Hot days call for cold soup! Cool off this summer with these refreshing cold soup recipes. They include classic gazpacho, chilled corn soup, and more.
Cold soup is one of my summer obsessions, right up there with salads, cold brew, and everything sweet corn. On a hot summer day, there’s nothing I crave more. Cold soup is hydrating, refreshing, and brimming with peak-season produce. Often, its flavor improves after a day or two in the fridge, so it’s the sort of thing you can make ahead and keep on hand for easy, no-cook summer meals.
You’ll find 9 of my go-to cold soup recipes below. They include classics like gazpacho and chilled cucumber soup as well as out-of-the-box ideas like cold carrot coconut soup and sweet corn gazpacho. These recipes are ones I look forward to making every summer. I hope you love them as much as I do.
Tomatoey Cold Soup Recipes
With their sweet, tangy flavor and high water content, tomatoes are prime candidates for blending into cold soup. These recipes are perfect for warm days in mid-late summer, when tomatoes are in top form.
Easy Gazpacho
This recipe is a simplified riff on classic Spanish gazpacho. I make it without the traditional bread, yielding a light, flavorful soup that’s totally vegan and gluten-free.
Green Gazpacho, page 129 of The Love & Lemons Cookbook
Yellow tomatoes + cilantro + cucumber = a gorgeous green gazpacho! I blend sunflower seeds into this simple soup to give it a smooth, creamy texture.
Watermelon Gazpacho
Don’t worry – this gazpacho isn’t sweet. Instead, it’s deliciously nuanced and balanced, as the watermelon’s sweetness offsets the bite of the red wine vinegar, green onions, and garlic.
Creamy Roasted Tomato Gazpacho
Here, I char the tomatoes before I blend them. This quick and easy step adds smoky depth of flavor to this yummy summer soup.
Chilled Cucumber Soup Recipes
I know, I know – cucumber is a key ingredient in classic gazpacho, and you’ll find it in almost all of the chilled tomato soup recipes above. But in the cold soup recipes in this category, the tomatoes step aside, letting crisp, cool cucumbers become the star of the show.
Cold Cucumber Soup
Here, cucumbers, Greek yogurt, and fresh herbs blend into one of the most refreshing recipes I’ve tried. I love to eat it for lunch with crusty bread, focaccia, or a slice of avocado toast.
Cucumber Gazpacho
Charred tomatillos infuse this cool soup with a kick of tangy flavor. Top it off with sliced cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and fresh corn kernels for crunch.
More Refreshing Cold Soup Recipes
Chilled soup with…carrots? Cold zucchini soup? You betcha. Though unconventional, these cold soup recipes are delicious and nourishing. Add them to your to-make list ASAP!
Carrot Coconut Soup
Make this recipe after a trip to the farmers market, when you’ve scored a vibrant bunch of local carrots. Their sweet, earthy flavor will contrast beautifully with the rich coconut milk, aromatic lemongrass, and spicy curry paste in this soup.
Sweet Corn Gazpacho
Sweet corn, yellow tomatoes, and yellow bell peppers combine to create this soup’s sunny color. Thanks to the corn and a splash of sherry vinegar, it has a lovely sweet and tangy flavor.
Basil Zucchini Soup
After you’ve baked your umpteenth loaf of zucchini bread, change things up and make this zucchini soup! I always top my bowl with a few homemade croutons to add heft and crunch to this light, creamy dish.
9 Best Cold Soup Recipes
Ingredients
- 1 English cucumber
- 2½ pounds ripe tomatoes, chopped
- 2 fresno chiles, or ½ red bell pepper, stemmed and seeded
- ¼ small red onion, rinsed
- 4 small garlic cloves
- ¼ cup chopped cilantro, plus more for garnish
- 3 tablespoons sherry vinegar or red wine vinegar
- ½ cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
- 1¼ teaspoon sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- Cherry tomatoes and fresh herbs, for garnish
Instructions
- Finely chop ¼ of the cucumber and reserve for garnish.
- Peel the remaining cucumber, cut into chunks, and transfer to a blender. Add the tomatoes, peppers, onion, garlic, cilantro, vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Blend until smooth. Season to taste and chill for at least 2 hours.
- Serve the soup with the reserved diced cucumber, fresh herbs, drizzles of olive oil, and freshly ground black pepper.
and I will still eat hot soup in summer! but have never made cold soups with these tweaks, really want to try the gazpacho, so thank you
Thank you! I live in Florida which means hot, sticky, muggy through September. Cold soups are game changers for cooling things down. I appreciate this post so much.