Yes, I’m on a bit of a strawberry kick, but if you are following me on Instagram you know that I went strawberry picking with my niece and nephew last weekend and came home with a TON of fresh strawberries – 3.14 pounds worth! Now, it is just Mark and me, so I needed to find a few good ways to use these delicious babies. Enter…Strawberry Gazpacho!
Honestly, I just wanted to find some different things to do with strawberries and experiment a little. Yes, I could have made jam or preserves. I could have cut them up and frozen them for smoothies (okay, that did happen to a few of these), but there was no way Mark and I could have eaten all of these without me getting a bit creative.
The first thing I did was to make strawberry and goat cheese crostini. Yum! Super easy and they were delicious with our Sunday night cocktails but only used maybe 1/2 cup of the 3 pounds of berries I had and there are only so many bowls of yogurt and berries I can have in a week so I had to find something else to do with them.
My colleague Chef Julie Harrington Lopez posted a picture of a bowl of berries on Instagram and what we thought she was creating and it sparked an idea. Strawberry Gazpacho! Why not? Watermelon gazpacho is delicious so I thought I’d give it a try.
How to Make Strawberry Gazpacho
Gazpacho is usually a bit chunky but also has a nice amount of liquid in it. When I make my traditional gazpacho I usually add tomato juice to get the right consistency so my concern with this was the liquid. Where would that come from? Tomatoes and watermelon are naturally full of water so they make a nice soup but I wasn’t sure how the strawberries would work. It turns out, beautifully!
The other thing I was worried about were the seeds on the berries, but there was no need to worry about that. They seemed to just blend right in and if anything, they helped to identify it as strawberry gazpacho but they really weren’t bothersome at all.
First, I put about 4 cups of hulled berries in my food processor along with 1/2 an English cucumber, small jalapeno pepper, a Tbsp. of lime juice, lime zest, and cilantro and pureed it well. I added a bit of salt and adjusted the lime juice a little but that was it.
Now, some people like their gazpacho more chunky, and I’d say to either reserve 1/4 of the strawberries and cucumbers and add them at the last minute and pulse the soup to get a more chunky consistency or to just add small dices of the cucumber and strawberries after it has been pureed and mix them in.
The Dinner Surprise
I did not tell Mark what I did. I just served it in these beautiful glass bowls with our pork tacos. He had no idea I used strawberries until I told him. Even then he said, “it just tastes like gazpacho”! I thought it had a slight sweetness to it and I could pull out a slight strawberry note, but it tasted like gazpacho.
It made enough that we have some for another meal and it should freeze perfectly well.
So, if go strawberry picking and have lots of berries and don’t want any more jam, may I suggest this easy Strawberry Gazpacho?
If you try it, let me know what you think in the comments below!
Strawberry Gazpacho
Equipment
- Food Processor or Blender
Ingredients
- 1 lb Strawberries washed and hulled
- 1/2 English cucumber about 8 oz.
- 1 jalapeno pepper quartered and seeded
- 11 tsp lime zest
- 2 Tbsp lime juice
- 1 Tbsp chopped cilantro
- 1/4 cup sliced scallions (green onions)
- 1/4 – 1/2 tsp. salt
Instructions
- Place all ingredients in a food processor or blender and puree until slightly chunky.
