Chilled Watermelon Gazpacho from Andalusia

Did you think watermelon was only for eating as a dessert? Well if so, think again because this watermelon gazpacho has to be one of my all-time favourite gazpacho recipes EVER.

Ok so I guess it’s true that I love gazpacho in all its shapes and forms, but I never expected to find this one quite so delicious as it is.

I do love watermelon on its own and I kinda suspected it might be a waste of watermelon to put it in a gazpacho! But oh boy, was I wrong!

So, are you ready? Let’s go!

How to Make Watermelon Gazpacho

The secret to ANY gazpacho is to play around with the quantity of the ingredients – and this recipe is no exception.

When you first taste it, add a bit MORE . . .

More vinegar, more salt, more lemon juice . . . more mint. Until it really pings, and then you know you’re done because the flavour is exquisite!

The foundation of any gazpacho is to blend together the ingredients and either chill in the fridge or use ice in the mix in the blender.

I use ice because I prefer to eat my gazpacho freshly made.

I know some people say the flavour gets better overnight, but I disagree. It’s probably the only soup which I prefer to take straight from being made to eating it.

Absolute yum in a bowl.

For this watermelon Gazpacho I’ve added tomato (1 or 2) but you can also make it without. So that’s the first crossroads you come across and I recommend you try it both ways to see the difference.

Both ways are delicious, it’s just a matter of which you fancy making today.

Ingredients for Watermelon Gazpacho

You’re either a ‘weigher’ in the kitchen – or not.

I never used to weigh out my ingredients until I started sharing my recipes.

I now add the weight for clarity – but I’d like you to feel free to just add a bit of this and a bit of that. (If you want to see the weights, they’re included in the recipe at the bottom of this page.)

It really isn’t necessary to weigh the ingredients in a Gazpacho.

You can vary the quantities as you’re making it if you bear in mind the few points mentioned below.

Making Watermelon Gazpacho Without Weighing the Ingredients

Remember that a bit of oil is needed in order to get the emulsion, so don’t omit the oil unless you’re creating something else, not Gazpacho.

Too little oil and the Gazpacho won’t be creamy.

As for the vinegar, you can just add a long dash and then add more to taste after the initial blending. The same goes for the salt.

So you can’t really go wrong as long as you’re prepared to tweak the flavour at the end, just before serving the soup.

Use a decent amount of watermelon as this is your main ingredient. I used half a very small watermelon in this recipe but normally it would be more like a quarter as watermelons tend to be huge.

You can add one or two tomatoes or omit them altogether. I love the final result with two tomatoes, so that’s what I recommend in this recipe, but feel free to try it without them too.

The redder the tomatoes the better because they contribute to the beautiful colour of the final Gazpacho.

Red pepper is better because of the colour but if you don’t have any you can always substitute it for green pepper.

This is one of the few occasions that I peel my cucumber and I do that to keep the vibrant red colour of the final soup.

You can add more red onion, but I like to add just a small piece – it’s purely a matter of preference.

So now you know the tips, you can throw together a delicious watermelon Gazpacho without looking for the scales.

Ingredients for Toppings

Toppings can be anything you like. These are my favourites for toppings on watermelon Gazpacho:

But you can also include other toppings – get creative and see what you have in your fridge to throw on top! For example:

Other Vegan Spanish Recipes

• Traditional tomato Gazpacho from Andalucia
• Cucumber and avocado Gazpacho
• Creamy mango Gazpacho
• Pisto from Malaga
• Vegan Spanish omelette
• How to make vegan paella