The 10 Best Focaccia Recipes, According to Home Cooks Across the Web

Most “best focaccia” lists are written by someone who tested two recipes in a Brooklyn apartment and called it research.

This one isn’t.

We pulled feedback from thousands of home cooks who actually made these recipes.

The reviews on the recipe pages. The Reddit threads. The follow-up questions. The “I tried it and here’s what happened.”

Ten recipes survived the cut. Each one earned its slot from the people who cooked it, not from a critic who didn’t.

Focaccia is one of the few breads where small choices make big differences. Same-day vs. overnight rise. Cast-iron vs. sheet pan. Salt-water brine vs. just olive oil and salt on top.

Each recipe in this list takes a different angle, and the right one for you depends on your schedule, your equipment, and what you’re going to do with the bread.

Here are the 10 best focaccia recipes home cooks across the web actually keep coming back to.

1. King Arthur Baking — Big and Bubbly Focaccia

Verdict tag: Most foolproof same-day bake

Total time: About 4 hours start to finish. Maybe 20 minutes of hands-on work.

The word that shows up over and over in the reviews? Foolproof.

Idiot-proof. Bulletproof. Pick your version.

King Arthur named this their 2025 Recipe of the Year. The comments are full of brand-new bakers who nailed it on the first try.

The whole thing pivots on the fold. You don’t knead this dough.

You turn it four times in the bowl. Fifteen minutes apart. Then you walk away.

Folding > kneading. Same result, half the work.

People keep calling the fold the game-changer. Once you learn it, you start using it everywhere. Rye. Pizza dough. Sandwich loaves.

Honestly, the technique is more useful than the recipe.

Here’s the other thing that sets it apart. You can decide on this at noon and have it on the table by 6.

No overnight rise. No 24-hour fridge rest. Same day, done.

The finished loaf? Tall and airy. Crisp on top, tender in the middle.

Big enough to slice for sandwiches the next day. If anyone has the willpower to leave it overnight.

Pan to use: the recipe says metal 9×9. A 10-inch cast-iron skillet works better.

Plain aluminum will fight you. No matter how much oil you pour in.

Dimpling matters. Go gentle. Heavy hands collapse the loaf and you lose the rise.

One real warning: skip the broiler step the first time you make this.

Multiple bakers describe their bread bursting into flames. The crust crisps fine without it.

The thing is, broiler steps assume your oven is calibrated and you remember to watch it. Most home ovens fail at one of those.

Best for: Beginners. If you’ve never made bread and want a win, start here.

Get the recipe →

2. Samin Nosrat — Ligurian Focaccia (Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat)

Verdict tag: Most flavor per bite

Total time: Overnight rise plus about 4 hours the next day. 30 minutes of hands-on.

Samin’s Ligurian focaccia has one move you won’t find on any other recipe in this list. You pour a salt-water brine over the dough before it goes in the oven.

It feels wrong while you’re doing it. The reviews say it. Reddit threads say it. “The brine felt very wrong but it turned out so good” is basically a refrain.

What the brine does is season the bread from the top down. Every bite gets a little salt and a little water-fat exchange with the olive oil. No bite is bland.

This is the recipe that came out of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. Samin’s cookbook is one of the most-cited modern food books, and the focaccia chapter is the reason a lot of people own it.

The recipe lives on her site, not NYT Cooking. People found it through the Netflix series and the Bon Appétit “It’s Alive” episode with Brad. Both are worth watching before you bake.

The finished loaf is denser than King Arthur’s. Tighter crumb. Saltier crust. More olive oil saturation top to bottom.

It eats like the Ligurian focaccia served in coastal Italian bakeries, not the puffy American sheet-pan version.

Olive oil quality matters here. The dough essentially fries in it during the bake. Cheap oil tastes cheap.

You don’t need a $50 bottle. California Olive Ranch or Cobram Estate work. Just don’t use the discount-store stuff.

Pan size matters too. The recipe calls for an 18×13 sheet pan. People who use smaller pans report dense, 2-inch-thick loaves that didn’t bake through.

One real warning: don’t over-mix or over-proof. Several bakers report tight, gummy crumb after 16+ hour proofs at room temp.

Samin’s recipe gives a generous time window, but the upper end is risky in a warm kitchen. Lean toward 12 hours.

Best for: Bakers who want depth of flavor over puffy crumb, and who already own decent olive oil.

Get the recipe →

3. Bon Appétit / Sarah Jampel — Shockingly Easy No-Knead Focaccia

Verdict tag: Best zero-effort overnight bake

Total time: 5 minutes hands-on, then 14-24 hours of fridge time. Plus a 90-minute pan rise the next day.

