These sourdough ciabattas have been an integral part of our Sunday breakfast ever since I first baked them. They have an intense aroma, an open crumb, a crispy crust and bring back memories of our last vacation in Italy. If you want to bring summer into your kitchen, then you should definitely try this recipe for airy sourdough ciabatta.
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What is so special about ciabatta?
Ciabatta is a particularly fluffy Italian bread that contains a high proportion of water and is made with sourdough or yeast. The ciabatta gets its name from its classic shape (flat and round). Ciabatta means slipper.
These sourdough ciabattas are super fluffy and soft on the inside and have a crispy crust on the outside. The long fermentation overnight gives the ciabatta an intense aroma that can compete with wholegrain rolls. The dough also requires no yeast.
More Italian recipes
If you want to relive your vacation memories even more, you should also try this spelt foccacia. Or how about crispy cantuccini or Roman wine cookies?
What you need for crispy sourdough ciabatta
- Wheat flour: The best flour for ciabatta is bread flour or wheat flour 550.
- Water: Cold in summer and lukewarm in winter.
- Sourdough starter: The sourdough doesn’t have to be freshly fed, but it shouldn’t have been more than a week since it was last refreshed. If you have discard left over, I have the right recipes for you here. I feed my sourdough with equal parts water and flour. For the flour, I use a mixture of wheat flour and wholegrain rye flour. If you feed your sourdough with a different water-to-flour ratio, you will need to adjust the amount of water in the recipe accordingly.
- Olive oil, virgin.
- Salt for the flavour.
In three steps: How to make sourdough ciabatta
- Prepare the pre-dough and leave to rest. Stir in the remaining ingredients and leave to rest again. Place in the fridge overnight.
- Carefully portion the ciabatta and preheat the oven.
- Place the sourdough ciabatta on a hot baking steel and bake until crispy.
Helpful tools – My recommendations
✨ The links with an star* are affiliate links. If you click on one of these links and buy something, I get a small commission and you support my work (thanks for that 🧡). This does not change the price for you. You can find more information on privacy policy here.✨
- A Danish Whisk* – especially if you don’t use a kitchen machine. This allows you to mix your ingredients without the whole dough sticking to the spoon.
- A kitchen scale*.
- You can use a stainless steel dough knife* to cut your dough pieces or shape your loaves.
- A steam tray consisting of a stainless steel oven mould* and lava stones*. The tray is filled with the stones and placed on the bottom of the oven during preheating. When you put your bread in the oven, pour hot water onto the stones. This creates steam, which ensures that your bread rises well.
- Baking steel* to make your bread, rolls and pizza nice and crispy.
- When baking bread in a Dutch oven*, you can do without baking steel and a steam tray because the Dutch oven has the perfect climate.
- A cooling rack* for bread, rolls and waffles.
- A sharp bread knife*.
- A stainless steel toaster* for slices of bread, toast and rolls.
You can find more product recommendations here.
More sourdough rolls
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The Best Wholegrain Sourdough Bread Rolls
One of my favorite kitchen appliances is my grain mill*. Not only is it beautiful, but it has also served me faithfully for years. This recipe for crispy wholemeal bread rolls with sourdough is no exception. They consist only of wholemeal flour (self-ground in my…
Homemade Sourdough Pita Bread
In summer, we serve lots of fresh vegetables from the garden. With a few falafel, delicious dips and fresh pita bread, this is the perfect summer dish. Homemade pita bread tastes much better than shop-bought bread and is quick and easy to make. You can mix the dough…
Recipe: How to make Sourdough Ciabatta Rolls
Ingredients
- 480 g wheat flour bread flour (or type 550)
- 360 g water
- 50 g sourdough starter
- 1 tbsp. olive oil
- 1 tsp. salt
Instructions
Day 1
- For the pre-dough, mix* 200 g water with 200 g wheat flour and 50 g sourdough starter. Cover the dough and leave to rest at room temperature for four hours.
- Mix the remaining flour, water, oil and salt into the dough, cover and leave to rest for a further four to six hours. After the first 30 minutes, stretch and fold once and repeat the process three to four times. Then place the dough in the fridge overnight.
Day 2
- Carefully transfer the dough to a floured work surface and pull it apart gently to squeeze as little air out of the dough as possible. Flour the top of the dough too.
- Carefully cut off the ciabatta with a dough scraper*.
- Preheat the oven to 250 degrees using a baking steel* and a steam tray consisting of an oven dish* and lava stones*.
- Carefully place the ciabattas on the hot baking steel and bake for 10 minutes with steam and 10 minutes without steam until crispy.
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