WW Friendly Focaccia Bread

I first discovered focaccia bread at California Pizza Kitchen years ago. They served it with Checca, which is the garlicky tomato goodness you’ll find served with bruschetta. I liked the focaccia/checca combo so much I had to find a way to make it WW friendly, so I started exploring bread options. WW has a recipe for 2 ingredient dough that I thought might work. It’s just self rising flour and fat free greek yogurt.  Genius!  So I used their recipe as the base, added a couple of herbs and spices and came up with my WW Friendly Focaccia Bread! 

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I’ve shared in other posts that I’ve been on and off WW for many years, and that I love transforming old recipes into WW friendly versions. It helps me find the joy in dieting! 🙂 The original Weight Watchers recipe calls for 1 1/3 cup of flour to a cup of fat free greek yogurt. I actually prefer closer to a 1:1 ratio, but to make it easy on myself I just use 2 of the 5.3 oz containers of Fage greek yogurt. 

I’m waiting for the day someone invents a calorie free bread, but until then I plug this recipe into the new WW Personal Points program, and get 2 points for one slice. The whole recipe is 12 slices. This delicious recipe is totally worth every point!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1 1/3 cup self rising flour
• 1 1/3 cup nonfat greek yogurt (I use 2-5.3 oz Fage containers)
• 2 tablespoons dried rosemary, or fresh rosemary if you prefer
• 2 teaspoons coarse or flaky sea salt
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic, or fresh garlic
• 2 tablespoon parmesan cheese
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• Cooking Spray

Here’s what you’ll do:

• Add the dry ingredients: flour, onion powder, half of the rosemary, half of the parmesan, and half of the salt to a medium bowl.
• Mix in the yogurt and minced garlic.
• With a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, combine the ingredients together. (It’s not necessary to get it into a dough consistency at this stage)

• Transfer the ingredients onto a floured surface.
• Using your hands, continue to incorporate all the ingredients together until you have a dough consistency.

• Keep going…

• Knead the dough until it forms a ball

• Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.  No need to let the dough rise, it’s self rising!
• Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray.
• Place the ball of dough on the cookie sheet and spread into a long, rectangle loaf.
• Brush olive oil all over the dough.
• Sprinkle the top of the dough with the remaining rosemary, parmesan and sea salt.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes, until it’s a golden brown.

 

And this is what you get.

• Slice into long strips

• Then slice down the middle of the loaf to get this.

This bread is delicious at room temperature, but it’s even better served right out of the oven.

As I mentioned, this recipe goes so well with checca.  I created my own, called Tomato Garlic Bruschetta.   It is one of my very favorite appetizers and it’s something your whole family would enjoy.

Everyone who knows me knows I’m a sucker for a cool serving bowl/plate!  I’ve had my eye on this bread basket that would be perfect for my focaccia recipe. There’s also another option I like on my Tomato Garlic Bruschetta blog post.

More thoughts on the topic…

Flour:

I suppose you could use all purpose flour, bread flour, almond flour, low carb flour, or whole wheat flour with instant yeast or dry active yeast, but I’ve never tried it. No dealing with yeast…and warm water, and a second rise for me…I like instant gratification!

Toppings:

As I mentioned, my topping of choice is my Garlic Tomato Bruschetta. But you could also top it with tomato sauce and cheese, or add some balsamic vinegar to the bruschetta topping.  Black pepper is something you could add to the dough before baking to give it a little bit of a spicy kick, or maybe some sun-dried tomatoes.  The possibilities are endless!

Other things to do with the 2-ingredient dough:

There are so many things you can make with the dough!  Pizza crust, pita bread, cinnamon rolls, sandwich bread, garlic knots, pretzels, croutons. So much deliciousness!

Leftovers:

I wrap any leftover bread in foil or plastic wrap, and then warm it back up when needed.

 

This easy focaccia recipe is one of my favorite things to make. It’s a huge success at family gatherings, a great addition to holidays…but I always secretly hope there’s a little bit left over for me afterwards.  🙂 

Happy Tinkering,

Susan