This is the focaccia that broke containment in 2020. Every quarantine kitchen made it.

The name says “shockingly easy” and the reviews back it up. You stir flour, water, yeast, and salt with a fork. You put it in the fridge. The fridge does the work.

5 minutes of hands-on time. No kneading. No folding. No bowl rises every fifteen minutes.

The cold overnight proof is the magic. It develops flavor while you sleep, and a slow rise produces a more open crumb than a same-day bake.

This is the opposite of King Arthur’s same-day approach. Plan ahead, get a better loaf. Plan ahead a lot, get an even better loaf.

The recipe gives you a 14-24 hour window. Several bakers say 24 hours is the sweet spot. A few report success at 48 and 72 hours, with deeper flavor each day.

The finished loaf is tall, blonde, and dimpled. The garlic-butter topping is what most reviewers point to as the signature move.

Garlic and butter melted together get brushed on top before baking. It’s not optional. Skip it and you have plain focaccia. Use it and you have the recipe people are still talking about five years later.

Olive oil pool: the recipe asks you to pour a generous amount of olive oil into the pan before the dough rises in it. Don’t skimp. The bottom crust shallow-fries in this oil and that’s where most of the flavor comes from.

Use a pan with sides. A 9×13 metal cake pan or a half-sheet pan with a lip. Skip rimless cookie sheets. The oil will run off and you’ll set off your smoke alarm.

One real warning: the dough is very wet, almost pourable. First-time bakers often think they made a mistake.

You didn’t. Just oil your hands and pour the dough into the pan. It self-levels.

Best for: Bakers who want maximum payoff for minimum work, and who can plan a day ahead.

Get the recipe →

4. Inspired Taste — Easy Focaccia Bread Recipe with Herbs

Verdict tag: Most herb-forward beginner recipe

Total time: About 2.5 hours start to finish. 20 minutes hands-on.

This recipe has the lowest failure rate in the lineup. 350+ reviews and almost nobody reports a flat or dense loaf.

Adam and Joanne Gallagher have been writing recipes since 2009. Inspired Taste shows up in the top 3 of Google for “easy focaccia recipe,” and that ranking exists because the recipe just works.

The differentiator? The herbs go in the dough, not just on top.

Most focaccia recipes treat herbs as decoration. Sprinkle rosemary on the surface, walk away. This one mixes Italian seasoning into the flour itself, so the bread tastes like herbs from the first bite to the last.

You can use whatever herb mix you want. Rosemary alone, an Italian blend, thyme and oregano, fresh or dried. The recipe is forgiving.

The instructions read like a friend walking you through it. Step-by-step photos, exact temperatures, troubleshooting notes for every stage. There’s a reason “first time” appears 44 times in the reviews.

Total time is shorter than King Arthur’s. Two and a half hours from mixing to slicing. No overnight rise. No long fold cycles.

The finished loaf is medium-tall and herb-flecked. Crispy on the outside, soft and savory inside.

Most reviewers add toppings on top of the in-dough herbs. Fresh garlic, halved cherry tomatoes, sliced olives, a hard cheese before baking. The recipe takes additions well.

Pan to use: a 9×13 baking dish works. The recipe doesn’t ask for cast iron, and most reviewers stick with what they have.

Resist the urge to over-flour. The dough should be a little sticky after mixing. Adding flour to make it easier to handle gives you a denser loaf.

One thing the recipe does that others don’t: it asks for warm water at a specific temperature. Use a thermometer the first time. Cold water slows the rise; hot water kills the yeast.

Best for: Brand-new bakers who want a built-in flavor profile and can’t be bothered to make a separate herb topping.

Get the recipe →

5. Alexandra’s Kitchen — Overnight Refrigerator Focaccia

Verdict tag: Most schedule-flexible

Total time: 5 minutes hands-on the night before. 2 hours of pan rise the next day. Or do all of it in 3 hours start to finish if you’re impatient.

This recipe gives you a window the others don’t. You can mix the dough Saturday morning and bake Sunday night.

The dough lives happily in the fridge from 18 hours to 3 full days. The longer it sits, the more flavor it develops. Bake when the schedule lets you.

Ali Stafford runs Alexandra’s Kitchen and wrote two cookbooks (Bread Toast Crumbs and the NYT bestseller Pizza Night). This focaccia is the recipe people land on through Pinterest and never leave.

It’s also the simplest ingredient list in the lineup. Four things: flour, water, yeast, salt.

No olive oil in the dough. No sugar. No special bread flour. Just pantry staples.

