I love, love, LOVE a bowl of icy, cool Gazpacho in the summer. When it’s miserably hot out, there’s nothing finer. I hadn’t made Gazpacho in ages, though, but after having a delicious bowl of a Southwestern inspired Gazpacho on a recent trip to Michigan, I’d been craving another bowl. I didn’t get up the nerve to ask for the recipe when I was at the restaurant, so I decided to play around with a regular Gazpacho recipe. The result was fantastic. In fact, my husband told me it’s the best Gazpacho I’ve ever made. So, I guess this is my new go-to Gazpacho recipe!
The soup I had at the restaurant was filled with chunks of fresh veggies, plus had black beans, corn and just a little bit of spice. I had wanted to try Ina Garten’s Gazpacho recipe for a while, because I saw her make it on TV and it just looked really yummy. I figured I could easily tweak it…so I did!
I started by prepping all of my veggies. I roughly chopped up some Roma tomatoes, a red bell pepper, an orange bell pepper, some red onion and an English cucumber (the cucumbers you see at the store that are longer and wrapped in plastic wrap.)
I also minced up a few cloves of garlic. After that, I got out the food processor and, one by one, each veggie went into food processor and pulsed until it was finely chopped. After that, I dumped each batch into a big mixing bowl.
To that, I added a can of black beans and about a cup of frozen corn. The soup was going to chill in the fridge all day, so I didn’t bother thawing the corn.
Then, before it hit the fridge, I added some tomato juice (I used regular, but you could jazz it up with V8 or spicy tomato juice), white wine vinegar, a little bit of olive oil, some salt and pepper, and some cumin. I was serving this to my cilantro-hating husband, but if you love cilantro, I’m pretty sure adding some chopped cilantro to the mix would up the Southwestern ante even more.
In less than ten minutes, I had a HUGE bowl of amazing Gazpacho. I wanted to jump in right away, but the longer this stuff chills, the better it tastes. I popped it in the fridge and waited until dinner time.
When dinner rolled around, we were treated to the ultimate, light, summer dinner. It wasn’t an exact replica of the soup I had at the restaurant, but (not to toot my own horn or anything) I think it may have been better! It’s such a pretty soup, and practically screams, “I’m good for you!!!” I served it up with a dollop of sour cream on the top and some tortilla chips on the side. It was delicious! Plus, we had enough left over to have for lunch the next day, and after chilling all night long, it tasted even better! I’m thinking of making up a big batch every week to just keep in the fridge for quick, healthy lunches. Perfect!
SOUTHWESTERN GAZPACHO
Adapted from Ina Garten’s original Gazpacho recipe
| Southwestern Gazpacho |
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Recipe Type: Soup
Prep time: 15 mins
Total time: 15 mins
Serves: 6-8
- 1 English cucumber, seeded and halved, but not peeled
- 1 red bell pepper, cored and seeded
- 1 orange bell pepper, cored and seeded
- 4 Roma tomatoes
- 1/2 red onion
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 (15 oz.) can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 cup frozen corn
- 3 cups tomato juice
- 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 tablespoon kosher salt
- 1 tsp. black pepper
- 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
- chopped cilantro, to taste
- sour cream, tortilla chips for serving
- Roughly chop the cucumber, peppers, onions, and tomatoes into 1 inch cubes. Process each vegetable, separately, in your food processor and pulse until coarsely chopped. Do not puree.
- After each vegetable is through the processor, add them to a large bowl along with the black beans, corn, garlic, tomato juice, vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper and cumin. Mix well and chill. The longer it chills, the better it tastes! Add the cilantro, if desired, before serving. Serve with sour cream and tortilla chips.
- ENJOY!
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