It’s that time of year when friends and family come and go from your home on what seems like a daily basis, seemingly driving you out of the house and out of your home. Even though he waits for the company monsoon moving around in his home, he is prepared for anything because he has a secret weapon: olive oil bread sauce.
Now, there’s a good chance some of you probably thought we were going to mention a casserole of some kind, but olive oil pan sauce is so easy to make, why would you spend time with various concentrated soups?
Think of your favorite Italian restaurants. There are always the amazing pasta dishes and perfectly sweet but not too sweet desserts, but when you first sit down they bring you really fresh Italian bread and some olive oil bread sauce. For the most part, he doesn’t even think twice about it; you just go deeper because it’s amazing.
The same should be true of your own home, especially when you have last-minute guests coming to visit. It could be a family member you haven’t seen in a while, or an old college roommate who moved to the area and decided to look you up. You want to be a good host, even if it wasn’t planned, but part of being a good host means not being propped up in the kitchen talking over your shoulder while you make sandwiches.
All you need are a few simple ingredients to make your guests feel like they’ve walked into an Italian bistro:
- Good Quality Olive Oil
- Salt (larger, corsican crystals have great depth of flavor and texture to add)
- Pepper (fresh cracked is best in this application)
- Crushed red pepper flakes
- Minced garlic (again, fresh goes a long way, and you could even use a garlic press if you’re “pressed” for time)
Add your oil to a plate that has a center area that allows the ingredients to come together. Then add your garlic and take a few minutes to give these two items a little stir. Follow this with your ground pepper, red pepper flakes, and salt. Stir once more and voila. It really is that simple.
The hardest thing about an olive oil bread dip appetizer may be how to deal with the bread part of the equation. You can always try to keep a loaf of inexpensive Italian bread from the grocery store on hand just in case. Perhaps the best thing to do, given a last-minute guest’s time crunch, is to keep a “tube” package of bread in your fridge. In the same way that you can open a cardboard cookie or muffin tube, you can also find ready-to-bake bread in minutes. This way you can make your sauce and let it sit while you bake your bread and entertain. The dip will be spectacular!