What makes this work is the long cold rise. Time replaces technique. The fridge does the gluten development that bowl-folds and stand mixers do in faster recipes.

Cold rise > active labor.

The finished loaf bakes in a half-sheet pan, so it comes out wider and lower than the cast-iron versions. Big enough to slice for sandwiches without doing math.

One reviewer called it a unicorn recipe. That captures it pretty well — minimal work, maximum forgiveness, and it accommodates whatever schedule you’ve got.

Pan to use: a metal half-sheet pan or a 9×13. Generously oiled. The dough is wet enough that it self-spreads.

Bring it to room temperature before baking. Cold dough straight from the fridge won’t get the second rise it needs. Pull it out 2-3 hours before you plan to bake.

One real warning: if you’re new to bread, the dough will look way too wet when you take it out of the fridge. It is not too wet.

Don’t add flour. Don’t panic. Oil your hands and pour it into the pan. It bakes up tall.

Best for: People with chaotic schedules. Make it whenever you have five minutes, bake it whenever you want.

Get the recipe →

6. Smitten Kitchen — Focaccia Sandwiches for a Crowd

Verdict tag: Best for sandwich slabs and crowds

Total time: About 3 hours. Maybe 10 minutes hands-on.

Most focaccia recipes treat the bread as the main event. This one treats it as a vehicle.

Deb Perelman built this recipe explicitly for sandwiches. The proportions, the pan, the height — all engineered to slice horizontally and stuff with cheese, vegetables, and whatever else you have.

That’s the whole differentiator. Other recipes here yield a focaccia that sandwich-makers have to retrofit. This one starts there.

It bakes in a half-sheet pan. Lower profile than King Arthur or Samin’s loaves. Wide enough to feed eight people without doing the math.

The technique is bare-minimum. Stir with a fork, one rise, dimple, bake. No bowl folds. No overnight rest required. It’s the lazy genius of the list.

The reviews show it. “So easy” appears as often as Deb’s name does, and that’s a lot.

The finished loaf is short, golden, and salty. Soft enough to bite through a stuffed sandwich, sturdy enough not to fall apart while you eat one.

If you’re hosting, you cut it into squares and let people build their own. If you’re feeding a family, you slice the whole pan into a giant slab sandwich and call it dinner.

Pan to use: a half-sheet pan (13×18) is the right size. A 9×13 works if you scale down slightly.

The dough is meant to be lower-rising. Don’t extend rise times trying to get more height. You’ll lose the crumb structure that holds up to sandwich fillings.

One real warning: this is not the focaccia to make if you want a tall, bubbly artisan loaf. Pick a different one in this list.

It’s purpose-built. Don’t fight the purpose.

Best for: Anyone making sandwiches for a group, picnics, or potlucks where the bread needs to slice and stack.

Get the recipe →

7. Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt — Easy Roasted Garlic Focaccia

Verdict tag: Most flavor density per slice

Total time: 8-24 hour first rise. About 3 hours active the day you bake.

This is the only recipe in the lineup with a whole head of roasted garlic baked into the dough.

Kenji built this around a cast-iron skillet at 550°F. Closer to deep-dish pizza than sheet-pan focaccia. Thick, chewy, and packed with sweet roasted garlic in every bite.

The technique is no-knead but the heat is high. Most home ovens top out at 500°F, and reviewers say that works fine — they just bake an extra 2-3 minutes.

The roasted garlic is what people obsess over. You roast a whole head, peel the soft cloves, and push them into the dough before the final rise.

One reviewer called the result “preposterously good.” That’s earned.

The finished loaf is thicker than the sheet-pan recipes here. About 2 inches tall, deep-fried bottom from the cast-iron oil, soft and stretchy in the middle. Pizza-adjacent in the best way.

It’s a dough that geeky bakers tinker with. Sourdough starter subs, biga preferments, hydration tweaks — the comments are full of engineering.

You can take it as written and get great bread. You can also rabbit-hole it for months.

Pan to use: a 12-inch cast-iron skillet. This is non-negotiable for this recipe. A sheet pan won’t get the deep-fried bottom that defines it.

Mind the high heat. At 550°F, the bread can go from golden to charcoal in 90 seconds. Set a timer for 14 minutes and check every 90 seconds after.

One real warning: the recipe asks you to cover the rising dough with plastic wrap on a hot cast-iron pan. Multiple bakers complain about the plastic-and-cast-iron interface.

A wet kitchen towel works better. So does a sheet pan flipped upside down over the top.

Best for: Bakers who already love deep-dish pizza and want the focaccia equivalent.

