Easy Overnight Focaccia

Prepare to be blown away by this no-knead focaccia recipe that'll dazzle your holiday guests.

Dec 23, 2025

Focaccia is one of those things that most home cooks file away as “too daunting.” And for good reason! The typical recipe has you make a dough, babysit it for hours; it requires multiple folds and rises and even when you get it into the pan, you’ve got to let it rise again.

But there is another way. It uses the same methodology that set the world on fire back when Mark Bittman published Jim Lahey’s recipe for no-knead bread in the early aughts.

This recipe, which comes by way of Bon Appetit’s Sarah Jampel, is a dream to put together. If you have a scale, great! If not, you can still make it, but a scale not only ensures it’ll come out exactly as intended, but also makes it easier to measure: you just keep adding flour until you hit 625 grams (no measuring cups, no measuring spoons).

If there’s a baker in your life who doesn’t have a cute little kitchen scale, it makes for a great last-minute Christmas gift. I love mine from Escali.

This recipe is a typical mixture of yeast, honey, water, salt, and olive oil and once you bring it together (it takes like thirty seconds) your work is basically done.

You cover this with plastic, place in the fridge, and leave it overnight. Go read a book. Or watch Heated Rivalry (the heat emanating from the screen might help your dough to rise.)

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The next morning, your focaccia dough will look all puffy and beautiful.

Now all you have to do is deflate it and lift it into a buttered 9X13 pan and let it rise for a few hours more. (Okay, there’s one more rise. But now you have time to watch more Heated Rivalry.) Then you dimple with your fingers (that’s the most fun part), drizzle with more olive oil, and sprinkle with Maldon sea salt.

Bake it in a 450 oven for 20 to 30 minutes and suddenly your house, apartment, or yurt will smell like a family-run bakery in Italy.

I can’t tell you how good it felt to take this out of the oven. It took a lot of willpower not to eat it right away; but once it cooled a little, I cut in, and wow-oh-wow was this the fluffy-on-the-inside, crisp-on-the-outside focaccia of my dreams.

This would be fabulous all by itself on a holiday table but also? It’s great for sandwiches. I made a great one with some labneh, smoked salmon, and cucumbers. Another winner: cashew hummus, leftover chicken, and a quick red cabbage coleslaw.

Serve this with a lasagna or a tomato soup, and your family’s going to go nuts. And when they ceaselessly thank you and beg for the recipe, just say: “There’s no knead. There’s none.”

Easy Overnight Focaccia

Adapted from a recipe by Sarah Jampel for Bon Appetit

Yields 12 pieces

Ingredients:

2 ¼ teaspoons active dry yeast (about 1 envelope)

2 teaspoons honey

5 cups (625 grams) all-purpose flour

5 teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt

6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided (plus more for hands)

Softened butter (for buttering your pan)

Maldon sea salt

Instructions:

The night before you want focaccia:

1. Whisk the yeast, honey, and 2 ½ cups lukewarm water in a large bowl and let sit for a few minutes until it starts to get foamy. If you don’t see any bubbles, your yeast is probably dead. Best bet: start again with fresher yeast.

2. Add the flour (again, I recommend doing it by weight!) and the salt and mix with a rubber spatula just until it becomes a shaggy-looking dough.

3. Coat another large bowl with 4 tablespoons of the extra-virgin olive oil and tip the dough into it, turning the dough to coat on all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or at least 3 to 4 hours (but the longer you do it, the more fermentation, the more interesting it will taste).

The next morning:

4. Generously butter a 9X13 baking pan (this helps it not stick; a tablespoon or two of softened butter should be fine). Pour one tablespoon of the extra-virgin olive oil into the center of the pan.

5. Now using two forks, lift up the edges of the dough that are farthest away from you and fold over into the center of the bowl. Keep doing this as you rotate the pan in order to deflate the dough and also form it into a ball.

6. Tip into the baking pan, pouring on any remaining oil from bowl. Allow to rise in a warm spot until doubled in size, at least 1 ½ hours, but it could take more.

7. Preheat the oven to 450. Press the dough: if it springs back quickly, it’s not ready. Now the fun part. Oil your hands a little and press the dough all over with your fingers, going all the way to the very bottom of the pan, until everything is dimpled.

8. Drizzle with the remaining olive oil and sprinkle with a nice amount of the Maldon sea salt (I went a little heavy because I wanted the focaccia to taste good on its own). Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until brown all over.

9. Allow the bread to cool for a bit then slice and serve.

Note: the original recipe has you brush on a garlic butter, but I find that to be overkill. The focaccia is great on its own.