Cucumber Soup

It strikes me how we turn to cold summer soups around the time we have the hottest temperatures and the biggest return on investment in the garden. Late August to mid-September is a key time to pull in a sizeable harvest—sometimes more sizeable than we anticipated. That, of course, is what happened with my cucumbers this year. I got more than I bargained for.

 

What to do? Cucumber soup. Sure, I could have made gazpacho, which typically calls for the coolness of cucumbers to round out the rich, tomato-y flavor. But I wanted something that really highlighted the vegetable as the star of the show.

 

And cucumbers have been a star for thousands of years. An annual plant and what’s called a creeping vine, it winds itself around whatever is nearest in its surrounding environment. Often credited with origins in east Asia—China, Thailand, and more specifically India—it now grows in most regions around the world. Typical variations include slicing, pickling, or seedless. For our purposes here, the slicing cucumbers are probably best.

 

In this recipe, I use plain Greek yogurt. You could try substituting other bases like crème fraiche or sour cream, silken tofu, or labneh, which is really just another type of yogurt. But I think the tang of the Greek yogurt works better here especially because I add lemon juice and zest. 

 

Here’s the recipe:

 

2 large cucumbers, seeded and roughly cut into chunks

1 ½ c. Greek yogurt

1 large lemon, juice and zest

1 small shallot, minced

1 large garlic clove, minced

1/3 c. fresh dill (or 1 TB dried)

1/4 c. fresh parsley (or 1 tsp dried)

1/4 c. olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Place ingredients in blender or food processor and blend until smooth. (I prefer the blender for this because it creates a more even mixture, but you could use the food processor if you’d like something a little chunkier and more like a cucumber rendition of gazpacho.) Refrigerate for at least an hour before serving. Tastes great the next day too!