How to make Foolproof Ciabatta Bread

This easy Ciabatta Bread recipe will give you perfect crusty homemade bread with only five ingredients. This ciabatta dough can be made ahead and used to make either two loaves of ciabatta bread, or eight ciabatta rolls.

Hi! I am just popping in to share this easy ciabatta bread recipe with you! This super rustic, Italian style ciabatta bread is very low effort - it is a no knead bread recipe that uses an overnight rise to produce a super chewy, crusty bread. I love making homemade bread, and especially love a super easy no knead recipe that can be made ahead, such as my focaccia recipe. However I was after something in a slightly different format - enter this easy ciabatta recipe. This recipe is great for serving alongside dinner, but also makes the most amazing sandwiches.

I tested this recipe over and over in different formats so that I could give you all the tips and tricks for making easy ciabatta bread - this dough can be used to make ciabatta loaf, ciabatta rolls, and a ciabatta pull-apart bread, or all three if you like, with only a few tweaks.

This is definitely not a super traditional ciabatta recipe, but it is my take on it - a simple, easy to make bread that we love and I really hope that you do too.

Ingredients in Ciabatta bread

This ciabatta recipe is super super simple and has a very limited ingredient list - bread flour, instant yeast, olive oil, water, and salt.

Ciabatta bread is characterised by its crusty finish, and big holes inside the dough, which is often achieved by a long, slow rise, and high hydration. I played around with hydration a lot for this ciabatta recipe, pushing it as high as I could to get a dough that formed a lovely open crumb while not being too hard to work with.

Hydration in bread recipes

This ciabatta recipe has a hydration of 85% - hydration is calculated by dividing the weight of liquid in a recipe by the weight of the flour then multiplying it by 100, so in this case 445 ÷ 525 = 0.847, then 0.847 x 100 = 84.7, which we round up to 85%. This is a very wet dough - it is meant to be like that. You will need to flour your surface when you are shaping it quite heavily in order to make sure it does not stick, but do not worry - it is also a super forgiving dough and doesn't need a huge amount of shaping, and the second rise helps a lot to tidy things up before baking.

Ciabatta recipes often also use a biga, or a poolish - a portion of the flour in the recipe combined with yeast to make a sponge or a kind of starter for the recipe that is made the day before. I didn't use a biga, as I much prefer to make all the dough in one go and then have it in the fridge ready to go, but the first stage of this ciabatta dough recipe is done as an overnight rise in the fridge, so we still have the long, slow element that a biga provides.

How to make Ciabatta Dough

The process of making homemade ciabatta is super easy - this is a relatively hands off recipe, you just need to allow time for an overnight rise. Here is how to do it:

1. Make the ciabatta dough. Combine the flour, and the first measure of warm water and olive oil in a bowl and stir until a shaggy dough forms.
2. Autolyse. This step is important to help kick start the gluten development and allow the flour to hydrate before adding the yeast and salt. I leave mine for 30 minutes.
3. Add the second measure of water, yeast, and salt, and mix well. At this stage I mix it by hand for a few minutes to help develop dough strength and to ensure that the dough is well mixed.
4. Stretch and folds / first bulk rise. You will rise the dough for 2 hours at room temperature, and during this time you will perform stretch and folds every 30 minutes. This helps to develop dough strength and allow the yeast to kick start.
5. Transfer the dough to the fridge, and leave it overnight. The dough is resilient - so if you make the dough in the morning and do not bake it until the next evening, it will be just fine.

I find the best way to keep track of rising dough is to have two timers - one for the overall time, so in this case 2 hours, and the other measuring the time between stretch and folds that you re set each time you perform a set of stretch and folds.

How to shape Ciabatta

There are a few ways you can shape your ciabatta dough depending on the format that you want it to be in. You can either bake it as two loaves, or it can also be made into eight ciabatta rolls, or baked all together to make more of a pull-apart bread bun or ciabatta slider buns.

It is Very Important that you use enough flour both on your work surface and when handling the dough as it is quite sticky. A bench scraper will be your friend here.

About an hour before you are ready to bake, prepare your dough for baking and line a pan with floured parchment paper. Heavily flour a work surface (this is important to ensure the high hydration dough does not stick), then turn the dough out onto it.

To make loaves, shape the dough into a 24x24cm (9.5") square (It doesn't have to be super even), then cut down the middle to form two pieces of dough. Transfer to the baking sheet, flipping so the floured side is up (this is where the pattern on ciabatta comes from), then gently gently shape into loaves by tucking the edges under.

Leave the loaves to rise, then bake.

