Vegetable Focaccia (and How to Make Focaccia Art)

There are a million recipes out there for focaccia, so you may ask “why another?” Over the years I’ve read the recipe note that says “if you don’t have time, leave the dough to rise for just an hour“. This has always perplexed me, and stayed in the back of my mind. I am a curious cook, who researches, tests, and persists, in pursuit of solving a cooking problem. For me, the cooking problem here is how to make a delicious but fast and easy focaccia bread, when I haven’t allotted much time and want it ready the same day.

This recipe is the result of four years of pushing the limits on a yeasted dough recipe, where the least amount of rise time is tested in conjunction with the ideal rise environment temperature and a tasty, bouncy focaccia bread is the result! I’ve worked through a few variations I share here such as the result when it rises longer, and splitting the dough in half for two smaller round loaves, but it’s always topped with glistening, caramelized vegetables that add so much flavor and create a vegetable focaccia which has more to offer than plain focaccia bread.

Creating Focaccia Art

• Raw or cooked vegetables: sautéed, almost caramelized vegetables can be used to top the focaccia in a decorative way, as can fresh cut, raw vegetables. The look and taste is a bit different, depending on which vegetables you choose.
• Brushing vegetables with olive oil: if using raw vegetables to top the focaccia, I recommend brushing over them lightly with olive oil. This will help them develop color and flavor in the high heat of the oven.
• Vegetable choice: when choosing vegetables for focaccia art, I consider what the sliced version will look like, and further, I consider how I want to create the vegetable art.
• Type of decorative design: I tend to repeat a pattern, but others like to create a landscape of flowers, as if you are looking head on at stems and blossoms rising up from a garden. Either works, though a repetitive pattern can be easier, in my opinion, where you just have to think about a group of colors and shapes to repeat across the top of the dough. See below for two types of patterns you could create:

Above: whether you create a spiral design like at left or a radial design like at right, special attention can also be paid to the shades and colors and how they are placed (i.e. at left the greener leek slices are together followed by the white slices). Arranging by color as well as pattern creates a pleasing arrangement that is easy on the eyes.

Ingredient notes for focaccia

• Instant yeast: with the intention of creating a risen dough on the same day as cooking the focaccia, I use instant yeast. It makes sense to use the faster rising yeast for faster rising dough, that is also easiest to work with (no proofing in lukewarm water with honey is needed).
• All purpose flour: you can certainly substitute bread flour, though I haven’t tried it yet. I have seen it specified in many recipes, though, so I know it’s possible. It has more gluten and more protein, so maybe it creates a springier focaccia.
• Salt: I’ve learned a lot over time about the types of salt. I use sea salt exclusively. If you use Diamond kosher which many professional chefs swear by, see notes for different measurements, since the crystals are larger. Morton kosher crystals a smaller than diamond, but larger than sea salt crystals, so I’ve provided the differing amounts, depending on which you use.
• Olive oil: since it is a key ingredient that you will really taste, I suggest an extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) that isn’t bitter.
• Vegetables: use vegetables that caramalize well and look great, such as small or cherry tomatoes, leeks and shiitake mushrooms. Red, yellow, orange or green sweet peppers as well as onions would be great (used in the rectangular focaccia at the bottom of the post) as would whole, halved or crushed olives.

Above: you can see that I’ve taken great care in how I sliced all the veggies so that they look pretty when laid on top of the dough.

Steps to make focaccia with a short rise time

Mixing the no-knead focaccia dough couldn’t be simpler and is why as a beginner baker, I was drawn to make it.

Steps 1, 2. Mix the dry ingredients, add the water and mix with a spoon until the dry streaks of flour are gone, but don’t over mix.

Steps 3, 4. Once the dough is mixed it will still look shaggy as shown below at left. Use the spoon to hold the dough aside and pour in 2 tbsp of olive oil. Release the dough, turn, and rotate it to coat it with the oil, then cover with a cloth.

