Thick and soft, Ligurian-style focaccia is the base for this simple, homemade garlic bread focaccia recipe. My favorite homemade focaccia bread gets drenched in flavorful garlic butter and dotted with lots of fresh herbs.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times, garlic bread is my favorite food. I will gladly forgo a slice of cake or spoonful of tiramisu for dessert in order to eat more garlic bread. I especially like it leftover for breakfast with fried eggs, but honestly, I cannot think of a time when I don’t want to be eating garlic bread.

I also feel this way about focaccia. Last week, I read about a little restaurant in St. Paul called Due Focacceria, an Italian cafe that serves Capalleti Spritzs and focaccia a bunch of different ways. The night after I read about this restaurant, I dreamt about it and that doesn’t feel weird at all. Focaccia is one of the best breads for many reasons, but it’s my favorite because it’s the simplest. It takes almost no effort to mix together a batch of focaccia dough and then you go to sleep while it does its thing and when you wake up, you are two hours and a dimpling away from snacking on freshly baked bread. The marriage of these two things just feels right.

how to make focaccia

Focaccia is a high-hydration, Italian-style bread. My basic recipe is very lightly adapted from Samin Nosrat and you can find it here. I also highly recommend hopping on Netflix and watching Samin make a batch of focaccia in Liguria in the “Fat” episode of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. I’ve played around with a lot of dough recipes and the thing that I love about Samin’s recipe is the brining step. After mixing together the dough and letting it rest overnight, we dump the dough into a well-oiled pan and stretch it for another proof. After giving it about 30 minutes for the gluten strands to relax, we’ll stretch it again into its final shape, dimple it, and brine it in a little bit of salt water. This extra little step adds so much moisture and flavor to the dough, you don’t want to skip it! Even if you already have a favorite focaccia recipe, I recommend you add brining as a step—you won’t be disappointed.

After the second proof, the dough is dimpled again and drizzled with olive oil. For this garlic bread focaccia, we’ll sprinkle the top with a bunch of fresh herbs. I used rosemary, thyme, and oregano, but you can use any of your favorites. The focaccia is baked until golden brown and crispy.

While the focaccia is baking, we make the garlic butter by heating a bunch of garlic, butter, red pepper flakes, and salt over low heat until fragrant and the garlic is softened. Smash the garlic into small pieces and return it to the butter and the drench the focaccia with the garlic butter right when it comes out of the oven.