Fougasse (Flatbread)

Appetizer, Appetizers & Snacks

Crispy edges, soft middle, pockets of salty olives, and that beautiful smell of olive oil and herbs. This is Provençal fougasse, the flatbread that you tear apart with your hands at apéros and the one that disappears before the wine's even poured.

Pin recipe Print

Prep Time 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 25 minutes mins

Total Time 55 minutes mins

Servings 6

Ingredients 

1x2x3x?

For the dough

• 500 gr plain flour
• 325 ml water lukewarm
• 7 gr instant dry yeast or 15g fresh yeast
• 9 gr salt
• 25 ml olive oil extra virgin

For the filling

• 100 gr black olives pitted and roughly chopped
• 2 tsp Herbes de Provence

For finishing

• olive oil extra virgin, for brushing
• flaky salt

Equipment

mixing bowl

tea towel

baking tray

baking mat

knife

pastry brush

Instructions

1. Make the dough

• Mix the flour and salt in a large bowl. If using dried yeast, add it directly to the flour. If using fresh yeast, dissolve it in the lukewarm water first and let it sit for 5 minutes until it starts to foam.

  Make a well in the centre, pour in the water and olive oil. Mix with your hands until it comes together into a shaggy dough. Turn out onto your work surface and knead for 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. The dough should be soft and slightly sticky. If it's too dry, add a tiny splash more water, if it's too wet, add a bit more flour.

2. First rise

• Shape the dough into a ball, place it in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a damp tea towel, and leave somewhere warm for about 1-1,5 hours until doubled in size.

3. Add the olives and herbs

• Turn the risen dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Flatten it gently with your hands, scatter over the chopped olives and herbs, then fold the dough over itself a few times to distribute them through the dough. Don't overwork it, you want pockets of olives, not a uniform mix.

4. Shape the fougasse

• Divide the dough in half (each piece makes one fougasse). Roll or press each piece into an oval shape about 25-30cm long and 1,5-2cm thick. Transfer to a baking sheet lined with parchment.

5. Slash and spread

• Using a sharp knife or bench scraper, make diagonal slashes through the dough. You want 3 cuts on each side, angled like a leaf or wheat ear pattern. The slashes should go right through the dough to your work surface, but stop before you reach the edges.

  Here's what to do next: once you've cut the slashes, use your fingers to pull and spread each opening apart by about 2-3cm. Really open them up. If you don't do this, they'll seal shut as the dough rises and bakes, and you'll lose that characteristic fougasse look.

6. Second rise

• Cover the shaped fougasses with a damp tea towel and leave for 30-45 minutes until puffy (not doubled, just noticeably risen).

7. Bake

• Heat your oven to 220°C (200°C fan). Brush the fougasses generously with olive oil and sprinkle with flaked sea salt. Bake for 20-25 minutes until deep golden brown. The edges of those openings should be crispy and slightly caramelised. The base should sound hollow when you tap it.

8. Cool and serve

• Let the fougasse cool on a wire rack for at least 10 minutes. It's brilliant warm, but also good at room temperature. Tear it apart with your hands rather than slicing it at apero!

Notes

• You can skip the olives and herbs for a simple fougasse. Brush with olive oil and sprinkle with fleur de sel before baking.
• Or you can go wild and add other ingredients like vegetarian lardons, anchovies, sun-dried tomatoes, or crumbled goat cheese, they all work wonderfully. Add them the same way as the olives.
• Opening those cuts by slashing the bread creates more crust, which means more crispy bits and better texture contrast with the soft middle.
• The fougasse is best eaten the day it’s made. If you have leftovers, warm them in a 180°C oven for 5-7 minutes to crisp up the crust again.

About this recipe

Fougasse is another thing from my childhood in Nice. The funny story is this flat bread actually began as a baker’s test, it wasn’t a carefully created recipe. Bakers would slide in a small piece of dough before loading their main loaves into wood‑fired ovens to see if the heat was right. Some were burned, others were too pale and were disgard but if it came out just right, they’d tear it apart and eat it warm, often with a bit of cheese or tapenade, straight there in the bakery. Over time, that “test piece” turned into something people started asking for on purpose.

The distinctive slashed shape of a Fougasse (some people see a leaf, others an ear of wheat or a little ladder) helps the bread bake faster and more evenly and give you a lot of crust for not much crumb, which is exactly what you want for a French flatbread like this.

How fougasse is different from focaccia

Fougasse and focaccia are cousins with the same Roman ancestor, panis focacius, flat bread baked on the hearth. But they’ve gone their own way since. Focaccia is thicker, dimpled all over, often baked in a tray and topped generously. Fougasse is thinner, shaped by hand, slashed open, and baked directly on a hot surface so the edges go properly crisp. Focaccia is firmly Italian, especially Ligurian. Fougasse is unmistakably Provençal. They use similar ingredients, but they don’t taste or behave the same.

Why the slashing really matters

This is the bit most people underestimate. They cut a few decorative lines into the dough, leave them almost closed, and then wonder why their fougasse looks like a regular loaf with scratches.

The way to do it is nce you’ve made the cuts, you really need to open them up with your fingers. Tug each one a good 2–3 cm apart. It feels slightly alarming, as if you’re about to destroy all your work, but that’s exactly what creates the lacy shape and those almost burnt, crunchy edges that make this french flatbread so satisfying. If you don’t, the dough just puffs back into itself in the oven and you lose that contrast between crisp and soft, between little olive‑studded ridges and the shiny patches where olive oil pools in the gaps.

The knife that makes it easier

Those cuts need to be swift and clean. A dragging, hesitant blade will squash and close them before you even get to the “pulling apart” part. This is one of those moments in baking where a sharp knife is genuinely essential.

I use my Opinel Intempora knife for this. The blade slices straight through a well‑proved olive‑oil dough in one confident motion, which gives you crisp, neat slits that you can then stretch open. Opinel has been making knives in Savoie for generations, and they’ve become part of everyday French kitchen life. With a bread where the cut is part of the technique, the right knife does make the difference in the baked fougasse.

What goes inside

The classic Provençal fougasse is simple: black olives and herbes de Provence – thyme, rosemary, maybe a little oregano, folded through the dough. From there, every region and bakery seems to have its own twist.

In Nice, you’ll find fougasse with anchovies. In parts of Languedoc, it appears with “grattons” (little crispy pork bits). Some bakers push it towards pizza territory with goat cheese and sun‑dried tomatoes. There’s even a sweet Christmas version, often called “pompe à l’huile”, scented with orange blossom water and served as part of the 13 Provençal Christmas desserts.

The plain flat bread is nothing more than flour, water, yeast, salt, and olive oil. Even without any extras, it’s still very good: light, fragrant, and made for tearing.

When to put it on the table

For me, fougasse is an apéritif bread first and foremost. You put it down warm in the middle of the table, maybe with a bowl of tapenade, a dish of anchoïade, or some fresh goat cheese, and watch as people start tearing off pieces before they’ve even taken their coats off.

It’s also excellent alongside soup like a soupe au pistou for example or a bowl of ratatouille, or just a simple vegetable soup, and works well with a salad for an easy lunch. Whatever the setting, serve it warm. Fresh from the oven is perfect, and if you’ve baked it earlier, five minutes at 180°C is enough to bring it back to life.