Spice up your summer with this easy cucumber gazpacho! Made with tomatillos, cucumber, jalapeño & cilantro, it's a cool, refreshing soup.
I love gazpacho. If it’s on a restaurant menu, I’m ordering it, and once summer rolls around, I make it at home as much as I can. To date, I’ve made gazpacho recipes out of watermelon, tomatoes (raw and roasted), corn, green apples, zucchini, and even carrots. I think it’s fun to experiment with different types of fruits and vegetables to find out if they can blend up into delicious cold soups. So why did it take me so long to think about tomatillos and cucumber?! I get giddy about tomatillo salsa, so the obvious next step was to throw a cucumber into the blender along with the otherwise-salsa ingredients and make this green cucumber gazpacho recipe.
How to Make Tomatillo Cucumber Gazpacho
To start, I grill the tomatillos, onion, garlic, and a jalapeño. If you don’t have a grill, you can roast these ingredients in the oven or char them in a cast iron pan on the stove. At this stage, the fire-roasted tomatillo/onion combination smells like the best salsa bar ever.
After grilling, let the hot vegetables cool completely before blending them with diced cucumber, lime juice, cilantro, and Arbequina Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Spain. Add a scoop of yogurt for balance, and blend until smooth. Then, chill the soup.
When it’s cold, drizzle it with a simple yogurt-lime sauce and top it with your favorite crisp garnishes. This soup is tangy, creamy, light, and refreshing, with a nice kick from the jalapeño. All in all, I can’t think of a better meal for hot summer days!
Cucumber Gazpacho Serving Suggestions
Load up your cucumber gazpacho with whatever toppings you enjoy. I added charred corn, finely chopped tomatoes, cucumber, mint, hemp seeds, a sprinkle of microgreens, and, of course, more olive oil! Another delicious combo would be cilantro, diced avocado, and croutons (or even crispy tortilla strips).
Serve the gazpacho on its own with good crusty bread or corn on the cob, or pair it with Mexican street corn salad, cilantro lime rice, and black beans or chips, mango salsa, and guac. I also like it as a starter with any of these taco recipes:
- Vegetarian Tacos with Avocado-Tomatillo Sauce
- Jamaican Jerk Vegan Tacos
- Avocado Sweet Potato Tacos
- Spicy Mango, Black Bean, and Avocado Tacos
And don’t forget the margaritas to drink!
More Favorite Soup Recipes
If you love this cucumber gazpacho recipe, try one of these favorite soups next:
Or check out this post for my 25 top soup recipes!
Cucumber Gazpacho
- 1 pound tomatillos (8 medium)
- ¼ white onion
- 2 whole unwrapped garlic cloves
- ¼ to ½ jalapeño pepper
- ¼ cup Arbequina extra-virgin olive oil from Spain, more for drizzling
- ½ English cucumber, chopped
- ½ cup packed cilantro
- 2 tablespoons lime juice
- ½ to 1 teaspoon sea salt
- ½ teaspoon honey or pure maple syrup
- ¼ cup plain whole milk Greek yogurt
- ¼ cup plain whole milk Greek yogurt
- 1 teaspoon lime juice
- 2 teaspoons water
- pinch of sea salt
- extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
- kernels from 1 ear of corn, lightly charred
- 1 cup finely diced cucumber
- ½ cup yellow cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
- fresh herbs (mint or cilantro)
- microgreens
- 1 tablespoon hemp seeds
- Preheat a grill to medium-high heat. On a plate or small baking sheet, toss the tomatillos, onion, garlic, and jalapeño with drizzles of olive oil and a few pinches of sea salt. Wrap the garlic cloves in a piece of foil and place all the vegetables directly on the grill. Grill 4 to 5 minutes per side, or until the tomatillos are soft, charred, and just starting to burst, and the onion and jalapeño are charred and soft. Remove from the grill and unwrap the garlic. Let cool, then chill completely. (This step can be done in advance.)
- In a blender, combine the chilled tomatillos, onion, garlic, ¼ of the jalapeño pepper, ¼ cup of olive oil, cucumber, cilantro, lime juice, ½ teaspoon salt, honey, and the yogurt. Blend until smooth. Season with more salt, if desired (I add ½ teaspoon). Taste and add the remaining jalapeño, if desired, for more spice. Chill the soup until ready to serve.
- Make the yogurt drizzle: In a small bowl, mix the yogurt, lime juice, water, and a pinch of sea salt.
- Serve the soup with the yogurt drizzle and any desired garnishes.
This post is in partnership with Olive Oils from Spain, thank you for supporting the sponsors that keep us cooking!
For those who love hot and spicy, like we here in New Mexico USA do, this is a winning recipe. 👌 Very refreshing in our hot weather.
I followed recipe almost exactly-used agave nectar as the sweetener.