Thin and Crispy No Fuss Ligurian Focaccia

Speed and flavor combine Wonder Twins-style in this version of thin and crispy Ligurian focaccia bread that you can whip out of the oven 2 hours after you first think about making it. It's quick, easy and uses simple ingredients. Slice it into breadsticks or serve it with a bit of charcuterie and whipped homemade goat cheese as a snack.

Focaccia is one of my favorite bread types of all time. And Ligurian focaccia, with its unique saltwater brine (!!!) and thin, crispy texture, is one of my favorite easy snacking breads. Perfect for slicing into slabs or breadsticks for dipping in my best tomato and herb olive oil bread dip!

It's also a great recipe for beginner bakers, as there's no complicated kneading or shaping required! And if you end up with leftover focaccia, you can always turn it into these crunchy homemade focaccia croutons!

This is a Beginner-Friendly Focaccia — and it's FAST too!

When I first got into bread making, I fell in love with King Arthur Baking Company's trusty "No-Fuss Focaccia" recipe. It's an exceptional beginner's focaccia recipe because there's no kneading required and it has a short rise time. It bakes up thick and fluffy, perfect for making sandwiches.

I didn't think I needed another focaccia recipe in my life. But then, in the "Fat" episode of Netflix's "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat," host and chef Samin Nosrat visited Liguria, Italy and learned how to make their regional variation of focaccia: Ligurian Focaccia. It's a thin-and-crispy focaccia that has a long, slow rise and a unique saltwater brine poured over the dough before baking. It's great cut into breadsticks or for snacking. I fell in love with that focaccia too.

Both are relatively simple versions of focaccia bread, and there are reasons to use either one — depending on how much time you have, what kind of pan you want to use, how much bread you want to make, or what techniques you want to try.

As much as I loved the more intense flavor and thin and crispy texture of Ligurian focaccia and the ease and speed of King Arthur's thick, fluffy no-fuss focaccia, I'm a recipe developer at heart. I wanted the best of both worlds.

So I took the things I loved about each recipe and married them into the focaccia recipe you'll find here. I took the speediness of the No-Fuss Focaccia and combined it with the thin, crispy texture and saltwater brine of Ligurian Focaccia to create a focaccia that's somewhere between the two, flavor-wise.

The best part? It clocks in at just around 2 hours start to finish. And it's SO easy to make.

Ingredient Notes

Here are all the ingredients you'll need to make this speedy Ligurian focaccia. I've included some notes below for ingredients you'll want to be sure you get right. See recipe card (at the end of the blog post) for ingredient quantities.

Salt: Focaccia is a SALTY bread. I use Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt which is half as salty as other brands and has larger, airier crystals that dissolve quickly in water which makes it ideal for the saltwater brine. I do recommend measuring your salt by weight—you can use any type of salt you like in that case. But if you're measuring by volume (teaspoons, etc.) and using a different brand of salt, even a different brand of kosher salt, cut the amount of salt in half.

Olive Oil: Focaccia is also an OILY bread. Any olive oil you like will work in this recipe but having tried several varieties in my test baking, I recommend sticking with a mild flavored olive oil. You will definitely taste the oil here so pick one with a flavor you like.

Honey: Honey provides the sugars necessary for the yeast to eat and for the dough to brown. It's a fairly small amount so while I do recommend using honey from a reputable company, you're not really going to taste the honey here.

Use your stand mixer to make the dough

As far as bread recipes go, you'd be hard pressed to find anything that comes together faster than this. You basically beat all the ingredients together with the paddle attachment of your mixer for 60 seconds. That's it! That's the whole thing!

Pro-Tip: Start the mixer on low, gradually increasing the speed as the water absorbs into the flour. This will happen fairly quickly, about 20 seconds. Once you're not at risk of flour clouds spraying everywhere, bump the speed to medium. Start the 60 second timer once it reaches medium speed.

Once the dough is mixed, you'll also want to make your saltwater brine and set it aside for later. Even though you don't need to use it for over an hour, this will help ensure the salt has time to fully dissolve.

Double-greasing the pan helps prevent sticking

First spray the pan with non-stick spray, then drizzle a tablespoon of olive oil across the surface. This is a tip straight from King Arthur's original No-Fuss Focaccia recipe — the non-stick spray prevents sticking. But the added olive oil makes the bottom of the focaccia extra crispy.

Scrape the sticky dough out of the bowl and into the center of the sheet pan. When you first scrape the dough into your sheet pan, you might start to worry you haven't made enough dough or that something has gone horribly wrong. Have no fear! This is normal.

You aren't trying to get it to fill the pan, and you're not dimpling it yet, just running flat fingertips over the surface to loosely stretch it in the direction you want it to move as it continues rising and spreading out in the pan during the next rise.

When you come back at the end rise time, the dough will be a little bit puffy and have filled out the pan a bit more. It may not reach all the way to the edges, that's fine.

Drizzle a little more olive oil over the top of the dough, coat your fingers in even more olive oil, and then press the pads of your fingers into the dough, spreading them out when they hit the pan.

If there are any thin spots in the dough or corners the dough hasn't reached yet, dimpling is the time to forcefully push the dough into those areas.

Pinch it together to patch thin spots, and push it outwards into the corners of the pan if it hasn't gotten there yet. Don't worry if the dough tears a little; it will be just fine.

The Saltwater Brine

Once the dough is suitably dimpled, you guessed it, drizzle with more olive oil. Then pour the saltwater brine evenly over the dough.

Cover the dough and let it rest on top of or near your preheating oven. Moving the pan to a very warm spot for this final rise encourages the yeast to get to work. This will help the dough rise as much as possible before it bakes.

Don't poke or handle the dough once the brine goes on — it's quite a bit of water and you don't want it to begin dissolving the flour or breaking up the starches in the dough.

At the end of the final rise, the foccacia will be noticeably puffy and the dimples will have closed slightly. The dough should be barely reaching the top edge of the sheet pan.

Traditional Ligurian focaccia has deeply dimpled fingertip-sized pockets across the surface of the dough even after baking. In my version, the dimples will close up into deliciously salty fissures running through the bread.

Yes, You Can Add Lots of Toppings

In addition to the saltwater brine, I do recommend a generous sprinkle of flaky sea salt right before baking. The saltwater brine adds flavor but isn't overly salty. Sprinkle the flaky salt on top right before you put the focaccia in the oven so the salt holds its crystal shape and doesn't dissolve into the brine.

You can also get pretty creative with your Ligurian focaccia toppings! With it's flat texture and large surface area, this is a great focaccia for making focaccia artwork.

If you're topping the focaccia with anything heavy or dense like cherry tomatoes, garlic cloves, onions, olives, or peppers, you'll want to place them during the dimpling and brining stage, before the final rise. This way the dough rises around them and holds them in place as they bake.

As soon as the focaccia comes out of the oven, drizzle it with more olive oil and let it soak in.

Let the focaccia cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, then slide a spatula underneath to release any stuck bits and slide the focaccia out of the pan and onto a wire rack to finish cooling. Letting air circulate as it cools prevents it from getting soggy in the pan!

Practical Tips and Recipe Notes

• Honey provides the sugars necessary for the yeast to eat and for the dough to brown. It's a fairly small amount so, you're not really going to taste the honey here. If you don't have honey, sugar works just fine.
• Use oiled or damp hands when handling this Ligurian focaccia dough to prevent the dough from sticking to you.
• Instant yeast is sometimes also called "rapid rise" yeast. Active dry yeast will also work, your dough may just rise a bit slower.
• This focaccia is SO GOOD dipped in my fabulous tomato-herb olive oil bread dip.

📖 Recipe