Five Cold Summer Soups

There are few dishes that are eaten or craved more in summer than cold soups of all kinds. These preparations, so typical of our country, represent the best of the Mediterranean diet, which we should never abandon. Healthy and delicious, they have it all.

And as we always recommend, they’re very easy to make at home with the right kitchen utensils.

What kitchen utensils are needed to prepare cold soups?

1. Depending on whether it's a cooked or raw dish, we'll need a good casserole dish to cook the ingredients, as in the case of the vichyssoisse, that cream soup made with leek and boiled potato and served well chilled. Mmmmm. If you want to speed up the cooking, a pressure cooker it has just as many advantages.
2. A good blender, shredder or hand mixer to blend the ingredients and make the cold soup very fine and smooth.
3. If we want to be even more precise, a good food mill or Chinese to leave absolutely no peel on the vegetables.

Kitchen Aid blender, Fissler pressure cooker and Tellier stainless steel food mill

Five cold soup recipes

Perhaps with the cold soups so traditional in our country, we can distinguish between the ones made with tomato, known to everyone, and those that don't have that distinctive red color.

I am a big fan of the ultra-traditional gazpacho and of the Cordoba-style salmorejo (click on the links to see the recipe). Gazpacho needs little introduction; you already know it’s made with tomato, pepper, garlic, and bread in its most basic version. And with its virgin olive oil and your vinegar, make sure they’re not missing.

Salmorejo is similar to gazpacho, but it only contains tomato and garlic when it comes to vegetables, and much more bread than gazpacho, so the result is thicker. So much so that I know native Cordobans who consume it more like a dip or dip that I eat soup.

Gazpacho recipe (served in Nippon Blue bowls by Tokyo Design) and cream of beet soup recipe

Among the popular cold soups that don't contain tomato is the succulent Málaga-style ajoblanco, a soup thickened with bread and good almonds. If you feel like trying the recipe (here), I assure you that you won't regret it.

The melon soup it’s another recipe that has become popular and can be made in various ways, but the way I make it uses melon, fruity white wine, a bit of honey, lemon juice, and salt. Simple so the flavor of the melon shines. Ah, and a garnish of Serrano ham in thin slivers, plain or toasted, works beautifully.

The fifth soup I want to recommend for the summer is more like a cream: beetroot cream. It's a soup that I love served cold; it's really tasty, although you can also keep it in mind for the cold months and serve it nice and warm. The recipe we suggest (here) is served with a few spoonfuls of yogurt, which rounds it out and surprises.

Although it's not the most traditional, I like that idea of serve cold soups as an appetizer or shot in small portions and in fun containers, such as the mini cocottes. Imagine a spread of assorted small servings of cold soups... what a great idea, right?

Le Creuset soup tureens: ideal for serving soups

The Le Creuset soup tureens are perfect for all kinds of soups, both cold like the ones we mention in this article, and hot. The quality of the ceramic Perfectly preserves flavors and retains cold and heat well.

Recipe for Malaga-style ajoblanco, served in the Le Creuset soup tureens

Like all Le Creuset products, they not only have a bombproof quality and durability but they're gorgeous, with those vibrant colors and that signature line. Look at them—don't they look insanely pretty?

Although if you prefer another style to serve las cold soups, the deep plates by Emile Henry they also have wonderful ceramics and a wonderful product line. Not forgetting the Tokyo Studio porcelain bowls.