Get the recipe →

8. Sally’s Baking Addiction — Garlic Rosemary Herb Focaccia

Verdict tag: Heaviest herb-and-garlic profile

Total time: Overnight cold rise + about 3 hours next day. 30 minutes hands-on.

This is the only recipe in the lineup that assumes you have a stand mixer.

Sally’s recipe uses a dough hook, not your hands. If you don’t have a KitchenAid, you’ll need to hand-knead in its place — and the recipe doesn’t really walk you through that.

What sets it apart is how aggressively herb-forward it is. Garlic and rosemary go in the dough, on top of the dough, and into the warmed oil. Maximum impact at every layer.

Pull a slice apart and you’ll see whole rosemary needles and garlic-soft pockets all the way through. This is focaccia for people who think “a little rosemary on top” is barely trying.

Sally herself replies in the comments. Hundreds of times. The community vibe is closer to a small forum than a recipe page.

That matters because this recipe is also the most likely in the lineup to give you trouble. The reviews are full of bakers reporting wet, sticky dough that wouldn’t come together.

Sally’s reply is consistent across all of them: weather, humidity, and flour brand all affect the dough. Add more flour if you have to. Don’t follow the gram measurements blindly if your kitchen is humid.

The finished loaf is herb-flecked and chewy. Not as airy as King Arthur’s. Not as oil-rich as Samin’s. The trade is flavor density.

Pan to use: a 12×17 sheet pan, generously oiled. The recipe calls for the bigger pan because the dough needs room to spread.

The dough should be shaggy, not soupy. If yours pours like pancake batter, you’ve got a humidity issue. Add 30-50g of flour at a time until it pulls away from the sides of the mixer.

One real warning: don’t half the recipe and don’t half the yeast. Halving yeast doesn’t scale linearly, and the recipe is one of the few in this lineup that breaks if you try.

If you only need a small focaccia, freeze half of the baked loaf instead.

Best for: Cooks who own a stand mixer and want the most herb-forward focaccia on the list.

Get the recipe →

9. Natasha’s Kitchen — Focaccia Bread

Verdict tag: Best Sunday-dinner family bake

Total time: Overnight cold rise + 3 hours next day. 20 minutes hands-on.

This is the recipe in the lineup with the most engaged community.

Natasha replies to almost every comment. The recipe page reads like a long conversation with hundreds of family cooks asking specific questions about pan size, flour brands, and what to swap if they don’t have something.

Most of those questions come from the same demographic: home cooks making Sunday dinner for spouses, kids, and grandkids.

That shapes what makes this recipe distinctive. It’s a focaccia tuned for family meals — soft enough for kids, sturdy enough for adults dipping it in soup.

Not the artisan bake. Not the deep-dish skillet. The Sunday loaf you slice for dinner and finish as toast the next morning.

The technique is overnight cold rise + same-day finish. Similar to Bon Appétit’s, but with more handholding in the instructions and a slightly less wet dough that’s easier to work with.

Total time looks long on paper, but most of it is hands-off fridge time. You’re in the kitchen for 20 minutes total.

The finished loaf is medium-tall and golden, generously oiled, with rosemary and flaky salt on top. Soft middle, crisp edges, sliceable.

It’s the recipe a 9-year-old can help with on a Saturday. Several reviewers mention exactly that.

Pan to use: a 9×13 metal pan with sides. The recipe is forgiving on this point, but the wet dough needs sides to push against during the rise.

Watch the salt amount. Several reviewers report the topping coming out salty even at the recipe’s listed amount. If you’re sensitive, sprinkle the flaky salt at the table instead of pre-bake.

One real warning: the most common failure is dry, dense bread the next day, not the day-of bake.

Wrap it in foil while it’s still slightly warm. Reheat for 5 minutes in a 350°F oven. It’ll come back to life.

Best for: Family cooks making Sunday dinner who want a real recipe-page community to fall back on if they hit a snag.

Get the recipe →

10. Love and Lemons — Focaccia

Verdict tag: Cleanest, simplest version

Total time: 14-24 hour overnight rise. About 90 minutes the next day.

This is the cleanest recipe in the lineup. Five ingredients. Rosemary on top. That’s it.

Jeanine Donofrio runs Love and Lemons, a vegetable-forward food blog that became a New York Times bestseller. Her focaccia is built the same way the rest of her site is — minimal, clean, no fuss.

The differentiator? Restraint. Where Sally’s piles on garlic and herbs and Kenji buries roasted cloves in the dough, this one trusts the bread.

Just rosemary. Flaky salt. Olive oil. Nothing else fighting for attention.

