On the Menu:

Balsamic Strawberry Panzanella

Today we were so lucky to have Chef Armin come in today to teach our class how to make a balsamic strawberry panzanella! Essentially, it was a bread salad! This recipe was really easy to make and only takes a few ingredients, there are only two things you really have to cook!

To start off, we had students use a serrated knife to cut the bread into 1 inch cubes. QUICK TIP: Saw the knife back and forth to cut the bread nicely.

After you have your nicely cubed pieces of bread, lightly season the bread with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Then you can toss the bread together! We spread the bread cubes out onto a baking tray layered with parchment paper and baked it for about 7 minutes at 350 degrees.

On another note, everything needs to be around the same size to be easy to eat in the salad! We moved onto the strawberries next, he had gotten the strawberries from Watsonville at a farmer’s market. They were so ripe and perfectly sweet! Chef Armin showed us how to properly hull the strawberry’s green part and had everyone slice the strawberries into quarters.

We continued on to the mozzarella and diced them into cubes. Then rinsed the arugula for the rest of the salad!

We also took the balsamic vinegar and heated it up in a saucepan to reduce it to half the amount and intensify the flavors of the vinegar!

Overall this recipe was super easy and fresh for the spring, we had such a good time creating this dish with Chef Armin and enjoyed the bread salad!!

We’ve listed the recipes below if you need it and if any of you try it out, please share it with us on Instagram @cooking_project or #thecookingproject.

Balsamic Strawberry Panzanella Recipe:

2 cups of stale bread (1″ cubes)
1 cups of strawberries (quartered)
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup basil (chiffonade)
1/4 cup mozzarella (cubed)
1 cup additional greens
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper

• Preheat oven or toaster oven to 350 degrees
• Place bread cubes in a large bowl, drizzle with generous amount of olive oil, season with salt and pepper, toss together, and spread onto a sheet pan
• Bake for about 14 minutes, stirring half way through, or until crispy on the outside, but not toasted all the way through
• Meanwhile, heat balsamic vinegar in a saucepan until boiling then lower to a simmer, reduce by half or until it coats the back of spoon (about 10 minutes)
• In a large bowl toss together bread, strawberries, basil, mozzarella, and greens
• Drizzle balsamic reduction over salad and serve