Vegan Focaccia Bread {Italian Rosemary & Olive}

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Olive Rosemary Vegan Focaccia Bread
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This delicious vegan focaccia bread recipe was generously sponsored by our friends at Bono, makers of the delicious extra-virgin olive oil we used to make this bread. We used olives and fresh rosemary, but you can add in any focaccia toppings you’d like! Black pepper, cherry tomatoes, pesto, sun dried tomatoes, basil — the sky is the limit. Enjoy!

I’ve loved focaccia bread ever since I was a little girl. My mom used to take me to a local bakery that had shelves stocked full of all different varieties of fresh-baked bread. I’d always head straight for the pillowy rosemary-infused focaccia sprinkled with chunky sea salt. 

Fast-forward a few decades to today, and now I make my own focaccia bread from scratch at home! It’s a surprisingly easy endeavor. Focaccia can be made with just six base ingredients (plus any fun add-ins you desire). It takes a while as you have to let your dough rise (or “prove”) for a few hours, but the method is simple. And my-oh-my will it be worth the wait when you smell the aroma of freshly baked focaccia wafting through your home! 

delicious picnic style focaccia bread on a wood cutting board with chunky salt olive oil and rosemary

In this recipe, I’m going to share my favorite way to make focaccia. I love making focaccia with olives and fresh rosemary (my personal favorite combo!) but you can absolutely mix it up however you’d like by adding tomatoes, caramelized onions, garlic, red pepper flakes, or any number of other ingredients. I’m including more ideas for you below.

While this one is made with all-purpose flour, I do love a heartier bread too. You can also make whole wheat focaccia with wholemeal flour. It adds a delicious nutty note to the bread!

Delicious Vegan Focaccia Toppings

If you love focaccia as much as I do, you’ll have lots of fun playing around with different varieties! You can even split the dough in two (or three or four) and make several different varieties in a single baking sesh. 

Here are some of my favorite focaccia toppings:

  • Olives
  • Rosemary
  • Cherry Tomatoes
  • Garlic
  • Mushrooms
  • Green Onions
  • Raw Onions (thinly sliced)
  • Caramelized Onions
  • Greens (spinach focaccia and basil focaccia are both really delicious)
  • Peppers (I’m all for a spicy jalapeno focaccia!)
  • Vegan Cheese (how about some vegan feta focaccia?)
  • Black Pepper (like the popular Panera black pepper focaccia)

Holiday-Themed Focaccia Bread Decorating Ideas

You can also have fun decorating! See if you can create some holiday themed designs with your focaccia bread to make:

  • Halloween focaccia (can you create a ghost or bats with your black olives?)
  • Christmas focaccia (can you create a Christmas tree shape with the rosemary?)
  • Easter focaccia (who’s ready for the bunny focaccia challenge?)
  • Valentine’s Day focaccia (shape your bread into a heart or create a heart design with your favorite focaccia toppings)

See How This Vegan Focaccia Bread is Made!

Use High-Quality Olive Oil

Focaccia gets much of its delicious flavor from olive oil, so it’s important to use a really high-quality extra virgin olive oil in this recipe.

Extra virgin olive oil is made from pure cold-pressed olives. Other types of olive oil are lower-grade, refined, and can even be a blend of other processed oils. If you did an olive oil taste test you’d notice that olive oils that aren’t labeled “extra-virgin” are often lacking or completely void of flavor. 

I used this organic Sicilian extra virgin olive oil from Bono. Bono is a longstanding company that has been around since 1934 and runs the biggest oil mill in all of Sicily. Their olive oil is aromatic and rich in both color and flavor. If you’ve never had a high-quality Italian olive oil before, I highly recommend giving this a try!

Shaping Your Focaccia Bread

This recipe makes a dough that can be shaped in a number of different ways.

Want one big uniform rectangular focaccia loaf? You can spread the dough into a large baking dish. I used one like this 7″ x 11″ Pyrex dish) which creates a thick focaccia (pictured above). 

Alternately, you can shape the dough however you’d like on a large baking pan. You can make one giant loaf or split the dough into two, three, or four separate parts. Shape it to be round, oval, or oblong to look extra-rustic—the choice is yours!

I whipped up another batch of vegan focaccia today. I separated the dough into two parts and spread them into oblong ovals on an oiled baking pan. They came out looking rustic and beautiful (this is the bread featured in the cover photo of this article)! 

Vegan Bread-making, Here We Come!

Breadmaking is one of my favorite types of baking. If you give it a chance, I imagine it will quickly become one of yours too. The steps are simple, and it’s really fun seeing what some flour, yeast, and water can do when you help them work their magic.

Making bread can be a test of patience, for sure, and takes some forethought and planning. But as soon as you fill your home with the smell of baked bread, you’ll be hooked.

Might I recommend whipping up a batch the next time you want to make some happy memories with friends? After all, scent is the strongest sense tied to memory!

Olive Rosemary Vegan Focaccia Bread Recipe

More Vegan Baking Recipes

I’ve been binge-watching The Great British Bake Off on Netflix with my hubby. Have you seen it? It’s addicting. And now I have quite the vegan baking bug.

I’ve baked more goodies over the past 6 months than I ever have in my life. I now love the process of testing and perfecting recipes. And when they get really good, then I get to share them with you! 

