Bread salad is at the heart of cucina povera. Just like bread pudding, it’s a great way to use up stale bread. But even in Italy it often starts with something store-bought, in this case freselle, a double baked toasted wheat bread that is hard as a rock and looks like thinly sliced bagel rounds. (I was also taught this recipe by Viola Buittoni in Umbria and she uses 5-day-old stale bread and dips the torn pieces in water to refresh.)

In Calabria, I visited Giancarlo Suriano, founder of Suriano, a purveyor of Calabrian ingredients, for a lesson in panzanella. He used freselle. The rest of the salad was great, but I missed the texture of real bread—crispy on the outside and with some chew on the inside—so we took a rustic sourdough loaf, tore it into one-inch pieces, tossed it with salt and extra-virgin olive oil, and then toasted it in a skillet. This is an incredibly useful recipe on its own—it makes wonderful croutons that can be added to almost anything from soup to salads.

The salad is simple enough. We find that Campari or cocktail tomatoes have the best flavor and we salt them and let them stand in a colander for 20 minutes to release excess juice. Most of the flavor comes from capers, olives, red onion and peppers that have just a hint of heat (cubanelle in this case, but banana peppers or Anaheim chilies also work well). Oregano, basil and red pepper flakes plus a good helping of high-quality olive oil finish off the recipe.

I noticed that Giancarlo crushed a few dried chilies over the top of the salad before serving, which is not a bad idea. I would choose guajillos (or dried Calabrian chilies) since they are mild and fruity. Timing is also key—he let the salad sit for an hour because the freselle need time to absorb the juices. Since we were using skillet croutons that are softer, a 10-minute resting period was fine. Giancarlo also used dried capers and a lot of them, a full quarter cup. We substituted capers packed in brine and used three tablespoons.

This is not a recipe that is made well ahead of time—you want to serve panzanella when the croutons have absorbed some of the juices without becoming soggy. It’s that perfect moment when crunch meets chew that is key. So, when planning ahead, I would add the bread just a few minutes before serving, tossing a few times, to get the perfect texture.

Christopher Kimball

Christopher Kimball is founder of Milk Street, which produces Milk Street Magazine, Milk Street Television on PBS, and the weekly public radio show Milk Street Radio. He founded Cook’s Magazine in 1980 and was host and executive producer of America’s Test Kitchen until 2016. Kimball is the author of several books, including "The Yellow Farmhouse" and "Fannie’s Last Supper."