Our Most Popular No-Cook Dinner of All Time Is Perfect for a Hot Summer Day

It’s a classic for a reason.

By
Devan Grimsrud
Devan Grimsrud
Devan Grimsrud

Devan Grimsrud is a Berlin-based writer, editor, and recipe developer originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota. After working in television production with James Beard Award-winning chef Andrew Zimmern, she relocated to Berlin and became the managing editor at Kitchen Stories, an international digital cooking platform with millions of active users. 

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Published July 14, 2025
Devan Grimsrud
A bowl of soup next to a spoon on a striped napkin

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Summer is a multifaceted season. It brings with it an abundance of pretty clear pros: think sunshine, amazing produce, long evenings in the backyard, dips in the lake, and ice cream cones. But it can have its downsides, too, thanks to inescapable heat and humidity, too many mosquito bites, and overcrowded pools or beaches. 

But do I let these things get me down in the summer dumps? Heck no! I lean into the best parts of the fleeting season and relieve myself of the worst. One of the simplest ways to shed extra heat in the summer is to rely on no-cook recipes. Why heat up the kitchen when there are so many great ways to assemble delicious food without the need for a stove or oven?

It will probably come as no surprise to those of you who’ve mastered the art of the cold kitchen that our most popular no-cook dinner of all time is an absolute classic: gazpacho!

The Key to a Great Gazpacho

Gazpacho originates in the Iberian peninsula and is a popular cold soup (or drink) in the summer months in both Spain and Portugal. It’s typically made with fresh vegetables—tomato and cucumber being the big players—along with vinegar, garlic, olive oil, and sometimes stale bread. It all gets blended up or mashed together in a mortar and pestle and chilled or served on ice.

What makes a great gazpacho is a balance of vegetal flavors offset by a bright hit of acid and plenty of salt. It should be both deeply refreshing and savory. When making gazpacho, it’s important to keep this idea of balance in mind to achieve a soup that doesn’t taste only of tomato, but of a beautiful mingling of all the vegetables, herbs, and spices you used.

Our recipe uses a variety of non-traditional ingredients like celery, parsley, chives, Worcestershire sauce, sugar, and Tabasco, but none of these should be too prominent as you taste and season the soup to serve.

Variations On the Classic

As gazpacho has made its way around the world, enjoyed by many in need of something cool and refreshing, it’s also been adapted widely. Gazpacho can be made with a variety of different ingredients as its base, from avocado to grapes, watermelon to sweet corn. Here are some of our favorite gazpacho variations to try, if you love the original:

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