Delicious Grilled Panzanella Salad with colorful sweet bell peppers, artichoke hearts, and white beans tossed in a flavorful white balsamic dressing. Make it on the barbecue for an easy outdoor summer meal with your favorite grilled protein! Vegan!
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Byron Katie
This Tuscan-style grilled panzanella salad also known as Italian Bread Salad is perfect for warm summer nights. We take the classic panzanella salad recipe, but grill it. No indoor cooking is needed! But really, it is so tasty and easy, you’ll be making it all year round ( and yes you can use a grill pan on your stove top. Grilled colorful bell peppers along with sweet onion and grilled rustic bread get a boost in flavor from a little toasty char. Tossed with white beans, artichokes, and lots of fresh peppery basil, it’s dressed with a simple flavorful white balsamic vinaigrette. Pretty satisfying as is or fancy it up with chèvre ( or feta cheese) and kalamata olives. Check out these warm weather recipes for more inspiration 75+ Light & Healthy Summer Recipes and 50 Grilling Recipes for Summer.
Table of Contents
Ingredients in Grilled Panzanella Salad
Ingredient Notes
- Grill-able Veggies: Red bell pepper, yellow bell pepper, zucchini, summer squash
- Sweet onion- so good grilled, feel free to swap out with yellow onion, white onion or red onion.
- White beans- these add a creamy protein richness. Swap out with chickpeas or kidney beans.
- Rustic bread- thick slices crusty sourdough is perfect here for grillingsourdough, country white, or multi-grain. Day-old bakery bread is perfect! Or use your own sourdough bread!
- White balsamic vinegar- we love the flavor here but you can also use champagne vinegar, rice vinegar, white wine vinegar, red wine vinegar, or apple cider vinegar.
- Olive oil– good quality extra virgin olive oil is the best.
- Fresh Herbs – we use fresh basil, but flat leaf parsley, would be tasty too.
- Optional Additions: Cherry tomatoes or heirloom tomatoes, sturdy lettuce, like romaine, cucumbers, feta cheese, capers, kalamata olives.
How to make Grilled Panzanella Salad
Step One: Slice bread about 1 inch thick. If your bread is already sliced- no problem! Just watch it on the grill, as the thinner it is the more quickly it will toast. Cut peppers into about 4 pieces per pepper, cutting so there is more flat surface area to grill.
Step Two: Preheat the grill. Brush bread and peppers with oil and salt. Grill hot until lightly charred, yet still leaving the peppers and onions with a little crunch, and the bread toasty. Set grilled veggies aside to cool.
Step Three: Whisk up the vinaigrette in a small bowl. This is a lovely bright and subtly sweet dressing that works well for a lot of tender summer green salads.
Step Four: Assemble the salad in a large bowl.
Add the drained beans, artichoke hearts, and dressing to your bowl. Add torn basil leaves.
Step Five: Tear in the grilled bread. This gives irregular edges that soak up the dressing yet still leave crunchy crusty parts. Alternatively, you can cube the bread with a knife and it may stay a bit more crusty if that is your preference.
To SERVE: Toss salad all together and serve immediately! This is a fun one for entertaining outdoor dinner parties. It is easy to throw together while visiting with guests.
Grilled Panzanella Recipe FAQS
A nice crusty sourdough is great for this- rustic sourdough, country white, or multi-grain. Day-old bakery bread is perfect! Or use your own sourdough bread!
This salad is believed to be invented in the 1500’s as to not waste food. Stale bread and ripe vegetables thrown together created a masterpiece that we love to this day! Pane means ‘bread’ and zanella means ‘soup bowl’.
Tuscan bread salad or Panzanella is made of stale bread and juicy fruit or veggies. The bread soaks up all the luscious juices of the dressing and salad ingredients creating a hearty delicious salad.
Panzanella originates from the Italian countryside, where farmers would combine surplus vegetables with old bread to create a hearty meal.
What to Serve with Grilled Panzanella Salad
The salad can be served on its own as a main course salad as well!
More Recipes You May Enjoy
Hope you enjoy the salad and please let us know if you make it, and rate it in the comments below!
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Grilled Panzanella Salad
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 8 cups 1x
- Category: Salad, vegan
- Method: Grilled
- Cuisine: Italian
- Diet: Vegan
Description
Grilled Panzanella Salad with colorful bell peppers, artichoke hearts, and white beans tossed in a flavorful white balsamic dressing. Make it on the grill for easy outdoor summer meals! Simple to make and totally vegan!
Ingredients
Salad
- 1/2 of a rustic bread loaf, about 4 slices, cut into 1 ” slices (smaller is fine if your loaf is pre-sliced)
- 3 bell peppers varies colors, cutting so there is more flat surface area to grill, about 4 pieces per pepper ( or add grilled zucchini and summer squash)
- 1 sweet onion, slice in 1/2″ thick rings
- olive oil for brushing
- 15 oz white beans, drained- see notes.
- 15 oz artichoke hearts in water, drained, and sliced into bite-size pieces
- 1 cup basil leaves, torn
- optional additions: romaine, cherry tomatoes,kalamata olives, capers, feta or goat cheese
Vinaigrette
- 1/2 cup white balsamic
- 4 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat grill to medium high.
