Cold Zucchini Soup with Ricotta and Mint Recipe

Cold Zucchini Soup with Ricotta and Herbs

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In summer, especially in the heat, one of my favorite lunch dishes is a cold soup made from a vegetable puree with mint and a soft fresh cheese. All the ingredients are pressed through a sieve or blended, then chilled. Usually this is served as a refreshing dish in small portions.

Young zucchini whose seeds haven’t formed yet are ideal for a refreshing soup. It also turns out nicely with young carrots. Fresh cucumbers work too, and they don’t even need cooking.

Early and midsummer is the season for young vegetables. It’s ideal if you have a garden of your own with zucchini growing in it. For a soup for two, one large young zucchini is enough to pick. Still, the local market always has plenty to choose from. Buy a couple of green zucchini, fresh basil and mint. Buy a little young (not brined) Italian ricotta or Greek feta. By the way, it’s very tasty when the cold soup is served with lightly toasted bread.

Ingredients

2 servings

Step-by-step recipe

Parboil the zucchini

Summer cold zucchini soup usually has a pleasant greenish tint that is a joy to look at. Dark green zucchini are ideal, and together with plenty of herbs they give the dish this color. Young ricotta is very soft and creamy. You can easily buy it in a store or, quite acceptably, replace it with Greek feta. The mint and basil should be green and fresh.

  1. Prepare the zucchini: peel off the skin. If the seeds have formed after all, cut them out. Cut the zucchini into large cubes and put them in a small pot.

    Young zucchini, soft ricotta and herbs for the soup.

  2. Parboil the zucchini: cover the cubes with cold water, put on high heat and, after it comes to a boil, cook for just 3-4 mins from the moment the water starts boiling, until the flesh is soft.

    Peeling the zucchini and boiling them briefly until soft.

  3. Drain the zucchini in a colander, let the water run off and cool them to room temperature. If you’re in a hurry, you can cool them under cold running water, but the water must drain off them as much as possible. You can also spread the parboiled zucchini on a large plate and cover with a paper towel, and they cool quite quickly.

    The zucchini cubes need to cool down.

Puree with ricotta

  1. Prepare the herbs and garlic. Wash the herbs and dry off the drops of moisture. Pull all the leaves from the mint and basil sprigs and chop them with a knife, so the blender can grind them better. Peel the garlic, one clove is enough. Though if you like, a cold soup can be quite spicy. Put the cooled zucchini, herbs and garlic in a blender and add a pinch of salt.

    Blending the zucchini, herbs and a little garlic into a puree.

  2. Blend the zucchini and herbs into a smooth puree. Add the ricotta or feta, if you’ve settled on that option, and blend again until the mixture is smooth and slightly thick. By the way, you can use more cheese, and it will taste better.

    Adding the soft ricotta and blending the soup again.

  3. Put the container with the finished soup in the refrigerator for about 1 hour so the soup chills well. In principle, this dish can be eaten warm too. But the best version is cold.

Serving

  1. Get a small glass dessert dish or a glass, pour the cold soup into it and garnish with a sprig of mint. It’s convenient to serve on a serving plate, with the soup in the middle and the toasted bread around it. Add a little fresh mint and basil as well.

    Cold soup

    If you make this with other vegetables, it’s important that they are cooked until soft. A very interesting version is soup from fresh cucumbers, which don’t need boiling. Just peel them and blend into a puree. Since cucumbers contain much more water than zucchini, use more soft cheese in the soup.

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Calories and macros

190 kcal

Serving ≈ 300 g

  • Protein10 g22% of kcal
  • Fat11 g52% of kcal
  • Carbs12 g26% of kcal

100 g63 kcalProtein 3.4 gFat 3.6 gCarbs 4.1 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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