Summer Gazpacho

5 from 2 votes

The Best No-Cook Summer Gazpacho with peak-season tomatoes, cucumber, bell pepper, and olive oil, blended silky smooth and chilled overnight.

Prep Time10

Cook Time0

Chilling Time6

Total Time6 10

Course: Soup

Cuisine: Spanish

Servings: people

Author: Gaby Dalkin

Ingredients

2 pounds RIPE red tomatoes (see note below) cored and roughly cut into chunks
1 yellow bell pepper cored, seeded and roughly cut into chunks
1 long hot house cucumber peeled and roughly cut into chunks (about 1 ½ cups worth)
1 small yellow onion peeled and roughly cut into chunks
2 cloves garlic peeled
2 tablespoons fresh chives, snipped
2 tablespoons fresh basil
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar plus more to taste
kosher salt to taste and a little freshly cracked black pepper if you prefer
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil plus more to taste, and for drizzling

Instructions

In a blender, combine the tomatoes, pepper, cucumber, onion, garlic, chives and basil. Blend on high speed until super smooth, at least 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides and blend for another minute.
While the blender is running, add the vinegar and season with a large pinch of salt. Drizzle in the olive oil and the mixture will start to emulsify.
Strain the mixture through a strainer and discard any solids that remain. Transfer to a large container and chill for at least 6 hours, overnight if possible.
Taste before serving and adjust the salt and vinegar. I love a little pepper so I add some freshly cracked black pepper too.

Notes

Only make this when tomatoes are actually good. Gazpacho has nowhere to hide. Watery, pale, out-of-season tomatoes will produce a flat, disappointing soup no matter how much vinegar or salt you add. Farmers market tomatoes in peak summer are non-negotiable here.
Smell your tomatoes before you buy them. A ripe tomato should smell intensely floral and sweet at the stem end. If there is no aroma, there will be no flavor. This single sniff test is the most reliable quality check you can do.
Blend for a full three minutes, not just until smooth. Extended blending breaks down cell walls more completely and allows the olive oil to fully emulsify into the tomato water, giving you a silky, cohesive texture rather than a separated, watery soup.
Stream the olive oil in while the blender is running. Adding oil slowly while blending creates a true emulsification, binding the fat with the vegetable liquid. Dumping it in all at once will leave you with oil pooling on top instead of a creamy, unified soup.
Chill overnight, not just for an hour. The flavors in gazpacho sharpen and marry significantly between the six-hour and twenty-four-hour mark. A quick chill gives you cold soup. An overnight rest gives you something that actually tastes developed and intentional.
Strain through a fine-mesh sieve every single time. Even after thorough blending, tomato skins and seed casings leave fibrous bits that interrupt the texture. Straining takes two minutes and is the difference between a rustic blended salad and a proper, restaurant-quality gazpacho.
Use an olive oil you would happily dip bread into. A half cup of olive oil is a primary flavor component in this recipe, not a background note. Anything bitter, rancid, or too grassy will dominate the finished soup in an unpleasant way.
Add vinegar in small increments and taste after each addition. Red wine vinegar is the acidity backbone that lifts all the vegetable flavors, but a little too much tips the soup from bright to sharp and sour. Start with the two teaspoons called for, then adjust by a quarter teaspoon at a time after chilling.
Season the soup again right before serving, after it has chilled. Cold temperatures dull your perception of salt and acidity. A soup that tasted perfectly seasoned warm will almost always need another pinch of salt and a small splash of vinegar once it comes straight from the refrigerator.
Drizzle your best olive oil over each bowl at the table. A finishing drizzle of high-quality extra virgin olive oil adds a fresh, peppery top note that blended-in oil cannot replicate. It also adds visual richness and signals to your guests that this is a composed dish.
Add a small piece of jalapeño if you want heat, not hot sauce. Hot sauce introduces its own vinegar and salt profile that can throw off the balance of the soup. A raw jalapeño blended with the vegetables gives you clean, fresh heat that integrates naturally with the other flavors.
Chill your serving bowls in the freezer for fifteen minutes before ladling. Gazpacho warms up quickly once it leaves the refrigerator, especially in summer heat. Ice-cold bowls keep the soup at its ideal temperature through the entire time it takes to eat, which is the whole point of a chilled soup.

Nutrition (estimated)