Easy Gazpacho Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What are the ingredients for gazpacho soup? ›

Gazpacho is a classic cold Spanish soup, perfect for sweltering summer days. It's traditionally made with fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, and garlic. For this version, we are including even more fresh garden vegetables and spicing up the soup with some Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce.

Although it's often okay to leave on tomato skins when cooking them, they are too fibrous to slurp in soup form. To remove the skins, mark a small "X" on the bottom, gently lower them into boiling water for 30 seconds, then shock in ice water. The skins will slip right off, and you can proceed with the gazpacho recipe.

The quick fix? Simply add in a little bit of sugar to neutralize the acid. Similar to the way many add sugar to their pasta sauce, the goal here isn't to completely transform this dish into a whole new sugary sweet concoction; it's all about using just a small sprinkle to round out the flavors.

Spanish cookbooks classify gazpacho as a salad. The most frequently encountered gazpacho is an uncooked mixture of tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, water, vinegar, onions, cucumbers, and green peppers, thickened with bread crumbs.

But the benefits of gazpacho go beyond the temperature. Made from tomatoes and vegetables, it carries numerous health benefits, too. It's a source of Vitamin vitamin A, Vitamin vitamin C, and Vitamin vitamin E, along with several other minerals and nutrients.

It may not be a meal on its own, but it can be when paired with another dish or two. Continue with the Spanish theme and choose something vegetarian like tortilla española or patatas bravas, serve it with seafood such as fried calamari or paella or a selection of small plate dishes like empanadas and croquettas.

One can determine the freshness of gazpacho by looking for changes in color and smell. A dimming of the vibrant hues of the vegetables or an off-putting odor can signal that the gazpacho may no longer be fresh and should be discarded. Signs of spoilage: Color change from bright to dull.

If you're making gazpacho and don't have tomato juice, you can use a combination of blended fresh tomatoes, red bell peppers, cucumber, and a splash of vinegar as a substitute. This mixture will still give your gazpacho the desired tomato-like base and refreshing flavor.

While this gazpacho is best right after you make it, any leftovers will still be very good the next day.

The quick answer is raw tomatoes — along with uncooked peppers, onions, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, and stale bread used as thickener — although the relatively newfangled addition didn't come about until the 19th century, after the discovery of the Americas.

How to thicken a gazpacho? ›

If it's too thin, add some more veggies, or... That's right, add some bread. To thicken gazpacho, just add some bread and continue to blend it until it's reached the consistency you desire.

While a gustatorily stultifying purée of tomatoes and tomato juice is lipstick-red, real gazpacho falls somewhere between pink and orange, thanks to the olive oil, bread, and nuts. But you can trick the eye by adding a nice green garnish.

Removing the skins from your tomatoes and cucumbers will remove any chance of tiny fibrous bits floating in your gazpacho. Additionally, the skins contain naturally occurring flavonoid compounds, which can impart a bitter flavor.

In the U.S., gumbo is the top national soup, a thick spicy soup from Louisiana. Clam chowder is another.

Gazpacho is widely eaten in Spain and Portugal, particularly during hot summers, since it is refreshing and cool. Although there are other recipes called gazpacho, such as gazpacho manchego, the standard usage implies a soup.

gaz·​pa·​cho gə-ˈspä-(ˌ)chō gəz-ˈpä- plural gazpachos. : a spicy soup that is usually made from chopped raw vegetables (such as tomato, onion, pepper, and cucumber) and that is served cold.

The big difference is that gazpacho is not just eaten cold, it's never heated in the first place: it's basically just a puree of raw vegetables. Regular tomato soup is cooked. The other differences are that tomato soup is mostly tomato, with maybe some onions but really no other vegetables.

At its best, gazpacho is super refreshing and bursting with fresh-from-the-garden summer flavors. At its worst, gazpacho tastes like chunky cold salsa or thin tomato juice, neither of which do I particularly enjoy. I wanted a texture somewhere in between the two, and far superior flavor.

Because it lacks the preserving benefits of cooking, the freshness of the ingredients directly impacts its longevity. Typically, homemade gazpacho can last for 3 to 4 days in the refrigerator if stored properly in an airtight container to prevent oxidation and contamination from other foods.