Homemade Ciabatta Bread {Step by Step}

This homemade ciabatta bread is a perfect rustic bread to deep in soups, make sandwiches with and much more.

It’s wonderfully chewy on the inside, crusty and golden brown on the outside with irresistible big holes.

What is Ciabatta Bread?

Ciabatta bread is a rustic-looking, white loaf that’s a staple of Italian bakery. It’s got a thin, crisp crust and an incredibly soft interior, perfect for dipping in sauces and making panini.

This type of bread is light and easy to digest because it’s made with a higher percentage of water and a long leavening time. Therefore, you’ll see lots of bubblyholes running through it, which is its main characteristic.

Ciabatta bread can be used in many different ways. You can cut it in half to make a sandwich or eat it sliced and drizzled with oil and balsamic vinegar. It’s also perfect for doing the scarpetta in hearty dishes like peperonata, caponata or these polpette with tomato sauce. And for the ultimate breakfast treat, try it sliced, buttered, and spread with jam.

How to pronounce Ciabatta

In Italian, the word Ciabatta is pronounced Chah-bah-ttah. It’s a feminine noun and the plural form is Ciabatte (Chah-bah-tteh).  

Translated into English, “ciabatta” literally means “slipper”. This is due to its distinctive long, flat-ish shape that is thought to vaguely resemble this type of footwear, so much so that it’s often called Italian Slipper Bread in English-speaking countries.

The bread that could compete with baguettes

This famous Italian Ciabatta bread comes from the Veneto region, where it was invented in 1982. In those days, bakers were worried about the French baguettes flooding the market, threatening to monopolise the booming sandwich business in Italy.

Eventually, the rally pilot-turned-baker Arnaldo Cavallari came up with the perfect sandwich bread that could compete with baguettes. He called it ciabatta polesana, after the region of Polesine where he worked. 

The popularity of this new bread grew very quickly in Italy, with many regions producing their own variations on Cavallari’s original recipe, and it wasn’t long before the Ciabatta became a big hit overseas. Marks and Spencer introduced it to British households in 1985, and two years later, this Italian bread was exported to the States. 
By 1999, Cavallari had trademarked ciabatta polesana and ciabatta italiana, licensing production in 11 countries.  

Ingredients

For biga (starter)

1 cup (230ml) water, lukewarm

2 cups (260g) flour (measured after sifting)

1 tsp dry yeast

For the dough:

2 cups (460ml) water, lukewarm

5-6 cups (650-750g) flour ( (measured after sifting and depending on the humidity of the place where you live)

1 ½ tsp salt

For greasing:

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Step By Step Instructions – With Pictures

Like all genius things, true ciabatta is SUPER simple and requires only few ingredients.

Remember to watch the video at the end of the recipe to see each step of ciabatta making process in detail.

Step 1: In a medium size bowl add water and dry yeast. Wait 10 minutes until the yeast is fully dissolved and has a “creamy’ texture.

Mix in the flour. You should get a very loose and sticky dough. It should have consistency thick enough not to come off from the spoon as, say, sour cream, but wet enough so that it’s impossible to knead it by hand.

Cover the bowl with a plastic wrap and let the dough rest at a room temperature for 3-4 hrs or overnight. I don’t recommend leaving biga for more than 24 hrs as the yeast will start to over-mature, loose its power and of course we don’t want that.

Step 2: Once biga is rested it will become bubbly and might become even looser when you left it. That’s totally fine.

Now pour lukewarm water in the bowl, going around the edges of the bowl and pouring small portions at a time. This is how we hydrate and aerate biga even more at the same time liberating it from the bowl.

Pour biga and water mix into a bowl of a standing mixer, oil the dough hook and start the actual bread making process.

Step 3: Turn on your mixer on low speed, knead for a 1-2 minutes and start adding flour.

Now this is an important part – make sure your aerate/sift the flour first.

I can’t stress it enough what a difference it makes, you’ll thank me afterwards 🙂

In the last portion of flour (approx 1 cup) add salt and mix it into the flour. Add to the dough. Knead on medium speed for 10 minutes. You’ll notice the dough will start to change its texture. Becoming more smooth and starting to climb up the hook.

