Gazpacho is a traditional Spanish summertime classic dish. While the original version was made of stale bread, olive oil, garlic with either a vegetable or fruit base, variations evolved, the most popular of which consists of a tomato base.
Whether the gazpacho be served as a soup, an apertif or a first course, one constant is that is should always be served cold and while the specific ingredients are flexible, they should always be consumed raw.
Gazpacho is sort of like a vegetable smoothie that’s chock full of nutrients, minerals and antioxidants and since it’s consumed in a raw form, it’s a great fit for speciality diets like Keto, Whole 30, Paleo, Vegan and in the case of this recipe also gluten free.
The end of summer is the perfect time to make this soup as the tomatoes are extra sweet in the later months and using a combination of different types of tomatoes, if possible, will help create a more complex and interesting broth base. If you are a tomato grower, this is a great dish to make to use up your abundance of summer time vegetables.
You’ll notice in my recipe that I made a huge batch. You can adjust your numbers based on how much tomato you need or want to use up and you can portion and freeze your excess for those winter months when you really need something light, refreshing and healthy.
Let’s jump into the recipe!
Ingredients:
80 pounds tomato (peeled, seeded), half diced, half left whole, juice reserved
20 quarts cucumber (peeled, seeded), half diced, half left whole
15 quarts bell peppers, (cored and seeded), half diced, half left whole
8 quarts red onion (rough chop)
40 jalapeno (seeded), half diced, half left whole
10 heads garlic – minced
3 quarts olive oil
50 limes (juiced)
2 cups balsamic vinegar
2 cups worcestershire sauce
1 cup roasted cumin
1 cup salt
1/4 cup pepper
Basil for garnish
Directions:
To peel the tomatoes, score the bottom lightly and drop into boiling water for about 15 seconds. Quickly drop in an ice water bath to cool. Remove skin then cut in half and use a small spoon or melon baller to remove seeds and core.
Place cores and seeds in a colander over hotel pan to catch the juice. When your colander is full, press the liquid out of the cores and seeds with the back of a ladle or wooden spoon. Reserve the juice.
Once you have seeded all the tomatoes, dice half and place the other half whole in another container
.Dice half of your cucumber, bell peppers and jalapeno and add it to the diced tomato. Add the other half of your cucumber, bell pepper and jalapeno to the tomatoes left whole. You also want to add your red onions and garlic to this.
If you have a Robot Coupe immersion blender, that would be that fastest way to process the base otherwise you can use a blender and do it in batches.
Add some of the tomato juice reserved and begin to process the vegetables left whole. Our goal here is to make this very smooth and we’ll later add the diced vegetables for texture.
Once you process each batch in your blender, pour the liquid into a larger pot. You can decide on the thickness you want by adding more tomato juice. I don’t like the soup to be too thick especially because we’re going to have so much fresh diced vegetable to munch on.
Add the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, worcestershire sauce, lime juice, cumin, salt and pepper and stir well to incorporate.
Make sure you taste, taste, taste! Especially with a batch this big, you want to make sure you add enough salt. Adjust the seasoning and if it needs more zing, add more lime juice and vinegar.
Add in all the diced veggies and give the soup a nice stir to incorporate it. Place entire container in the fridge overnight.
The next day when you grab your gazpacho out of the fridge and open your pot, you’re going to inhale some serious fresh deliciousness.
To plate, just spoon some into a bowl and garnish with fresh basil.
Drink it up!