BHA & BHT Free Watermelon Gazpacho with Mint
Sweet, cooling, and just a little spicy, this chilled soup is the kind of thing you want on a sweltering afternoon when turning on the stove feels like a personal offense. Ripe watermelon and tomatoes form the base, blended smooth with cucumber, red bell pepper, shallot, and jalapeño for a bowl that's refreshing but genuinely complex. A hit of fresh lime juice and a handful of mint leaves brighten everything up, while a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil at the end adds a silky, savory finish. Because the whole recipe is built from whole fruits, vegetables, and a few pantry staples, there's nothing here that raises a flag for synthetic preservatives like BHA or BHT — just clean, real ingredients doing all the work. Straining the blended mixture through a fine-mesh sieve gives the final soup a beautifully smooth, almost elegant texture that feels far more impressive than the effort involved. Serve it ice cold with a few extra watermelon cubes and a pinch of flaky sea salt, and it's practically a showstopper.
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Learn more →Ingredients
4 servings
- 5 cups seedless watermelon, cut into 1-inch cubes (about ½ small watermelon)
- 2 medium ripe tomatoes (about 12 oz total), cored and roughly chopped
- 1 medium english cucumber (about 10 oz), peeled and roughly chopped
- 1 small red bell pepper, seeded and roughly chopped
- 1 small shallot, roughly chopped
- 1 small jalapeño, seeded and roughly chopped
- 3 tbsp fresh lime juice (from about 2 limes)
- 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
- ¼ cup fresh mint leaves, loosely packed, plus more for garnish
- ¾ tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste
- ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
For serving
- small watermelon cubes, for serving (optional)
- flaky sea salt, for serving (optional)
Instructions
- 1
Combine the watermelon, tomatoes, cucumber, red bell pepper, shallot, jalapeño, lime juice, olive oil, mint leaves, salt, and black pepper in a blender. Blend on high speed until completely smooth, about 60 seconds.
- 2
Set a fine-mesh strainer over a large bowl and pour the blended soup through it, pressing gently with a spatula to extract as much liquid as possible. Discard the solids left in the strainer.
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