Super Healthy Classic Gazpacho

Cool and refreshing, this classic gazpacho is the perfect summer dish! It's full of fresh vegetables and bursting with flavor & texture.

It's hot. HOT. I'm not complaining - it's summer and I'm soaking it in because sooner than we care to admit, we'll be freezing our butts off again. But right now, it's hot. And gazpacho is the flavorful, refreshing taste of summer that you need to cool down.

I love this classic gazpacho for many reasons: it's refreshing, it's SO HEALTHY, it's crunchy, it's filling, it's packed with veggies and incredibly yummy...need I continue? MMMM! This recipe is a slight variation on my mother-in-law, Suzie's recipe. I vividly remember the first time she made this when I was over for dinner. We had it as a first course to a fabulous meal and it was so good I literally went back for seconds (thirds?) even after we had finished dinner and dessert. 

As I divulged in my Slow-Cooker Curried Chicken with Ginger and Yogurt post, I am a sucker for infomercials. I'm not even so picky as to limit my love to full-fledged infomercials, even just a lengthy commercial for a clever product gets me hooked. I know - sometimes they are terrible, and a lot of times they are more work/storage space than they're worth, but sometimes you get a gem. And in my humble opinion, the Vidalia Chop Wizard is one such gem in situations that call for lots of chopping. I'll be straight with you, if you only need to dice up a couple things it's probably not worth cleaning it.  But for this recipe, there is a good amount of chopping and it makes the prep so much quicker! Lop off a couple chunks of each vegetable, set them on the screen, close the lid and voilà - PERFECTLY diced veggies. Seriously, perfect.

Now that I'm done gushing about the Vidalia Chop Wizard, of course it is NOT necessary to go out and buy one to make this recipe. Your knife will do just fine! I only decided to start using the chop wizard when I started making gazpacho a couple times a week in the summer and realized that I could massively speed up the process.

Kitchen Tips: make sure you peel the cucumber, because 1) cucumber skin can be kind of bitter sometimes, which does not equal yummy noises, and 2) if you leave the skin on, the added green color makes it kind of an odd shade of reddish-brown instead of the beautiful bright red tomato-y color that it is now. Final tip: give yourself some time to get it nice and cold. You can definitely make this a few hours or even the day before you're going to serve it!

Let's DO THIS THING!

Start by finely dicing about ¼ of the tomato, green pepper, onion and cucumber and set aside. Roughly chop the remaining vegetables, and throw them into a big bowl with the rest of the ingredients.

Use an immersion blender to go to TOWN! Blend it all to smithereens. If you don't have an immersion blender, you can do this part in a blender or food processor. Whatever you've got!

Once it's thoroughly blended, stir in the reserved finely diced veggies and pop it in the fridge to get it super cold and let the flavors meld.

And that's it!

Serve with chopped chives and croutons if you'd like! (And I certainly do)

So fresh, so healthy, make this classic gazpacho and you'll have a perfect meal to beat the summer heat. Yummy noises await you!

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Super Healthy Classic Gazpacho

Cool and refreshing, this classic gazpacho is the perfect summer dish! It's full of fresh vegetables and bursting with flavor & texture.

Servings 6

Ingredients

• 2 tomatoes
• 24 oz tomato juice
• 1 green bell pepper
• 2 stalks celery
• 1 large cucumber, peeled
• 1 medium onion
• ½ of a fresh jalapeño (take out the seeds & ribs to tame the spice, leave them in for extra heat)
• 3 cloves garlic
• ¼ cup red wine vinegar
• 3 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• ½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• Croutons and chopped chives, for serving (optional)

Instructions

• Reserve about ¼ of the tomato, green pepper, onion and cucumber; finely dice and set aside.
• Roughly chop remaining vegetables and combine with the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl. Purée with an immersion blender until smooth. Stir in the reserved diced vegetables and chill for 2 hours or up to overnight.
• Serve with croutons & chopped chives!

Notes

Skip the croutons to keep it gluten-free. Substitute vegetarian Worcestershire sauce or omit to keep it vegetarian.
Per serving (⅙ of recipe): 121 calories, 7g total fat, 1g saturated fat, 768mg sodium, 19g total carbs, 4g fiber, 8g sugar, 2g protein

Adapted from my mother-in-law, Suzie's recipe