Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Food

Six Soups To Cool Down With This Week

If you’ve looked at a thermometer lately, watched weather on the ones or stepped outside you’ve probably noticed that much of the country is in a heat wave. Never one to ditch my favorite hobby just because it’s getting a little hot in the kitchen, I’ve taken to preparing cold soups and so have many of my friends. So I asked around for everyone’s favorite cold soup recipes and was offered so many delicious recipes, I don’t know which to make first. These six are perfect for Shabbat or lunch during the week.

What’s your favorite cold soup? Tell us about it in the comments.

1) This red pepper soup is the “perfect summer soup,” says my friend Ari. “It wasn’t as complicated as many Ottolenghi recipes are, but had just the right amount of spice and herbs to make it an Ottolenghi classic.” Yotam Ottolenghi’s Chilled Red Pepper Soup

2) Monte Mathews who runs the food site Chewing the Fat offers his take on a classic vichyssoise. While the recipe calls for chicken stock, vegetable stock will work just fine. [Not My Mother’s Vichyssoise]

3) Fresh off of her honeymoon, my colleague Abigail Jones tried her hand in the kitchen to make this watermelon gazpacho. “It’s fast, easy and fresh. It’s also fool proof: drop a tomato, some watermelon and a few other veggies into a blender, then, you know, blend. And it’s delicious: a cold burst of fresh summer flavors, plus that great taste of feta mixed in. The best part? Chunks of watermelon you add to the soup before serving.” [Tyler Florence’s Watermelon Gazpacho]

4) Ingredients columnist Leah Koenig is one of my go to recipe gurus. She swears by this green gazpacho that’s made with greens (of course), walnuts and Greek yogurt. [Green Gazpacho from Leite’s Culinaria].

5) For a taste of the old world, try Leah’s own farmers’ market schav. It cooled down Jews on the Lower East Side long before the days of air conditioning. [Market Schav]

6) What would a roundup of cold soups on a Jewish site be without borscht? Every family seems to have their own take on the classic dish, but if you want to try something different, give this chunky borscht topped with avocado a try. [Chunky Borscht]

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.