Garden Art Focaccia Bread — a Trend That’s Here to Stay (2024)

In recent times, a few food trends emerged as many of us spent more time in the kitchen. One of the most fun and easy has been garden art focaccia bread (or simply garden focaccia or focaccia bread art).

Some kitchen projects may fall by the wayside (re-growing scallions?), others may endure, like homemade sourdough. I predict that vegetable-decorated focaccia bread is here to stay.

Focaccia is a traditional Italian flatbread, quite similar to pizza dough. Usually, the surface is kept pretty simple — shallow dimples are poked into it with (clean) fingers, then drizzled with olive oil, coarse salt, and dried herbs.

We can keep those — especially the olive oil — but now, the bread’s eye appeal goes to the next level.

A delicious blank canvas: The trend that emerged over the last few years to make garden art focaccia bread — a blank canvas for arranging vegetables over the surface to create plant- and flower-like pictures — is one that may be here to stay!

A fun food project for kids: Because using more vegetables in any way possible is always a good idea. This is a fun idea as a food project with kids, who are always more likely to eat food that they’ve made. Garden focaccia before going into the oven, above.

Vegetables & herbs to use for garden art focaccia

Here are some vegetables to use; I’d say to use at least three and up to six for each “garden” creation; you can vary the vegetables each time you make this.

• Asparagus spears (use fairly thin ones, not overly long)
• Bell peppers (cut into thin rings or slices) or mini sweet peppers
• Cherry or grape tomatoes, sliced
• Chives (with blossoms intact is especially pretty)
• Flowers (yes, actual edible flowers)
• Fresh herbs (sprigs of dill, parsley, rosemary, oregano, thyme)
• Leek rings (make sure they’re well rinsed)
• Mushrooms (cleaned, stemmed, and thinly sliced), most varieties
• Poblano chilies, seeded and thinly sliced)
• Radishes (thinly sliced)
• Olives (pitted) — black and green
• Scallion (aka green onion)
• Spiralized vegetables (carrots, yellow squash, zucchini)
• Red onion (small rings or short slices)
• Zucchini (cut into thin rounds)
• Yellow summer squash (the narrow part, cut into rounds)

What to serve with focaccia bread: Focaccia bread is a natural pairing with soups like Hearty Pasta Vegetable Soup, Italian Pasta and Bean Soup, or lentil soup; it’s good with most any tomato-based soup.

Make the soup during the bread’s first rising. Let it stand off the heat until the bread is done, during which time it can develop more flavor, then heat through just before serving.

This Healthy Table has some great ideas, including this fun Christmas tree design. More focaccia garden art inspiration:

• Focaccia bread art on Pinterest
• #focacciagarden on Instagram
• Lots more focaccia garden art lore and ideas

More ideas and inspiration for Garden Art Focaccia Bread

The recipe following makes 1 rectangular bread, about 8 to 10 pieces. It’s a basic recipe; if you’d like to put your sourdough skills to use, try this recipe for Sourdough Focaccia.

If you like this focaccia, you might also enjoy Buckwheat Focaccia Bread

Here are more.