That makes it the right pick when focaccia is a side dish, not the main event. Pair it with soup, salad, pasta, or a cheese board, and the bread doesn’t try to upstage anything.

The technique is no-knead with an overnight rise. Same playbook as Bon Appétit, but with less olive oil pooled in the pan and a more measured topping.

The finished loaf is medium-tall, lightly golden, and herb-fragrant. The crust is crispy but not deep-fried. The crumb is soft but not pillowy.

Restrained. The whole recipe is.

Pan to use: a 9×13 metal pan or a similar-sized rectangle. Glass works in a pinch but produces a less crisp bottom.

Don’t skimp on the rise time. The 14-hour minimum is a real minimum. Reviewers who rushed to 8 hours report dry, tight crumb.

One real warning: this is the recipe most likely to come out dry on day two.

The lower oil quantity that makes it elegant on day one is what makes it stale faster than the others. If you’re not eating it the day you bake it, slice and freeze the leftovers immediately.

Best for: Cooks who want focaccia as a clean, restrained side dish — not the centerpiece of dinner.

Get the recipe →

Focaccia FAQ

Six questions that show up across almost every focaccia comment thread. Quick answers grounded in what bakers actually report.

Bread flour or all-purpose?

Both work. Bread flour gives you a chewier crumb and a slightly taller rise. All-purpose makes a softer, more tender focaccia.

If you’re new to bread, use whatever’s in your pantry. The recipe matters more than the flour.

If you want maximum airy bubbles, reach for bread flour. If you want soft and pillowy, all-purpose is fine.

Can I use sourdough starter instead of yeast?

Yes, but you’ll need to adjust water and flour. The standard sub is to replace the yeast with about 100g of active starter, then reduce both flour and water by 50g each.

Several recipes in this list (King Arthur, Kenji’s, Bon Appétit) have reviewers who’ve done this successfully. Bake time stays roughly the same.

Expect a deeper, tangier flavor and a slightly slower rise.

My dough is way too wet. Did I mess up?

You probably didn’t. Focaccia dough is supposed to be wet — closer to thick batter than kneadable bread dough.

The recipes in this list ask for hydration levels between 75% and 85%. That looks alarming the first time. It’s not a mistake.

Oil your hands or your spatula. Pour the dough into the pan rather than shaping it. It self-levels during the rise.

If it’s truly soup-like and won’t hold any shape after the bowl rise, your kitchen humidity is high. Add 30-50g of flour and call it a day.

Can I freeze focaccia?

Yes. Slice it first, wrap tightly in foil or freezer bags, freeze for up to 3 months.

To revive a frozen slice: 350°F oven for 5-7 minutes. It’ll come back to almost-fresh.

Don’t refrigerate fresh focaccia. The fridge dries it out faster than the counter does.

How do I make this into pizza?

Most of these doughs convert. Bake the focaccia about halfway (10-12 minutes), pull it out, top with sauce and cheese, finish baking until the cheese is bubbly.

The Kenji recipe is closest to pizza dough already — high heat, cast iron, deep-dish ready. Start there if you want a focaccia-pizza hybrid.

The Bon Appétit and King Arthur recipes also work well as pizza bases. Skip the surface oil drizzle if you’re going to add tomato sauce.

Day-old focaccia tastes stale. What do I do?

Two paths.

Path one: revive it. 350°F oven for 5 minutes, brushed with a little olive oil first. Crust crisps back up.

Path two: turn it into something else. Day-old focaccia makes excellent croutons, grilled cheese, panzanella, or breadcrumbs for pasta. Few breads transform as well into a second meal.

The Love and Lemons recipe is the most prone to drying out by day two. The Kenji recipe holds up the longest. Plan accordingly.

Pick One and Bake It

There’s no single best focaccia recipe in this list. There’s a best one for you.

If you’ve never made bread before, start with King Arthur or Inspired Taste. Both are foolproof and beginner-friendly.

If you want maximum flavor for minimum effort, go with Bon Appétit’s overnight no-knead. Five minutes of work the night before, golden bread the next day.

If you’re feeding a crowd, Smitten Kitchen’s sandwich slab was built for the job.

If you want the most distinctive bread on the list, Samin’s salt-water brine is unforgettable. Different from anything else here.

If you have weird hours and chaotic schedules, Alexandra’s overnight refrigerator focaccia gives you the most flexibility.

If you love deep-dish pizza, Kenji’s cast-iron focaccia is your version.

The recipes are linked above. The bakers in the comments are waiting to help if you get stuck. Pick one and start tonight.