Cold Watermelon Soup in Gazpacho Style

This watermelon soup is a cold, refreshing, and sweet-savory summer soup that is prepared in gazpacho style. It means blended raw without straining and serve chilled. This soup will surely cool you down on a hot summer day.

In the summertime when the weather is hot… by Mungo Jerry is the first song that pops up in my head every time I think of summer. You know when it is too hot and being a bit lazy is awesome. Like I don’t want to warm the kitchen any longer than necessary. At those times, I crave fresh lemonade, no-fuss breakfast, no-cook lunch, and no-bake dessert and I am happy as a clam. 🙂

For breakfast, all I need is a green smoothie, overnight oats, or fresh, raw veggie-loaded sandwiches with vegan egg salad or spreads like vegan cream cheese or hummus. For lunch, I choose something easy from our 15-minute quick vegan meals collection. And for dessert, maybe overnight chia pudding, or nice cream or no-bake cookies.

Is it a watermelon gazpacho recipe?

The original gazpacho soup is a traditional Spanish dish. It is a no-cook cold soup focusing on the fresh sweet taste of ripe tomatoes.

The traditional way to make this is to soak a stale bread, some garlic, and olive oil, and smash it in a mortar into a paste. Then add fresh veggies like tomato, cucumber, red pepper, red onion, and garlic and smash them some more.

So no, not all raw tomato-based soups are considered gazpacho. However, we do believe that the taste and texture of gazpacho are coming through in this chilled soup recipe as well. 

This watermelon soup recipe is similar to gazpacho, but the difference is that we wanted it to be gluten-free and oil-free.

• No bread of any kind is in this recipe.
• No olive oil was added. You can drizzle some when serving it, your choice. 
• We also chose to use chives instead of onion and garlic as we prefer to have a milder taste. 
• However, we did use lots of tomatoes, cucumber, bell pepper, and of course fresh watermelon. 

It is heavenly with fresh herbs. Like a refreshing smoothie, the raw fruit and the raw veggies can vitalize you with so many nutrients. See for yourself!

Ingredients

The star of this cold summer soup is watermelon, but the combination of veggies and herbs is equally important. This recipe has 7 main ingredients:

• ripe watermelon without seeds
• fresh ripe Roma tomatoes
• cucumber
• bell pepper
• fresh mint leaves
• fresh basil leaves
• chives

In one corner, you have sweet watermelon and tomato. In the other corner, you have savory cucumber and bell pepper. However, the fresh herbs elevate it to next-level delicious. Nothing screams summer vibes like mint and watermelon. Am I right? Or maybe strawberry, hmmm. I have to tell my husband to come up with something with strawberries here. Stay tuned!

🛒 You can find detailed measurements for all ingredients in the printable version of the recipe card at the bottom of this post.

Instructions

Prepare the ingredients

• We recommend chilling all ingredients in the fridge in advance.
• Wash and cut watermelon. Well, seedless watermelon is pretty rare where we live, so just take the black seeds out. A high-power blender like Vitamix can easily deal with the small white ones.
• Wash and cut tomatoes, cucumbers, and red peppers. No need to peel them.
• Wash the mint and basil leaves if you buy them unwashed.
• Wash and chop up chives.

Blend them

It is only one step really. Add all ingredients to a blender and puree them until you get a smooth chilled watermelon soup. We recommend adding the juicy watermelon first like in the below photo.

Top tips to make it perfectly

• You need fresh ingredients! -> It is a raw vegetable soup, so freshness is crucial. You will get the best-tasting soup if you look for the sweetest watermelon, the ripest tomatoes, and fresh herbs.
• What if I don’t have fresh tomatoes? -> If you have tomatoes, but not ripe enough, you can enhance the tomato flavor by adding 1-2 Tbsp tomato paste. If you don’t have any fresh tomatoes at all, you can use canned chopped tomatoes. 
• Serve after chilled! -> The flavors will mature if you chill the soup in the fridge for at least 3-4 hours. The soup will change color a bit (it gets darker) as the veggies and the fruit starts to break down and come together. We recommend eating it within 2 days though. It is raw food, so it can get spoiled fast. 
• Fresh or dried herbs? -> Well, it will not be quite the same if you use dried herbs. Sadly, it just doesn’t add as much flavor as fresh leaves would.
• Enhance the flavors even more? ->  We love it with a ½ tsp ginger added before blending. Alternatively, we often serve it with a splash of sherry vinegar (or red wine vinegar) or balsamic vinegar on top. 
• For some extra heat?  -> Add some chili flakes or jalapeno peppers to your taste before blending or on top. 

How to make a stunning red soup?

If you have tried making any type of red gazpacho, you may have ended up with a rather brownish soup instead of the vibrant red you can see in the pictures. So coloring question 1-0-1: What happens if you mix red and green? Yes, it will be brown.

So here are some of our tips to make the soup as crimson as possible: 

• Use the sweetest, ripest watermelon you can find. The one that you can buy at the end of the season. You know that sickeningly sweet and vibrant red one that gets slushy around the seeds because we can almost consider it as over-ripe. 
• Core the tomatoes (aka discard the seeds and the white part in the middle), so you end up with purely red tomatoes flesh. I also like to add a bit of tomato paste for an even redder color. 
• Peel the cucumber, as its dark green outer peel will not help your case. 
• Use red bell pepper instead of yellow or green ones. 
• Substitute scallion whites for chives. So you have something white instead of green. 
• You might think that well I can do nothing about the fresh herbs. On the contrary, have you heard about shiso or purple perilla? It is also known as purple mint.  

What to serve with it?

This cold watermelon “gazpacho” soup can be a perfect appetizer served in small glasses with a straw, or as a refreshing lunch entree topped with lots of diced fresh veggies and watermelon of course. Or get creative and turn it into a stunning dish by serving it inside a carved-out watermelon peel.

Here is a list of toppings we love to pair this cold soup with:

• Freshly chopped herbs
• Fresh diced vegetables (tomatoes, cucumber, bell pepper) and of course some watermelon cubes
• Pinch of chili flakes or jalapeno slices for some extra heat
• Croutons
• Lemon juice or lime juice
• Drizzle of maple syrup (since honey is not vegan)
• Vegan bacon bits

We also liked to eat a bit of bread on the side:

• Savory french toast
• Grilled cheese toast (we have scrumptious double grilled cheese sandwich recipe in our Express Vegan cookbook)
• Garlic bread

Tell us in the comments, what kind of garnish you would eat this chilled summer soup with.

FAQs and substitutions

How to store it?

This cold soup tastes best after spending 3-4 hours in the refrigerator. Since it is a raw soup, we don’t recommend storing it for more than 2 days. It will start to change color and will get spoiled easily.

Can you freeze it?

We don’t recommend freezing it.

Can you use other types of melon?

If you are not adamant to have a vibrant red color you can mix and match different types of melons like honeydew or cantaloupe.

This refreshing watermelon “gazpacho” soup recipe is raw vegan, so dairy-free, and egg-free. It is also suitable for WFPB, vegetarian, paleo, gluten-free, and whole30 diets.

More blender soup recipes

You can browse through our vegan gluten-free soup recipes or find your favorite among these 30 deliciously creamy vegan soups or check out

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UPDATED: This recipe was originally posted in Aug 2018, but was rewritten and republished with new photos, video, and even more tips in July 2022.