The Heat is On! My Favorite Chilled Soups to Beat the Dog Days of Summer

Here we go again. In San Diego we got almost a week of coolish, breezy weather in August before getting slammed again with another heat wave. I don't know about you, but I'm very nervous about my next SDG&E bill.

When the temperatures climb there's just no turning on the stove in my house. So I turn to chilled soups filled with vegetables or fruit that are simple to prepare and don't make me sweat. I thought you might appreciate these, too. Especially as we say goodbye to some summer crops that will make way for the fall harvest.

Evie's Chunky Gazpacho: Of course, I had to start with tomatoes and my favorite chunky gazpacho. As many of my friends and readers know, this gazpacho is something my mom has made for years and I adopted as my own. It's a powerhouse of nutrients and the more nutrients, the better the flavor. This soup is packed with it. It starts with the tomatoes, but adds cucumbers, corn, onions, garlic, bell peppers, chilies, cilantro, and lime juice--and I'm just getting started! Make your own tortillas to accompany this!

Coconut Peach Gazpacho: My friend Jesus Gonzalez, formerly the chef at Rancho La Puerta, makes a dynamite Coconut Peach Gazpacho that's a blend of savory (onion, cucumber, chili) and sweet (peaches or other seasonal fruit, agave nectar, and apple). Add some acid from lime juice and a touch of mint and you've got another refreshing summer soup!

Cucumber and Radish Confetti Soup: Many years ago, when I lived in New York and suffered from the sweltering humidity that is particularly eviscerating in the Northeast, a friend of mine introduced me to cucumber bisque. This simple chilled soup made with hothouse cucumbers, yogurt, garlic, dill, and tomatoes became a staple for me. Then I decided to scratch the tomatoes and add radishes to get a bit of a bite. Loved it!

Grant Grill's Cucumber Soup: Several years ago I visited the U.S. Grant Hotel in downtown San Diego to check out their rooftop garden. They were growing tomatoes and peppers, Persian cucumbers, fennel, and a host of magnificent fragrant herbs. There I sampled their rich and creamy (from a blend of yogurt and sour cream) Persian Cucumber Soup. Even with the potent flavors of chilis, cilantro, mint, dill, and garlic, those cukes burst through.

Chilled Honeydew Coconut Milk Soup: Chilled melons may be the most refreshing of summer eats. Combine the melon--and an uber sweet honeydew at that--with fresh ginger, coconut milk, lime juice, and a smidge of kaffir lime powder and you have a dish that will serve as virtual armor against the dastardly rays of the summer sun.

Chilled Melon Blueberry Soup: I actually just wrote about this in July, but the heat is on and I love this combination of melon with blueberries and potent herbs like tarragon and basil. Thanks to the yogurt, it has a welcome creaminess and tang.

Print Page

Chilled Honeydew Coconut Milk Soup

It's hot. And sticky. And apparently, it's going to get even hotter and stickier this week. Usually this is when I make a batch of gazpacho--but I did that a couple of weeks ago during the last heat wave and I'm kind of over it for now. Yeah, I made too much.

Last week I came across a display of orange-flesh honeydew melons and knowing how beautifully sweet they are, I picked one up. And the wheels started turning. Chilled honeydew soup! Oh, how perfect! Yogurt? Check. Mint? Check. I could even add some Persian cucumbers. Or maybe I'd make a smoothie and add some baby kale. And then I thought, oy, melon, mint, and yogurt; that's so obvious. So I scoured my pantry and discovered a can of light coconut milk. Ah, here we go! It sent me off in a totally different Southeast Asian-style direction. I had a little container of kaffir lime leaf powder from Specialty Produce that would work perfectly. All I needed was lime juice and ginger. And maybe some honey.

Ginger. I don't know about you but when I buy ginger, I use a bit of a knob and then store it away for the future in the fridge or just keep it on the counter. Invariably it shrivels into the saddest little root and I end up tossing it. Well, I was done with that. I knew I could freeze it--but I don't like the texture of whole frozen ginger root. So I poked around a little online and, voila, thanks to The Kitchn, realized I could peel a hand of the root, grate it, measure it off in teaspoons, and freeze it. Did you know this? Well, if so, why didn't you tell me?

I actually did it a little differently. I didn't peel the root and instead of grating it, I pulled out my mini food processor, sliced sliced it up, and ground it as fine as I could. Then I used a mini cookie scoop, which measures about a teaspoon, and before I knew it I had more than a dozen scoops of ginger on a parchment-lined pan. I put the pan in the freezer. Two hours or so later, I placed those now-frozen ginger rounds in a little freezer bag so I can have what I need when I need it. And sans waste.

That was over the weekend. When I decided to make my honeydew soup, I pulled out a round of ginger and gathered the rest of the ingredients--all five of them--and puréed them together in my Vitamix. In other words, on a sweltering day when you don't want to be in the kitchen, you'll be in for all of 10 minutes, including clean up.

Now you probably will only need five of the six ingredients. I added a touch of honey, but I don't think it was really necessary since the melon was so sweet. I would add it to a version of this made with cantaloupe, however. Be modest with the kaffir lime leaf powder and the ginger. You don't want to overpower the mild honeydew, just complement it.

The result is a bright, refreshing creamy liquid that sings honeydew but has delightful background notes of acid from the lime juice and bite from the ginger and kaffir lime leaf powder. Enjoy this with a salad for a light meal on a sultry day. Or pour it into a glass with ice for a chilly drink.

Chilled Honeydew Coconut Milk Soup
(printable recipe)
Yield: 2 cups

1/2 honeydew melon (about 2 cups), seeded and cut into chunks
1/2 cup light coconut milk
1 teaspoon ginger, minced or grated
1 pinch kaffir lime leaf powder (available at Specialty Produce or spice shops)
Juice from one lime
Drizzle of honey

Combine all the ingredients. Puree in a blender until smooth. Chill for an hour before serving. Grate a little lime zest over the soup as garnish.

Print Page