When the weather gets warm, I just love cooking on the grill. There’s nothing that says “summer” more than grill marks: on vegetables, on burgers, on bread. This list goes on and on. Grilling is a great way to cook when it’s too hot to turn on the oven, and these salads are a great way to use up stale bread.
For these bread salads, I combine crusty toasted bread cubes, grilled peppers, fresh plum tomatoes, olives, chopped fresh cilantro, and a citrus vinaigrette. I opted to use oil-cured olives because they have such a depth of flavor, but you could easily swap them out for briney green olives.
You can grill the bread, then cut it into cubes, or you can use the oven. If you want to use the oven, though, I suggest making the bread cubes the night before, after the sun goes down and the house is cooler. Just toss them with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper, and bake at 375 until crisp with toasty brown edges. Store at room temp until you’re ready to make the salads.
This isn’t a recipe so much as a method. Once you get the basics down, you can adjust this to suit just about any tastes. You could take out the olives and tomatoes (like I did for my husband), you could add grilled onions, or a handful of crumbled feta. You could even toss in a handful of peppery arugula. If you’re not a fan of cilantro, try flat Italian parsley or fresh basil instead.
Any way you mix these up, they make for delicious, light summer meals.
What would you put in your bread salads?
