Green Gazpacho

This cold soup is a green version of gazpacho, with avocado in place of tomatoes. In Spain, they use bread as a thickener for the traditional gazpacho, but that’s not needed with this recipe because the avocado does that for you.

My husband (not a fan of cold soups) kindly refers to this as runny guacamole. That’s sort of what it is, but I think it tastes better than that moniker makes it sound. If you want, you can reduce or leave out the avocado and go for a more traditional style soup, adding a bit of olive oil, and bread or even blanched almonds to round it out. Green pepper would be a nice addition too.

You'll probably want to de-seed the cucumbers for this. I think it depends on the type of cucumber you’re using. The cucumbers from my garden this year have tender, mild-tasting seeds, and they blended in just fine… but if you use cucumbers with tough or strong-tasting seeds, you’ll probably want to take them out.

As usual with my recipes, this is a general guideline. This is what I used, but you may want to change the amounts or the ingredients to your tastes.

Serves 4-6

2 medium-large cucumbers, peeled and de-seeded
2 large avocados
1 medium-size, sweet onion (roughly 1 cup chopped)
2 cloves garlic
½ cup cilantro, chopped
¼ cup lemon juice
1 cup veggie broth (cold or at room temperature)
Splash of Tabasco, Frank’s Red Hot, or similar
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients in blender. Serve chilled, topped with minced peppers, cucumbers, or other veggie of your choice. I like to drizzle oil and vinegar over the top of mine.

I also think it would be cute served in pretty bistro glasses.