Chilled Soup Recipes & Chilled Cucumber Soup

Chilled Soup Recipe: Cold Cucumber & Yogurt Soup

July 18, 2015 at 8:44 am · Filed under Recipes, Soups, The Nibble

[1] Yellow bell pepper gazpacho shooters, topped with a tortilla chip scoop and salsa. Here’s the recipe (photo © Chicken Fried Gourmet [now closed]).

A heated bowl of soup may not be your thing on a hot summer day, but a bowl of chilled soup is refreshing—and loaded with nutritious seasonal fruits and vegetables.

We recently wrote about gazpacho; now we’re expanding the conversation to recipe below, Chilled Cucumber Yogurt Soup.

Chilled soups can be savory or sweet, smooth or chunky, thick or thin, creamy or fat-free, flavored with your favorite herbs and spices, garnished with anything from croutons to chopped nuts.

You can use a base of milk/cream, purée, stock/broth, yogurt, even bread and water or beer.

You can serve the soup in bowls, cups, mason jars, mugs, wine glasses. You can serve mini-portions in shot glasses or juice glasses.

You can carry it around in a thermos.

If you don’t often cook—or if you want to teach a household member to cook—these recipes are pretty foolproof. Most can be made in a blender.

While soups with meat (beef, chicken) or lots of butter don’t lend themselves to chilling (the fat globules solidify), you won’t notice their absence. Just name your favorites and look for a recipe.

Borscht, cucumber yogurt soup, gazpacho and vichyssoisse have always been summer staples in our home. We’ve made chilled soups with:

Fruits: berry, cherry, lychee, mango, melon, nectarine, peach, plum and pineapple

Vegetables: asparagus, avocado, beet (borscht), bell pepper, carrot, corn, cucumber, fennel, lettuce/romaine, pea, potato-leek (vichyssoise), spinach, tomato, zucchini

The recipes can be as classic as white gazpacho (the original gazpacho) or as modern as iced carrot and orange soup.

Nothing is easier than blender soup. Try this yummy recipe…

…and check out these 9 ways to use cucumbers.

RECIPE: COLD CUCUMBER YOGURT SOUP

If you’re a fan of raita, tzatziki, or cucumbers in general, you’ll love this soup.

strong>Ingredients For 4 Servings

2 large cucumbers (2-1/4 pounds), halved and seeded—1/2 cup finely diced for garnish, the rest coarsely chopped

1-1/2 cups plain Greek yogurt

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 small shallot, chopped

1 garlic clove

1/3 cup loosely packed dill

1/4 cup loosely packed flat-leaf parsley leaves

2 tablespoons loosely packed tarragon leaves

1/4 cup olive oil, plus more for drizzling

Salt and fresh ground pepper

Garnish: 1/2 red onion, finely chopped; cucumber reserved from first ingredient; plain or flavored olive oil

Preparation

1. COMBINE all ingredients in a blender; process until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate for at least 8 hours or overnight.

2. TASTE the soup just before serving and adjust seasonings as desired. Serve in bowls garnished with finely diced cucumber, red onion and a drizzle of olive oil.

Recipe adapted from Andrew Zimmern, FoodAndWine.com.

CHECK OUT THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF SOUPIN OUR SOUP GLOSSARY.

[2] Chilled cucumber soup (photo Jacob Barss Bailey | CC BY NC-ND 2.0 License).