How to make Ciabatta Rolls

The process for making ciabatta rolls is very similar to making ciabatta loaves, except that you will shape the dough into a 28x20cm (8x11") rectangle instead, then cut into 8 rolls. Turn them over as you move them from the floured work surface to the sheet pan, to get the flour pattern from the counter as the top crust.

Arrange the ciabatta buns on your sheet pan so they have some space between them, as they do flatten out slightly as they rest. It is not the end of the world if they touch a little!

How to make Ciabatta Slider Buns

Another way to bake this ciabatta bread which is even easier is to flop the dough out directly onto your sheet pan, and shape it into a square, then cut it into rolls and leave them as is. This means when they bake they will form a sort of pull-apart ciabatta bread, with super soft edges and a lovely crusty top.

To make ciabatta slider buns or ciabatta pull-apart bread, shape the dough into a 24x24cm (9.5") square and then cut into however many you want - I usually go for 16, so a 4x4 grid.

The bake time for rolls and a loaf is similar, so if you wanted to divide the dough into one loaf and four rolls, that would work, just space them out on the same baking sheet.

How to tell when dough is risen

Cold from the fridge, I find that my ciabatta dough usually takes about 45 minutes to an hour to rise for the second time before it is ready to bake.

The best way to tell if a dough is ready to rise is to gently poke the top of the dough with a floured finger. If it springs back straight away, you know it needs more time. If it leaves a small indentation which slowly springs back, you know that it is proofed and ready to go into the oven.

Remember that the time that a dough takes to rise hugely depends on your environment so it is important to go by how the dough looks rather than the time in the recipe.

Have I over proofed my dough?!

This is sad but sometimes is happens. If you leave your dough rising for too long, the yeast can use up all its energy, and then have nothing to give when the dough goes in the oven.

You will know if you have over proofed your dough if it collapses when you touch it, or if it doesn't rise in the oven. It is also very important to make sure that your yeast isn't expired - to test this, place a little in some lukewarm water with a pinch of sugar, and check that it bubbles.

How long does bread dough keep in the fridge?

I left dough in the fridge for three days and it still baked up ok - it was definitely lacking a little in spring but it tasted amazing still. This dough is super forgiving as it doesn't really need to be shaped, so it was ok to just flop out and rise it and bake it off.

How to freeze bread

This ciabatta recipe is a current favourite for many reasons - one of them being that it freezes super well. When I was testing it over the last few months I would do a few a/b tests and end up with four loaves at a time (not a bad problem to have!), and would freeze two to have later.

To freeze bread, either wrap tightly or place in an airtight bag, and freeze. It will keep in the freezer, if stored properly, for up to three months.

To defrost frozen bread, either leave in the fridge overnight or defrost at room temperature. I always find it is nice to either refresh defrosted bread in the oven before using, or eat it toasted or turned into garlic bread.

Frequently Asked Questions

What tools and equipment do you use?
You can see a full list of all the tools I use here

Do I have to use Bread Flour?
Yes - it is important that you use bread flour for this ciabatta recipe as it provides strength. I tested it with all-purpose flour and it didn't work as well - the dough was not strong enough for the hydration in the recipe. Bread flour is also called high grade flour or strong flour depending on where you live!

Can I add sourdough starter?
Yes, if you want to you can add discard to give flavour while still relying on the yeast to rise the bread, but I do not know the conversions for making a sourdough raised ciabatta - you are better looking for a sourdough specific recipe. To use some starter, replace some of the flour and water with sourdough discard at 100% hydration - so if you were using 100g starter you would remove 50g flour and 50g water from the quantities in the recipe and replace with the 100g of starter.

Can this recipe be made all in one day?
I tried it, and it doesn't work as well. You can definitely give it a go - you will need to mix your dough early in the day and then do the whole thing at room temperature, but flavour and texture wise this bread is best with a long, slow overnight rise in the fridge.

How far in advance can you make bread dough?
I left dough in the fridge for three days and it still baked up ok - it was definitely lacking a little in spring but it tasted amazing still. This dough is super forgiving as it doesn't really need to be shaped, so it was ok to just flop out and rise.

Can this recipe be made in the stand mixer?
I haven't tried it yet but I do want to see if I can develop the dough all in one go in the mixer using the dough hook, then leave it at room temperature to rise a little before doing an overnight rest. Watch this space!

Can this recipe be made with active dry yeast?
I haven't tried it with active dry yeast, only with instant yeast, but it should be fine to sub the yeast 1:1, you may just need to activate it in the 50g water with a teeny pinch of sugar first then add the yeast mixture to the autolysed dough.

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