Bake

Garlic Bread From Sam Sifton

by:
April 13, 2020
5
1 Ratings
Photo by David Malosh
  • Prep time 15 minutes
  • Cook time 20 minutes
  • Serves 4 to 6
Author Notes

"There is no better accompaniment to a dinner of pasta with red sauce than a large lacquered loaf of hot bread sliced almost but not entirely through, redolent of bruised garlic and sweet butter. Save, perhaps, two or more loaves. Children thrill to garlic bread in particular, and few adults can avoid its charms. You’ll need only Italian bread or a country loaf, butter, garlic, and, if you like, a lot of mixed herbs." —Sam Sifton

Reprinted from See You on Sunday. Copyright © 2019 by Sam Sifton. Photographs © 2019 by David Malosh. Published by Random House, an imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC. —Food52

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter
  • 1 head garlic, or as much as you'd like
  • Kosher salt
  • 1 loaf Italian or country bread
  • Fresh herbs, if you want
Directions
  1. For a traditional loaf, simply take a stick of unsalted butter and place it on your cutting board to soften. Then peel and mince garlic, as many cloves as you deem necessary, up to a full head. When the butter has softened, use a fork to mash the garlic into it, creating a paste that may appear to be equal parts garlic and butter. Add a little coarse kosher salt and mix again. Then use a bread knife to score the bread deeply, thick slices that end right before the bottom crust of the loaf. Spread the garlic butter on each side of each slice, making sure to get it down deep toward the bottom crust. Use the remaining garlic butter to anoint the exterior of the loaf, then wrap the whole thing in aluminum foil. Bake it in a 350°F oven for around 20 minutes, a little more if your oven temperature is lower, then serve.
  2. Or if you’d like a more luxe and fragrant version? Follow the teachings of my colleague Samin Nosrat, who cuts a wide variety of herbs—parsley, thyme, and chives, say—into the butter she uses on the bread, then stuffs yet more fresh herbs of the same variety into the finished bread before she serves it. It’s like a salad, then. And ridiculously delicious.

See what other Food52ers are saying.

1 Review

FrugalCat April 14, 2020
That's the way my mom would cut bread for garlic bread. Sometimes she'd mix dried oregano or parsley in with the garlic. My husband grew up with garlic bread split in half the long way. He has since converted to my family's method.