Cold Cucumber Soup
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Cold cucumber soup is an easy-to-make, refreshing, and flavorful cold soup. Perfect to serve as an appetizer, side dish, or for a light, healthy main dish.
A Delightfully Healthy Cold Soup
Cold cucumber soup was one of my dad’s favorite summertime soups. He always requested it for lunch when he’d stop by my house during the summer.
I taught him how to make it, so he could add it to his very limited repertoire of recipes, all super easy and healthy.
Throw all the ingredients in the blender and this simple, tasty chilled cucumber soup is ready in just minutes.
Use a full-fat Greek yogurt for a great no-cook, low-carb, and keto-friendly appetizer. Each 1/2 cup serving has only 5 carbs.
This cucumber soup recipe is also vegetarian and gluten-free, making it a nice healthy lunch or light dinner.
This is also the perfect recipe if you’ve got a bumper crop of cucumbers! Light and refreshing, it’s the perfect summertime sip, especially on a sultry day.
How to Make Cold Cucumber Soup
To prepare, peel and slice the cucumbers.
Next, “sweat” the cucumbers, by sprinkling them with salt, to get rid of excess water. While it sounds counter-intuitive, the salt brings some of the moisture to the surface.
Rinse the salt off with water and pat the cucumbers dry. While this step isn’t crucial, especially if you’re going to be eating the soup right away, I think it makes for a thicker and creamier soup.
Put the yogurt, cucumbers, dill, and all of the other ingredients into a food processor or blender and puree until smooth.
Adjust the seasonings. Since the cucumbers will have salt on them from the sweating process, wait until after blending to check seasonings.
Chill the cucumber soup for at least an hour before serving.
Some of the items used in this post are available at my Amazon store.
Cold Cucumber Soup
Ingredients
- 2 cups Greek yogurt plain, full fat
- 2 English cucumbers peeled and sliced
- 1 shallot minced
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
- lime juiced
- 1-3 teaspoons fresh dill chopped
- Kosher salt to taste
Instructions
- Lay sliced cucumbers on a sheet pan covered with 2 layers of paper towel. Salt cucumbers liberally. Let them “sweat”, about 20 minutes, to release moisture.
- In a blender or food processor, add cucumbers, yogurt, shallot, garlic, fresh dill, lime juice and ground cumin.
- Puree until smooth, about 1 minute.
- Check seasoning and add salt if necessary.
- Chill at least an hour before serving.
- Makes 3 cups
Video
Nutrition
Try more delicious cold soup recipes:
Gazpacho {Chilled Soup Recipe}
Vichyssoise chilled leek and potato soup.
Hi, actually I’d like to know where you found those glasses! They look like they’d be perfect for Vichyssoise.
Hi Steve, I actually got those little glass dishes at Bed, Bath and Beyond several years ago…If you scroll down to the bottom of the post you can see a link for some on Amazon.
We didn’t have shallots, so I replaced them with chives from the garden, and it was a delicious, no-cook hit during this heat wave. Thank you!
chives would be wonderful!
Just went through a heatwave and totally loved this recipe. Added 1 tsp of mustard and served the next day with some sliced of cucumber topped with smoked salmon. Fabulous!!!
This looks so good! What a light and refreshing summer soup!
yes thank you Suzanne. It is light and healthy for the summer.
Thanks for sharing! Does it keep long?
Hi Vanessa, it never lasts long in our house, we usually finish it pretty quickly. But since it’s dairy and cucumber, I wouldn’t keep it more than 3 days.
Thanks for sharing! Does it freeze well?
Hi Vanessa, I’ve never tried freezing it. We usually finish it in a day or two!
What can i substitute the greek yoghurt for so I can make a vegan version of this soup. It looks delicious. the only vegan yoghurts I can get are made with coconut and I am not sure if that would work…
I’m not sure Tracey. I’m not really familiar with dairy substitutes that are vegan. My daughter doesn’t drink cow milk, so I buy her oatmilk. I wonder if there’s an oat yogurt?
If I don’t have dill, can I use something else like mint or coriander?
I’ll bet mint would be delicious as would corriander!
Hi, I just found this recipe. I substituted yogurt for Kefir. I increased the dill and lime. Fabulous! This is a keeper!
Kefir sounds like a great sub and fermented just makes it healthier!
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe! I grew up eating a soup exactly like this at my country club here in Kentucky. It’s so elegant and the one thing I crave terribly, lol. At our club, they used to add a dollop of sour cream to the top and if you wanted to make it a meal…shrimp sliced in just the right way. Mind-blowing delicious and refreshing!
Thank you so much! The addition of the shrimp sounds wonderful!
Well said, your every point is true. You did a great job. Thanks for sharing
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So good- easy and refreshing! I have been making this once a week for a while now .
thanks Marie!
This looks so good! I am planning on serving it as a first course on Sunday. Do you think it will hold up well if I make it Friday night and refrigerate it until Sunday?
I’m not sure how long it will last…I think it should be fine. The interesting thing about this soup is that they serve it hot in the winter, warm in spring and fall and cold in the summer!
I substituted a sweet red pepper for the shallot. It turned out delicious and a pretty pink color. I will definitely make this again as it took just a few minutes!
Excellent! i’ll have to try that variation!
Bursting with flavor! A great cool down on a hot southern afternoon. Thank you for this wonderful treat!
Thank you so much Stacey! So glad you liked it!
This is my go to cold soup to make It is absolutely delicious. I use a lot of recipes from What A Girl Eats.
thank you so much Kathy! I appreciate it!
Is there something I can use to thicken it?
Cornstarch?
Hi Mary, No definitely or cornstarch. If you used thick Greek yogurt and swear the cucumbers it should be the perfect consistency.
I didn’t have fresh dill, so I used 1 teaspoon of dried dill. I also added 1/2 cup of grated Parmesan cheese. My husband loves it!
excellent! Dried dill works too!
Made this simple & delicious recipe a few times and it’s always a hit! Love it❤️!
Thanks so much!
Didn’t know if I’d like cucumber soup – but had a lot of garden cucumbers to use up. It is surprisingly delicious!
Thank you!
I’m getting ready to make this, following the recipe it says seed the cukes. However your pictures show the whole cucumber sliced only. Do I need to seed?
No, I’ll edit that out. I only seed them if they have a lot of big seeds. I usually use English cucumbers which don’t have many large seeds.
Great idea! I am going to try it.