- Brush olive oil on all sides of peppers, onions and bread slices. Sprinkle with salt just before placing on a preheated hot grill.
- Grill until peppers and onions are lightly charred on both sides and the bread slices are toasty on both sides. Set aside to cool.
- In a small bowl, whisk the vinaigrette.
- Drain the white beans and place them in the bowl with the artichoke hearts.
- Add half of the vinaigrette and toss together.
- Cut the grilled veggies into bite-size pieces and tear the bread into bite-sized pieces and toss in the bowl along with fresh basil leaves.
- Taste and add more dressing and salt and pepper as needed.
- Toss or top with any optional additions: cherry tomatoes, chopped romaine, kalamata, or cheese if you like.
Notes
You may not need all the dressing- keep it up to 5 days, it is great on a green salad, steamed greens, grilled veggies.
Feel free to leave out the white beans, or swap out for this grilled chicken, sliced, or cut into bite sized pieces.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cup
- Calories: 325
- Sugar: 8.2 g
- Sodium: 477.9 mg
- Fat: 11.2 g
- Saturated Fat: 1.6 g
- Carbohydrates: 49.6 g
- Fiber: 18.5 g
- Protein: 12.6 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
I’ve been eyeing this recipe for some time and decided tonight was the night. My husband isn’t a fan of peppers, and I had some brocolli and cauliflower that needed to be used, everything else was the same. The result was YUMILICIOUS! Thank you for your tireless efforts at helping us keep it tasty and healthy.
This is great Barb! Sounds yummy.
This was delicious!! I added some chopped romaine but otherwise followed the directions. Thanks for this healthy, yummy recipe! 🙂
Love it Kelly! I enjoy romaine in this salad too!
Almost as good as a trip to Italy!!! 🙂
Great to hear!
This recipe was a hit! We served this with grilled chicken and sausage. The flavors and colors were incredible with a lot to share and enjoy as leftovers the next evening. Thank you for sharing your recipes. I absolutely love them.
So happy to hear you are enjoying!
This was so good! I loved it. So nice I could make so much of it ahead of time too. A keeper!
Glad you enjoyed this Jen!
I know this will be amazing! Can’t wait to make it when I get home. I will add grilled romaine lettuce and some beautifully ripe tomatoes.
Sounds so good Roberta!
Great recipe. Thanks
Thanks so much Shirley!
Always soooo flavorful! Love all your recipes. Full of flavor and healthy.
Thanks so much Ursula- So happy you enjoyed this!
I’ve been eye-balling this recipe for a while and finally made it tonight to serve with hot-smoked beef Tri Tip. It’s absolutely delicious and I will certainly make it again. It was so hot today that we couldn’t grill outside (we use charcoal and wood), so I had to use the broiler in my oven but it worked! as for a possible addition, I think some chopped fresh parsley would add a nice touch but not at all necessary as it’s perfect just as written. This recipe is a great way to use up your day old (or older) home made bread. Thanks for another great recipe!
Awesome to hear Celine!
would your grilled chipotle chicken recipe be a good addition to the salad or no?
I bet it would be yummy!
This is delicious!
awesome!
Loved this! Had to stop myself from having a third helping. Lol.
Haha!Great to hear Jessika!
Fabulous! Everyone at the table loved the combination of flavors. Tangy, yet slightly sweet, I will definitely be making this recipe throughout the summer. We served it with fresh halibut, but it could easily stand alone. Thanks for all the great recipes. Everyone I’ve tried has been a hit.
Thanks JoAnne!
This is amazing. ♥️ Full stop.
Glad you enjoyed!
Great summer recipe. The whole family loved it! I made some shrimps and the tomatoes vinaigrette to serve with.
Wonderful. So glad you are enjoying the recipes!
Very tangy dressing. Loved how the crispy bread soaked up the yummy dressing.
I made this last night. Loved how the crispy bread soaked up the yummy dressing. Very Tangy!
Great to hear Watson!
This was delicious and so easy to make.
Glad you liked it Sarah!
Wonderful when made with sourdough, thank you!
Perfect! Thanks Lauren!
Absolutely fabulous! I really loved the dressing!
Thanks Maria! So happy you enjoyed!
Made this tonight for the two of us. YUMMY! Thank you so much for this recipe! It’s a keeper!
oh yay! thanks Christine!
I haven’t made this yet, but will likely tomorrow! Raining here today. Did you use water packed artichokes in a tin or in oil?
If I might add your site is my go to for recipies. Everything works, it’s trustworthy and our meals come out beautifully. The recipies are all so adaptable as well,. I have shared it with my daughters and friends and co workers.. I had one friend who forgot I had sent her the link last year send me a recipe to tell me I had to try your website. Co workers ask when I have leftovers for lunch what smells so good and so the are introduced to Feasting at Home.
Artichokes in water!
Thanks so much for the kind words. We really appreciate hearing this!
Question: No lightly grilling the bread before slicing it and adding it to the salad? Or preference for day old bread? Any concern that it will get soggy quickly?
Hi Mary- the bread is grilled in slices along with the peppers and onions. Day old bread works great, but I also use fresh and just toast it well. Toss the bread in just before serving and it is both perfectly crusty and soft where it picks up the dressing.😊