“Waiter, my soup is cold!”
This is an excellent gazpacho recipe for anyone who loves fresh summer flavors!
Gazpacho is a tomato-based veggie soup that is a great summer recipe when fresh vegetables are readily available in the kitchen.
Soup in the summer?
For those who don’t know, gazpacho is a Spanish dish (and is also consumed a lot in the neighboring country of Portugal) served at a cold temperature.
You make gazpacho in a blender or food processor, yet it is not a smoothie—it’s a soup. The signature zesty flavor is achieved from its tomato base with added lemon juice, wine vinegar, and other ingredients.
Gazpacho is chock-full of great vegetables, and many people call this soup a “liquid salad.” We like it because it’s both delicious and easy to make.
Some people puree this soup until it reaches a smooth texture, while others keep it chunky.
Start with veggies, and the fresher, the better! The recipe below calls for onions, tomatoes, and peppers, but use whatever vegetables you like the most and have in the house.
My wife makes a big batch of this several times throughout the summer, and we serve it as an appetizer or side dish to cool us down during a heat wave. Aside from chopping the veggies, this is a low-maintenance dish to prepare.
This recipe comes from the original Moosewood Cookbook, and my wife has the original, which doesn’t seem available anymore, but if you like meatless cooking, try any of Mollie Katzen’s Moosewood Cookbooks. They are filled with great recipes, and the hand lettering makes them fun to read.
Gazpacho Soup Recipe
Ingredients
- 4 cups tomato juice cold, I use V8 juice
- 1 small onion minced
- 2 cups tomatoes freshly diced
- 1 cup green pepper minced
- 1 teaspoon honey
- 1 cucumber diced
- 2 scallions chopped
- juice of ½ lemon
- juice of 1 lime
- 2 tablespoons wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon dried tarragon and basil if you have fresh, use 1 tablespoon
- 1 teaspoon dried basil if you have fresh, use 1 tablespoon
- 1 dash ground cumin
- ¼ cup parsley freshly chopped
- 1 dash Tabasco sauce
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- salt & pepper to taste
- 1 lemon for garnish
Instructions
- Process all the ingredients except for the tomato juice in a food processor. Don't over process the ingredients.
- Then combine that with the tomato juice in a large bowl, cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least 2 hours.
- If you don't have a food processor you can try processing the ingredients in a blender with a little tomato juice. You may have to prepare it in batches.
- I like to serve this with a fresh baguette that I also purchase at our Farmer's Market.
One Response
I have never tried gazpacho before! I would love to try this and I really like the idea of mixing in the chopped veggies and letting everything sit. So no cooking involved! There will be a lot of gazpacho in my future this summer. I will have to keep an eye out for that cookbook when we start hitting garage sales. 🙂