Increase mixer speed to high and knead for another 10 minutes. If you mixer bowl is large enough you’ll see the dough coming off the bowl sides. That’s a perfect sign the dough is ready and developed strong gluten.

You would be able to tell just from the look that it’s very silky and shiny.

Step 4: Transfer the dough to a big oiled bowl, so that there is enough space for the dough to double or triple.

Cover with plastic wrap and let is sit at a room temperature for about 40-50 minutes.

The next very important thing to keep in mind is the way you work the dough once it starts to mature.

After the first 40-50 minutes the dough will double in size.

Step 5: What you do is deep a silicon spatula in a water and start folding the dough onto itself, from the outside to the center of the bowl. You should be able to make 6-10 folds.

Do it gently, so that the dough becomes well aerated and not deflated.

Using both of your hands, rise the dough from the bowl letting it fold, turn the bowl 90 degrees and fold in the same manner again. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for another 40-50 minutes.

This time you’ll notice more bubble forming in the dough and it may not double but even triple in size. See the picture above (first rise on the left, second rise on the right).

Repeat this last folding process once again and let the dough rest for the last 40-50 minutes.

Step 6: Once it’s perfectly bubbly and screams to get out of the bowl, GENEROUSLY sprinkle the work surface with the flour. You’ll regret if you wouldn’t. The dough is veery sticky, but that’s the secret for gorgeous light and airy ciabatta bread.

Flip the bowl upside down and let the dough “slide” off of the bowl by itself.

Sprinkle your scrapers and top of the dough with flour again.

Constantly assisting with the scrapers give it a rectangular shape. Cut into elongated loafs or individual buns. You can make the rolls either square or triangle and they are HEAVEN for panini.

Step 7: Generously sprinkle a linen towel with flour and using large dough scrapers transfer the bread loaves on it. Separate each loaf with a towel fold (see the picture) or use individual towel for each roll.

Now it’s time to turn on the oven to 450F while ciabatta bread rests on the towel.

If you are wondering what did we place ciabatta on the towel in the first place? The answer is simple, that’s how the bread loaf aerates even more before baking plus a linen towel gives the baked bread those incredible wrinkles that look fantastic.

Step 8: After 10-15 minutes flip ciabatta loaves over on parchment paper sprinkled with semolina or corn flour (to prevent bread from sticking).

Step 9: Just before you put the bread into the oven, spray ciabatta loaves with cold water to create steam. It helps the bread cook perfectly both on the inside and outside.

Bake for 20-25 minutes without EVER opening the oven. After the first 10 minutes reduce temperature to 400F.

When it’s golden brown, or may seem even slightly burned that is it.

Your ciabatta just reached its perfection and all you have left is let it cool for 15-20 on the wire rack.

Slice it into pieces and spread some butter or eat it whole or make arugula, prosciutto crudo and mozzarella panino 😋

Watch How To Make It

Check out step-by-step video for ciabatta bread recipe.

More Italian Bread Recipes

• Milk Bread Rolls {Panini Al Latte} – soft and fluffy milk rolls perfect for breakfast, party sandwiches, pigs in a blanket and more!
• Traditional Focaccia Bread {Focaccia Genovese} – thin, crunchy and soft inside.
• Focaccia Barese – focaccia with tomatoes and olives from Bari, made with real potatoes in the dough.
• Semolina Bread – Italian bread with sesame seeds, typical to Sicily. You’ll love how fragrant, delicious and easy it is to make. The mini loaves are perfect for crostini!
• Tuscan Bread {Pane Toscano} – salt-free Italian bread.
• Pagnotta {Italian Round Country Bread}
• Friselle Pugliesi – twice-baked Italian snack bread.

Full Recipe

4.70 from 26 votes

Ciabatta Bread Recipe

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Light, porous and airy on the inside, crusty and golden brown on the outside ciabatta bread is all about flavor and texture.

