COOK: Sopa Ajo Blanco (White Gazpacho Soup Recipe)

• The Origins & History of Gazpacho & Ajo blanco
• Serving Ideas & Pairing Suggestions
• White Gazpacho Soup Ingredients
• Kitchen Equipment Needed
• How to Make White Gazpacho Soup
• Storage & Serving Ideas
• White Gazpacho Soup (Ajoblanco with Cucumber)

White gazpacho (or ajoblanco) is a cold, refreshing summer soup made with fresh cucumbers, bread, and blanched almonds, accented with a bite of garlic and sherry vinegar, and garnished with a drizzle of bright green olive oil, crunchy toasted almonds, and bright green grapes for a pop of sweetness.

The almonds and bread lend this soup a rich, creamy texture without adding dairy products. As long as you use a plain French or Italian-style loaf bread (without added dairy or egg) this soup is vegan!

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The Origins & History of Gazpacho & Ajo blanco

White gazpacho is a very old dish, predating the more common modern red gazpacho (made with New World tomatoes and peppers, along with the cucumber, olive oil, vinegar, and toasted bread). Cold soups are a nourishing pick-me-up, and a natural choice for places like Spanish Andalusia, where this dish originated, with its scorching hot, dry summer weather.

This version, with the addition of cucumbers, is a bit lighter and more refreshing than plain Ajoblanco soup, which doesn’t usually have vegetables added. The cucumber makes this soup lighter and more hydrating, as well as adding nutrients and fiber.

Soups made with simmered ground almonds and onions, or thickened with stale bread, were common on Medieval and Elizabethan-era tables across the Mediterranean, either as a simple meal or served between courses at an elaborate one.

Simple soups like this one, flavored with vinegar and olive oil, and thickened with stale bread, date back at least to Roman times, though the origins of both modern red and the older white gazpacho (or Ajoblanco) in Andalusian cuisine can be attributed to influences from the Moorish culture that dominated Spain from about 800-1400 AD.

The tomatoes and peppers found their way into this Spanish dish in the 1500’s, after New World crops were brought back to Europe by the conquistadors (Spanish colonizers who brought back seeds and plants of novel foods along with the other treasures looted from the Americas). These vegetables, along with staples like maize and potatoes, were incorporated into Mediterranean cuisine over the next few centuries. Now it’s hard to imagine Spanish or Italian food without tomatoes and peppers, but they’re relatively recent introductions!

But just because this dish has ancient roots, doesn’t mean it’s boring or dated! This white gazpacho recipe has bold, exciting flavors and is beautifully elegant when plated.

Serving Ideas & Pairing Suggestions

This white gazpacho soup is perfect for a hot weather dinner party or special date night. It’s a great starter or first course before serving grilled or smoked meats, fish, or vegetables, or alongside a spread of tapas-style snacks. Or pair it with a crisp green salad for a light meal when it’s too hot to have much of an appetite! You’ll be cool as a cucumber, and so will your kitchen.

This cold cucumber soup is a nice change of pace from the more commonly served tomato-based gazpacho, and a perfect starter for a delicate meal that you don’t want to overwhelm with a lot of spice or acidity. It’s also a soothing intermezzo between boldly flavored courses where you want to tame the heat with a cold, soothing soup.

You can serve this in a shallow, wide rimmed bowl for a super-elegant plating, or pour it into chilled glasses or even tall shooters for a fun, party-friendly presentation or passed appetizer.

Pair this soup with something light and spritzy… a Portuguese vinho verde, Sauvignon blanc, or other bright, lightly acidic white wine is perfect. For beer, something light but that can stand up to the acidity… a crisp pale lager, a salty-sour gose, or another fruity-tart sour beer can go well with this cold, rich but lightly tart soup.

Or, just pour a tall glass of iced sparkling or still water infused with cucumbers and mint, or a splash of tamarind syrup, for a non-alcoholic option that will keep you cool and hydrated no matter how hot it is outside!

White Gazpacho Soup Ingredients

Cucumbers:

The mostly seedless, thin-skinned English hothouse cucumbers are the nicest to use in this recipe, but you can also use regular cucumbers that have been split lengthwise and seeded. You can use a small metal spoon to scrape out the seeds.

It’s best to peel your cucumbers, unless you are using very tender baby or English cucumbers that haven’t been waxed. If you don’t peel them, your soup will be more greenish tinged than white, and skins from mature cucumbers can make your soup bitter or leave an unpleasant fibrous texture.

Bread:

Use stale or dried white bread. Baguettes or french bread are best, not soft white sandwich bread. Make sure if any of your guests are vegan or have food allergies that you check the ingredient label of your bread (if you didn’t make it yourself)!

Almonds:

You can purchase whole or sliced blanched almonds, or blanch your own whole almonds. If you are not starting with blanched almonds, you want to use raw almonds, not roasted and salted almonds for this dish. You can also substitute blanched almond flour, if you have that in your kitchen.

Smell and taste your almonds to make sure they are fresh, and not at all rancid. Store your nuts in the freezer, refrigerator, or another cold place for better shelf life if you don’t use them often.

If you are using blanched almonds, you just have to toast them very lightly on a baking sheet in the oven, or in a skillet, being careful not to scorch or burn them.

