This is one of my absolute favorite summer soups and I have been waiting to make it this summer with a homegrown watermelon and veggies from our garden. The time finally came this past Sunday night when our first, of many, many in still in the garden, watermelon was finally ripe and ready to be picked.
Sunday night my neighbor Steve and I pulled a “wee” little 23.8 pound watermelon from our garden which we split in half for our families to share.
The melon was gorgeous, ruby red, sweet and perfectly ripe. My only complaint was that it had seeds but for what I was going to do with the melon, that wasn’t a problem. We enjoyed some of the melon and then I cut all of the flesh and seeds from the rind, discarded the rind and put the flesh, seeds and all into a big gallon sized pitcher. Then using my stick blender I pureed everything and strained the liquid through a Chinois to remove the bits of seeds. That was my base for my delicious Watermelon Tomato Gazpacho. I then poured some of the strained watermelon juice into to my blender jar, added all the other ingredients, gave it a whirl, poured it all back into the big pitcher with the strained watermelon juice, gave it a stir and I had a gorgeous batch of Watermelon Tomato Gazpacho. All I had left to do was dice up some extra cucumber, melon & tomatoes for garnish and soup was on the table.
Below is my original recipe with the only difference being that I used a seedless watermelon so some of the above steps weren’t needed. This gazpacho is just a bit sweet from the watermelon and the flavors of the tomato & cucumber come through as very clean tastes without the usual acid found in typical gazpacho. I hope that you’ll give this recipe a try, it’s a real summer treat.
Watermelon Tomato Gazpacho
6 cups small diced seedless watermelon and liquid
1/2 cucumber, peeled, seeded & diced
2 very ripe medium tomatoes, diced
1 clove garlic
2 TBS minced sweet onion
1/2 jalapeno, seeded
10 basil leaves
1/4 cup good quality extra virgin olive oil
salt
pepper
Extra diced watermelon, cucumber & tomato as well as basil leaves for garnish.
Put first eight ingredients into a blender and process until very smooth. It is not necessary but if you want the gazpacho perfectly smooth, strain the liquids through a Chinois and then season to taste with salt & pepper (if you want your gazpacho with more texture just skip the straining step). Chill overnight or until very cold and then pour into serving bowls and garnish with the extra diced watermelon, cucumber, tomato and a fresh basil leaf.
Enjoy!!