Easy Rosemary Garlic Focaccia Bread

How to make the best focaccia bread that’s perfectly crisp on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside. This easy recipe is perfect for both beginners and seasoned bread bakers! Jump to the Rosemary Garlic Focaccia Recipe

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Focaccia Bread, Our Favorite Yeast Bread to Make at Home

Focaccia is our favorite yeast bread to make at home. It has a crisp outside and soft inside, and is perfect to serve with dinner, soups, stews, or even sliced in half and used for sandwiches. Thanks to the ingredients, it’s also naturally vegan. This garlic focaccia bread recipe is very simple to make – no fancy equipment is needed at all.

Focaccia Ingredients, Explained

Extra-virgin olive oil is what makes focaccia taste so unbelievably delicious. It adds to the texture as well as the flavor of the bread.

I truly believe that the secret to the best focaccia bread is using a great-tasting olive oil. You don’t need to spend lots of money, just use the olive oil you enjoy. We have Partanna Extra Virgin Olive Oil in our kitchen and love it.

Fresh garlic is essential for perfect garlic focaccia. I use two cloves, but for a really garlicky bread, you can increase that.

Fresh herbs are also excellent. Use what you love and have available to you. I love rosemary focaccia, so I always use fresh rosemary. In the photos below, I’ve also added some fresh thyme. If you don’t have access to fresh herbs, we have shared dried substitutes in the recipe below.

Yeast, warm water, and sugar help the bread rise and give it structure. The warmth of the water and the sugar wake up the yeast. Use honey, maple syrup, or sugar.

All-purpose flour is perfect for making focaccia bread. You can use bread flour, but the bread will be a bit chewier.

Salt and pepper make the bread taste amazing. Just like when we season soups and sauces, it’s important to season bread dough.

Steps for Making Focaccia Bread From Scratch

As I mentioned above, focaccia bread is one of our favorite yeast breads to make at home. It’s perfect for beginner bread bakers.

Our easy recipe makes delicious fresh bread in no time and requires very little from you. Here are the basic steps with photos for making it. The full detailed recipe is below.

1. Infuse olive oil with garlic and fresh herbs. This simple step makes the bread unbelievably delicious.
2. Mix yeast with warm water and honey. This wakes up the yeast so that it is ready to help the dough rise.
3. Add the flour, salt, and some of the garlic herb oil to the yeast mixture, and then knead the dough 10 to 15 times (no more kneading is necessary).
4. Let the dough rise until doubled in size (about 1 hour).
5. Add the dough to a small sheet pan or baking dish and add dimples to the top of the dough and top with the remaining garlic herb oil.
6. Let the bread rise for another 20 minutes, and then bake until golden brown.

Focaccia Variations

One of the best things about this focaccia bread recipe is that it’s completely versatile. In our case, we like to infuse olive oil with herbs and garlic.

If you prefer, you can leave the garlic and herbs out and use plain olive oil, it will still be delicious. Or add even more flavor to the dough before baking with sliced olives, halved cherry tomatoes, or sun-dried tomatoes. Adding bits of roasted garlic over the bread would also be amazing!

You can even treat the baked focaccia like a pizza. When it is baked, top it with your favorite cheese, pepperoni, or tomatoes and bake until bubbly.

Make-Ahead Tips

Since posting this recipe, many of you have asked if it is possible to proof the focaccia dough overnight. You can!

Here’s what we recommend: Instead of proofing the dough at room temperature for one hour, place the dough into a resealable zipper bag and refrigerate it overnight. You can also freeze it for future use.

The next day, remove the dough from the refrigerator and let it warm up for 20 to 30 minutes before preheating the oven. Place the remaining garlic olive oil mixture into a 9-inch by 13-inch rimmed baking sheet.

Transfer the dough to the baking sheet then press it down into the pan. Use your fingers to dimple the dough then drizzle the top with the remaining 2 tablespoons of the garlic olive oil mixture.

Let the dough rise for 20 minutes until it puffs slightly. Bake as directed.

(If you froze the dough, leave it at room temperature for several hours first, or defrost overnight in the refrigerator, and then follow the instructions above.)

Storing Tips

Refrigerate or freeze leftover focaccia. Wrap it tightly in plastic wrap, then in foil. Keep in the refrigerator up to 2 days and in the freezer for about a month.

Day old bread can be toasted and used as croutons for a salad – You could always throw them on top of our Easy Caesar Salad. Another option is to cut into cubes and use in a bread pudding or strata.

What to Serve with Focaccia

We love serving focaccia next to a bowl of these Tender Turkey Meatballs. The sauce is made from scratch, light, and is very simple to make.

For more garlicky goodness, dip slices of focaccia into our Ridiculously Easy Olive Oil Dip.

I love dipping focaccia into soups, try our Creamy Vegetable Soup or our Three-Ingredient Tomato Soup.

More Easy Bread Recipes

• If you’re out of yeast, try our No Yeast Flatbread Recipe!
• If you love garlic bread, try our Buttery Garlic Bread or this Cheesy Garlic Bread.
• With a few simple ingredients and about 1 hour of hands-off proofing time, you can make Soft and Fluffy Flatbread from scratch.
• Another really easy bread recipe, this Easy Beer Bread with only four main ingredients.
• Try our easy Homemade Cornbread! It’s golden-brown on the outside and tender on the inside.

Recipe updated, originally posted January 2013. Since posting this in 2013, we have tweaked the recipe to be more clear. – Adam and Joanne