta bread. It calls for making a poolish (a preferment), and it’s a very high hydration dough (82%), which means the dough will be wet and sticky. I highly recommend watching the video before attempting the recipe. This simple Ciabatta Bread recipe will give youa rustic Italian loaf that is perfect for dipping into soups or sauces. The high hydration in this bread results in a wonderfully chewy center and tons of irregular holes.
Easy Sourdough Ciabatta Recipe
This is probably the easiest ciabatta bread recipe you’ll come across. It is an 80% hydration bread which means it’s very wet and sticky.
Because of this, you’ll need a stand mixer to make the dough. Otherwise, it will be near impossible to mix the dough.
No-knead recipes are the best! I make baguettes, pizza dough, and slow cooker bread all the time because they require little effort. And now I’ll be making ciabatta bread just as often, if not more.
Sourdough Ciabatta Bread Recipe
You slice ciabatta bread at an angle and drizzle it with olive oil. It can also be used for dipping in soup or soaking up a sauce.
Or you can slice it lengthwise and make an Italian Style sandwich. Whichever way you decide to enjoy this bread, I’m sure you’ll be impressed with the texture and flavor.
Yeast – you can use instant or active dry yeast. Either one will work. Just be sure to use a quality brand like Red Star®.
Ciabatta Bread Recipe
Salt –salt boosts the flavor of ciabatta bread but also slows down the fermentation and enzyme activity in the dough. It helps to strengthen and support volume as well.
Combine flour, yeast, and water in a large bowl. Stir it with a wooden spoon until it’s well mixed and free of lumps.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature
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