Print Pin Rate / Comment

Prep Time30 minutes mins

Cook Time25 minutes mins

Resting time4 hours hrs

Total Time1 hour hr 10 minutes mins

Course: Bread

Cuisine: Italian

Servings: 3 loaves

Ingredients

For biga (starter)

• ▢ 1 cup water (lukewarm)
• ▢ 2 cups (260g) bread flour (measured after sifting)
• ▢ 1 tsp dry yeast

For the dough

• ▢ 2 cups water lukewarm
• ▢ 5-6 cups (650-750g) bread flour (measured after sifting)
• ▢ 1 ½ tsp salt

For greasing

• ▢ 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Instructions

• In a medium size bowl add water and dry yeast. Wait 10 minutes until the yeast is fully dissolved and has a “creamy’ texture.
  
• Mix in the flour. You should get a very loose and sticky dough.
  

  It should have consistency thick enough not to come off from the spoon as, say, sour cream or greek yogurt, but wet enough so that it’s impossible to knead it by hand.
• Cover the bowl with a plastic wrap and let the dough rest at a room temperature for 3-4 hrs or overnight.
  I just don’t recommend leaving biga for more than 24 hrs as the yeast will start to over-mature and loose its power.
  
• Once biga is rested it will become bubbly and might become even looser when you left it.
  

  Now pour lukewarm water in the bowl, going around the edges of the bowl and pouring small portions at a time.
  This is how we hydrate and aerate biga even more at the same time liberating it from the bowl.
• Pour biga and wate mix into a bowl of a standing mixer, oil the dough hook.
  Turn on your mixer on low speed, knead for a 1-2 minutes and start adding flour.
• In the last portion of flour (approx 1cup) add salt and mix it into the flour. Add to the dough.
  Knead on medium speed for 10 minutes. You’ll notice the dough starting changing its texture. Becoming more smooth and starting to climb up the hook. Increase mixer speed to high and knead for another 10 minutes.
  If you mixer bowl is large enough you’ll see the dough coming off the bowl sides. That’s a perfect sign the dough is ready and has developed strong gluten.
  You would be able to tell just from the look that it’s very silky and shiny.
• Transfer the dough to a big oiled bowl, so that there is enough space for the bread to double or triple.

  Cover with plastic wrap and let it rise at a room temperature for about 40-50 minutes.
  
• After the first 40-50 minutes the dough will double in size.
  Deep a silicon spatula in a water and start folding the dough onto itself, from the outside to the center of the bowl. You should be able to make 6-10 folds.
• Do it gently, so that the dough becomes well aerated and not deflated.
  Now using both hands, rise the dough from the bowl letting it fold, turn the bowl 90 degrees and fold in the same manner again. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for another 40-50 minutes.
• Repeat this last folding process once again and let the dough rest for the last 40-50 minutes.
• Once it’s perfectly bubbly and screams to get out of the bowl, GENEROUSLY sprinkle the working surface with the flour. You’ll regret if you wouldn’t. The dough is veery sticky, but that’s the secret for gorgeous light and airy ciabatta bread.
• Flip the bowl upside down and let the dough “slide” off of the bowl by itself.
• Sprinkle your scrapers and top of the dough with flour again.
  Constantly assisting with the scrapers give it a rectangular shape. Cut into elongated loaves or individual rolls. You can make the rolls either square or triangle and they are HEAVEN for panini.
• Generously sprinkle linen cloth with flour and using large dough scrapers transfer the bread loaves onto it.
  Separate each loaf with a towel fold (see the pictures) or use individual towel for each of the loaves.
  
• Turn on the oven to 450F while ciabatta bread rests on the towel.
• After 10-15 minutes flip ciabatta loaves over on parchment paper sprinkled with semolina or corn flour (to prevent bread from sticking).
• Just before you put the bread into the oven, spray ciabatta loaves using a spray bottle with cold water to create steam. It helps the bread cook perfectly both on the inside and outside.
• Bake ciabatta for 20-25 minutes without EVER opening the oven. After 10 minutes in the oven reduce the heat to 400F.
  When it’s golden brown, or may seem even slightly burned that is it.
  Your ciabatta bread has just reached its perfection and all you have left is let it cool for 15-20 on the wire rack.

Video

Notes

For this recipe measure flour AFTER sifting.

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Slice ciabatta roll into pieces and spread on some butter or extra virgin olive oil, make panino or scarpetta. There is more than just one way to enjoy this bread!

Buon Appetito!