Gordon Ramsay’s gazpacho soup is ice cold, silky smooth and packed with ripe tomatoes, peppers, cucumber and fresh basil. There’s no cooking at all, just chopping, marinating and blending, and the longer you leave it the better it gets.
This comes from Ultimate Home Cooking and his YouTube video where he calls it one of his favourite dishes. The technique that separates his version is the marinating: you press everything down and leave it for at least 30 minutes, though in his restaurants they crush the vegetables under heavy pans overnight so the juices break out before the blender even touches them.
The other thing nobody talks about is the bread. Ramsay mixes 75g of stale crusty bread into the vegetables before they marinate, and it dissolves as the juices soak in. That’s what gives it body and makes it feel rich and silky rather than like cold tomato juice, without adding cream or anything heavy.
Gordon Ramsay’s Gazpacho
Course: Soup, Starter4
20
minutes185
kcal50
minutesEasy
Gordon Ramsay’s gazpacho from Ultimate Home Cooking. Ripe tomatoes, peppers and cucumber marinated with stale bread and sherry vinegar, then blended smooth and served ice cold. His trick: freeze some in ice cube trays so it stays chilled without diluting. Serves 4.
Ingredients
1kg (2.2 lb) ripe plum tomatoes, cored and chopped
1 cucumber, peeled and chopped
1 red pepper, deseeded and chopped
1 green pepper, deseeded and chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
2 spring onions, trimmed and finely chopped
75g (3 oz) stale crusty white bread, chopped
2-2½ tbsp sherry vinegar, to taste
Small bunch of basil, stalks and leaves separated
Extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt and black pepper
- For the Toasts (Optional):
8 thin slices of country-style white bread
Olive oil, for brushing
Directions
- Build the marinade: Put the tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, garlic and spring onions into a large bowl. Add the bread, 3 to 4 basil leaves and the chopped basil stalks. Season well with salt and pepper, add the sherry vinegar and a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Mix with your hands, pressing down to squeeze out the juices.
- Marinate: Cover and chill for at least 30 minutes, or overnight if you can. Press the vegetables down before you leave them so the juices start breaking out.
- Blend: Tip everything into a blender and blitz until smooth. If too thick, add a glug of olive oil until you reach the consistency you want. Taste and adjust the seasoning because you might need more vinegar. Cover and chill again until ice cold.
- Make the toasts (optional): Brush bread slices with olive oil. Griddle on both sides until golden and crunchy. Season with salt and pepper.
- Serve: Stir the gazpacho and taste once more because the seasoning shifts when it’s very cold. Serve ice cold, scattered with the remaining basil leaves chopped, a drizzle of olive oil and the toasts alongside.
FAQs
Why does Ramsay add bread to the marinade?
It’s the thickener. The stale bread absorbs the tomato juices as it sits and dissolves completely by the time you blend, which gives the gazpacho its silky body without adding cream or stock. Most recipes skip this and end up with something thin and watery. Ramsay says to use the crustiest bread you can find because the harder crust takes longer to break down and gives a better texture.
Why keep the tomato seeds in?
Ramsay is specific about this in his video: the juicy seeds add depth of taste that you lose if you scoop them out. Most gazpacho recipes tell you to deseed the tomatoes, but he says the opposite because the seeds sit in the gelatinous juice that carries the most intense tomato flavour. In a cold soup where every bit of flavour counts, throwing those away makes no sense.
Why does Ramsay use the basil stalks?
He throws the stalks into the marinade with the vegetables and saves the leaves for garnish. In the video he says basil stalks, parsley stalks and tarragon stalks all have “the most amazing flavour.” They release it slowly as they sit in the marinade, and since everything gets blended smooth you’d never know they were there. Most people throw them away, which is a waste.
It’s a great summer starter before something like Greek salad or alongside a caprese salad if you’re doing a Mediterranean spread.
How does Ramsay keep gazpacho cold without diluting it?
His trick from the book: freeze some of the finished gazpacho in ice cube trays. Drop a few cubes into each bowl just before serving and the soup stays cold as you eat without getting watered down the way regular ice would. If you’re taking it to a picnic, add the cubes just before you leave and they’ll keep it chilled for a couple of hours.
What’s different about the restaurant version?
Ramsay’s restaurant gazpacho uses 4 red and 2 yellow peppers instead of 1 red and 1 green, and adds thyme and a bay leaf to the marinade for a full 24 hours. The home version from UHC is simpler and faster, but the restaurant method gives a deeper, sweeter flavour because the extra peppers add natural sugar. If you want to try it, double the peppers and let the whole thing sit overnight.