Steps 5, and 6 or 7. Once the dough has risen (see recipe card for using my warm oven hack to speed up the rise), it should have doubled in size and when you poke the surface with a finger, an indentation should remain a little, showing that you’ve released some air. Pour the risen dough into the prepared pan (see recipe card) and leave to rise at room temp or warm oven again, until doubled, about one hour more.

Photo 6 shows dumping dough into sheet pan, while photo 7 shows dumping the dough into a round cast iron pan (if you divide the dough into two sections).

Steps 8, 9. Now it’s time to cut your veggies and decorate the focaccia. You can follow my suggested designs above or create your own. Don’t space out the veggies too much, because, as you can see below, they shrink back when cooked, and the goal here is to have a focaccia with lots of veggies on top once baked, not just a few bits here and there.

Above and below: you can see how closely I laid the veggies for the radial design and what the design looks like when the focaccia is baked. Note that if you condense the veggies much more than shown at left, the weight of them may prevent as much rising by the focaccia during baking.

Step 10. Bake the focaccia in a very hot, preheated 450 degree oven, for up to 30 min until golden. The hydration of the flour contributes to the long bake time (relative to the high oven temp). Slice and enjoy with more flaky sea salt right away, serve at table once cooled and/or reheat the next day for deliciousness.

Tips for making focaccia topped with vegetables

• Spacing of vegetables: place veggies close together when decorating, because they will become farther apart after cooking.
• Amount of vegetables: I’ve used different amounts of veggies to decorate the focaccia. The more you use, the more they keep the focaccia from rising while cooking. What’s shown in the photos here, works well, but many more than shown do weigh down the focaccia from rising as much.
• Slicing and choice of vegetables: take time to choose veggies in colors and sizes that will look nice once sliced and used to decorate. If you don’t want to make a pattern, just sprinkle the veggies over the dough. It will still taste great!
• Use a warm oven for the rises: heat the oven to 160 ish (the “keep warm” setting), then open it up for a few seconds. This lowers the temp to below 120 (yeast dies above 120 degrees). Place the bowl of covered dough into the oven and close the door. If this feels too fussy or you are afraid you won’t keep the temp low enough, you can keep the oven off, and just turn the light on in the oven while the dough rises (another genius hack, if you ask me). Also, if it’s warm outside, but your house is air conditioned, you can put the dough outside to rise in the 85-100 degree natural heat, covered of course.
• Yeast: if you happen to only have active dry yeast on hand versus the instant yeast, then see recipe notes for subbing that in. No problem, I’ve used both with similar results.

Variations of making focaccia

• Two round focaccias: as per the rest of the post, I’ve featured the dough divided and baked in a 10″ cast iron skillet. You can cook both rounds at once, or leave one half of the dough in the fridge 1-3 days before using. If you do that, your 2nd rise takes longer because you are bringing the dough up to room temperature before it will rise more.
• One large focaccia: below you can see how a beautiful, large, rectangular focaccia can be achieved with an 11″ x 17″ or similar sized sheet pan. Make sure to butter and oil as per recipe card, regardless of what pan you use. A glass lasagna pan can also be used (be sure to butter well), for a thicker focaccia, that may take a bit longer to cook.
• Potatoes: I love to add potato slices onto a focaccia (shown below). They should be pre-cooked, and brushed with oil like the other veggies ideally. This can make the focaccia a heartier side or meal or bread to serve alongside a soup.
• Longer rise: If you aren’t convinced you’ll get a good rise or tasty focaccia from this faster rise method, feel free to put the dough aside all day or in the fridge overnight. The spiral decorated focaccia in this post was left in the fridge overnight and honestly it did not yield a taller, more bubbly result than the same day rise. When all is said and done the super bubbly photos and videos you see online that look so crazy seem to mostly be for show, not for more flavor. Admittedly, though, if you used sourdough starter, you might get closer to that bubble size with a more tangy flavor. I hope to try it one day!