Other Deliciously Baked Recipes

If you’re new to vegan baking, be sure to check out our plant-based egg substitutes guide! Studying this guide will make it easy for you to veganize all your favorite recipes. 

Easy Vegan Focaccia Bread | WorldofVegan.com | #vegan #focaccia #bread #recipe #homemade #food
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Vegan Focaccia Bread

5 from 10 votes
Tie up your apron and make yourself a batch of this delicious fresh-baked vegan focaccia bread. Fluffy, fresh, and fantastically comforting, you’re not gonna want to sit this one out!
Olive Rosemary Vegan Focaccia Bread
Prep Time 25 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Time to allow the dough to rise 2 hours
Total Time 2 hours 45 minutes
Servings 12

Ingredients

  • cups warm water
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1 0.25 ounce packet active dry yeast
  • 4 cups unbleached, white, all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, stem removed
  • 1 handful olives
  • cup extra-virgin olive oil
  • cup water
  • sprinkle of course ground salt, to taste
  • additional olive oil for drizzling, optional

Instructions

  • Add warm water, sugar, and active dry yeast to a small bowl, stir, and allow to sit for 10 – 15 minutes.
  • In a large mixing bowl, add the flour, salt, and wet yeast mixture, and mix together until a dough forms.
  • Flip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface (such as a clean countertop), and knead for 5 – 10 minutes.
  • Clean out the mixing bowl and coat the bowl lightly with oil. Place the ball of dough into the bowl, flipping to coat with oil. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and allow to rise in a warm area (such as near the stove) for 1.5 hours, or until the dough doubles in size.
  • Place the risen dough back onto your lightly floured surface once more and very gently tumble it around to “knock the air out” before shaping the dough and placing it onto an oiled baking pan or baking dish.
  • You have a few options for shaping your dough. You can spread the entire mass into a 7″ x 11″ baking dish (this will produce a thicker and very uniform rectangular focaccia). For a more rustic hand-formed focaccia, you can spread the dough onto a large baking sheet in one big mass or break it into two, three, or four mini-loaves.
  • Once shaped on your oiled baking dish or pan, lightly coat the dough with oil, cover with a damp cloth or oiled plastic wrap, and leave to rise for another 30 minutes.
  • Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
  • Remove the cloth or plastic wrap from the dough and add your toppings. Press the olives, fresh rosemary sprigs, and anything else you’d like to add deep into the dough. Using your finger, stab the rest of the dough to create the classic focaccia indents that will catch the oil. Push your fingers from the top of the dough straight down all the way through to the bottom. Continue across the entire surface until the full loaf is covered with finger indents spaced about an inch (or less) apart.
  • In a jar or container with a lid, add the ⅓ cup of olive oil and ⅓ cup of water and shake vigorously until combined. Pour this mixture on top of your dough (it will hang out in the finger indents you just made).
  • Bake for 20 minutes until very lightly browned on top. Remove, sprinkle with chunky salt, and enjoy!

Video

Nutrition

Calories: 289kcal | Carbohydrates: 32g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 16g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 11g | Sodium: 417mg | Potassium: 49mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 0.5g | Vitamin A: 16IU | Vitamin C: 0.1mg | Calcium: 10mg | Iron: 2mg
Course — Bread, Side Dish
Cuisine — Italian
Love this Recipe? Leave a Rating!And follow @Vegan on Instagram for more.

Many thanks to Bono olive oil for generously supporting our work here at World of Vegan!

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5 from 10 votes

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Recipe Rating




11 comments
  1. 5 stars
    I am obsessed with this recipe! The rosemary and olives are such a good combo!

  2. 5 stars
    Thanks so very much for this recipe! I do have a question. Is the 6th ingredient (0.5C EVOO) for outer coating, post-kneading? Or is it added during step 2? Don’t want to add 0.5C of extra oil directly unless explicit. I see that I add 1/3C in step 11. Thanks again 🙂

    • The first 1/2 cup oil is for the bowl and pan, the second amount (1/3 cup) is for coating the top of it before baking. Hope you enjoy it!

  3. 5 stars
    One of the most fun breads to make! I love punching my fingers in the dough and adding a different mix of toppings each time I make it 🙂

  4. 5 stars
    This bread is super yummy, I will love to try this

  5. 5 stars
    I just made this for my family and they loved it!! Especially my teenage son…and he’s picky about bread. It was much easier than it looked and smelled like heaven while it was baking. Definitely going to make this again!

  6. 5 stars
    OMG. I was JUST talking to one of my patients about making bread! Can’t wait to make this and tell her all about it!

  7. Beatriz Buono-Core says:

    5 stars
    Olive oil and bread are a combination made in heaven! Seriously, one of life’s biggest pleasures. This focaccia is both in one and I absolutely love it!

  8. 5 stars
    We love delicious bread and high quality olive oil so this focaccia is a favorite. Rosemary, garlic and caramelized onions are our favorite add- ins. Delicious!

  9. 5 stars
    My hubby asks me to make this like EVERY DAY, I’m not kidding!! I need to make it again soon! So good.

  10. 5 stars
    Focaccia is one of my all time favorite foods and I’ve always been a bit intimidated of making it but this eases my nerves quite a bit. Over quarantine I’ve gotten really comfortable with making my own flatbread so this shouldn’t be too hard!

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