Watermelon Gazpacho

Labor Day was that fabulous day where I made that decadent Red Velvet Cake…. And it’s also the first time when I met Watermelon Gazpacho.

Back to my picky roots, I thought the idea of it sounded foul and I had really hoped that my friend Alecia would bring the regular tomato kind. OH HOW WRONG I WAS…

The watermelon gazpacho quickly became my new favorite soup. So delicious and refreshing… and strangely, it almost tasted like regular tomato gazpacho. You really had to focus on the flavors to taste the watermelon (even though it had EIGHT cups of watermelon in it.) You too will be amazed.

During my time in Virginia, I wanted to introduce the fam to this amazing recipe. My mom and I chopped for about an hour to make the double batch we made. Yes, you heard me right… double-batch. We’re a party of 6… so, you gotta do what you gotta do.

PS.. The kids didn’t care for it, but I totally think they would have warmed up to it… if there weren’t french fries in the oven. They were just distracted!

Watermelon Gazpacho

Recipe from Alecia

INGREDIENTS

8 cups seedless watermelon, diced

1 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded, and finely diced

½ red bell pepper, seeded and finely diced

¼ cup chopped fresh basil

¼ cup chopped flat-leaf parsley

2 Tbsp. minced shallots

2 medium garlic cloves, minced

3 Tbsp. red-wine vinegar

2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

1 Tbsp. fresh lime juice

¾ tsp. salt

black pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Chop all of your ingredients. Note: This will take some time. I imagine you’ll spend about 45 minutes chopping. You could probably take a shortcut by putting half of the recipe straight into the food processor, but we hand-chopped everything. I’d also consider adding a jalapeno next round. I think the spicy kick might be kind of fun. Because the little Guys were eating it, I didn’t even go there this time.

Our watermelon (Not pictured in the previous ingredients pic)
As the star of the show, it deserved some props.

Here’s the size we chopped the watermelon to…

Cucumbers and Peppers!

Adding the shallots

Loved all the colors coming together once you added the basil and parsley…

Adding the red wine vinegar

Mix it up!

2. Place about ½ of the chopped mixture into a food processor or blender and puree until smooth.

Check out that massive yellow Kitchenaid!

Pureeing the Gazpacho

3. Return the puree to the bowl with the diced mixture and stir.

Look how good that looks in the food processor

4. Chill for at least 1 hour, to allow the flavors to combine before serving. Note: Alecia garnished the soup with fresh basil leaves, which I thought looked fantastic.