Blanching the almonds removes most of the outer brown skin, so that your finished gazpacho will be smooth and white without brown specks or tough bits. It’s a bit tedious, but would traditionally have been done by hand.

Alliums:

This soup uses fresh garlic cloves and scallions (green onions). You will use just the white parts of the scallions. Save the green tops for other recipes, or add them to your vegetable stock scrap bag in your freezer.

I like to slice some of the green scallion tops on a very thin diagonal bias to add to the soup garnish when you serve it. If you use scallions for a garnish, make sure you have a sharp knife and slice them very thinly, and be sparing with them so you don’t overwhelm the other flavors of the soup!

If you don’t have green onions, you can substitute a bit of white or sweet onion, finely minced, and rinsed well in a strainer to remove some of the bite.

Seasoning:

This soup is seasoned very simply, with lemon juice and either sherry vinegar or white wine vinegar to add an acidic bite, salt, and finely ground white pepper (which is black pepper that has had the dark outer layer removed).

You can use black pepper if you don’t have white pepper, but it’s less pretty as you’ll see black specks in your creamy white soup.

Garnish:

A traditional garnish for white gazpacho is a drizzle of bright green extra virgin olive oil and sliced or halved green seedless (or de-seeded) grapes, and a light sprinkling of toasted sliced or slivered almonds for crunch.

Optional additional garnishes are the thinly sliced green onion mentioned above or snipped chives for contrast, or a thin baguette crouton on top or on the side to dip or crumble into the soup.

Choose a good quality Spanish or Portuguese olive oil if you can get it to really capture the regional flavors of this dish, or the best quality Mediterranean oil that you have on hand.

Kitchen Equipment Needed

blender or food processor:

Historically, this soup would have been made with a mortar and pestle, individually pounding and grinding the blanched almonds, dried bread, garlic, and chopped vegetables before combining them with the vinegar and other seasonings. Very labor intensive and messy!

Luckily for us, you can just throw everything in a blender or a good food processor and be done with it! You might be able to use an immersion blender if you first chop all of the ingredients. You’ll get a smoother puree with a regular blender though.

conical strainer or coarse wire mesh strainer (optional):

If you want a velvety smooth puree, you can pass the pureed soup through a conical strainer or mesh sieve, using a ladle or sturdy spatula to press the mixture through.

This will remove any larger pieces of gritty almond or fibrous bits to give you a very elegant silky white gazpacho. You can totally skip this step if you want a soup with a bit of texture (and to keep the fiber and nutrients that you’d otherwise toss out), or if you don’t want to deal with the extra step (and clean-up). It’s up to you (and whether or not Thomas Keller is coming over for dinner)!

How to Make White Gazpacho Soup

blanch almonds (optional):

• You can skip this step if you bought blanched almonds, or if you want a more rustic soup that is speckled with bits of almond skin.
• If you need to blanch your almonds, follow the instructions in the ingredient section above (jump to instructions).

prep vegetables:

• Wash and peel your cucumbers.
  • You can leave the peels on if you are using seedless thin-skinned hothouse-type English cucumbers for a bit of bright green color, but definitely peel any cukes that have been waxed, or have a tough or bitter peel.
  • If the cucumbers have large seeds, split them, scoop out the seeds, and discard them.
  • Roughly chop the cucumbers into 1/2″-1″ pieces so that they blend smoothly.
• Wash the scallions and trim off the root ends and green tops.
  • Reserve the tops for another recipe, or slice some of them very thinly on a diagonal bias to use for garnish.
  • Roughly chop the white base of the scallions. These will be blended, so the slices don’t have to be perfect.
• Peel and roughly chop the garlic cloves.
• Wash the green grapes and set aside for the garnish.
  • Split or slice the grapes just before serving on the soup.

soak panade:

• Trim the crusts from your stale white bread, and cut or tear roughly into cubes or small pieces, and place in a bowl or measuring cup.
• Pour 1/2 cup of warm water onto the bread and let soak for a few minutes until the bread is soft.
• You can measure out and add some of the wine or sherry vinegar if you need additional liquid to fully moisten the panade.

blend soup:

• Add the almonds to the blender or food processor and pulse briefly to grind them finely.
• Add the diced cucumber, chopped onion, garlic, lemon juice, salt, and pepper to the blender or food processor.
• Pulse until the mixture is pureed, then add the soaked bread panade and olive oil. Blend again until the mixture is smooth.
  • Optional: Pour the soup through a mesh strainer to make a completely velvety smooth puree. Use the back of a ladle to press the soup through.

chill soup:

• Transfer the white gazpacho soup into a jar, serving bowl, or soup tureen and chill in the refrigerator until slightly or fully chilled, at least 30 minutes or up to three days in advance.

garnish and serve:

• Ladle the soup out into bowls or shot glasses, and add your garnishes.
  • Garnish with slivers of green scallion or chives, a drizzle of olive oil, regular or baguette croutons, slivered almonds, or sliced green grapes, or some combination of these.
• Serve immediately and enjoy!

Storage & Serving Ideas

This white gazpacho soup will keep in a sealed container in the fridge for several days. Store garnishes in a separate container (chop herbs right before serving for best texture) and top bowls just before serving.

I do not recommend freezing this soup. You can freeze the grape halves that you use to garnish the soup for an interesting texture, and to make this cold soup even more refreshing!