Chilled Cucumber Yogurt Soup

This chilled cucumber yogurt soup was the result of a happy coincidence. 

I wrote this post years ago, but the soup is now a favorite of mine during cucumber season. I’ve updated it with a few photos and edited the text. But the recipe remains as I wrote it almost a decade ago.

How a Birthday Dinner Caused Me to Make Chilled Cucumber Yogurt Soup

Our weekly CSA delivery included four English cucumbers. Normally, I would have made tzatziki , a cucumber and yogurt sauce or salad, or my mom’s “bread and butter” pickles, with vinegar and a bit of sugar. After making those, I would still have had cucumbers to spare.

But I didn’t have the time to fuss with my cucumber bounty. Scrambling to make a surprise birthday dinner for my beloved, I put cucumbers out of my mind. Instead, I concentrated on cake, an eggplant lemon risotto, marinated, roasted pepper salad, and grilled filet of haddock. 

Our son Liam and his partner Kevin drove from Philly to DC to celebrate my husband’s birthday. 

Dinner was fun and not bad if I do say so myself. As a good mother should, at the end of the visit, I offered Liam and “his Kevin” a care package. They are excellent and inventive cooks, with a fondness for vegetables. So, I figured that (along with leftover cake, of course) I would give them half my cucumbers. They seemed genuinely enthusiastic about the hand-me-down CSA cukes and told me about their favorite chilled cucumber soup recipe, from the blog called Not Quite Nigella.

Adapting Chilled Cucumber Yogurt Soup

I loved the concept of “5 Minute Chilled White Bean, Cucumber, Mint & Yogurt Soup,” and had all the ingredients at hand. But after translating the recipe proportions from grams to ounces, I knew that my tastebuds also required a few adjustments. This version still retains “Not Quite Nigella” roots, but emphasizes the cucumbers over the beans and puts the fresh mint front-and-center.

I’m not going to pick a fight with a much better known blogger, but calling it a 5-minute soup seems a slight exaggeration. Maybe if you’re super fast and start timing only after washing, peeling, choping, zesting and juicing your ingredients, you can make this soup in 5 minutes. However, if you’re a normal mortal and count all your prep time, figure on 20 minutes. Still, it’s a good investment of  minimal time for a nice result. 

If you have a serious blender (a/k/a VitaMix type), you can process the soup to a fine consistency. However, using an immersion blender or a food processor, you may want to strain at least part of the soup.

By the way, I’ve made this using both dried beans and canned. Either works and I can’t taste the difference.

The soup is a delightful first course or wonderful light lunch with good, crusty bread.

Print Recipe

Chilled Cucumber Yogurt Soup Yum

This simple chilled soup comes together in minutes and is the perfect light meal or first course in warm weather.

Prep Time

20 minutes

Servings

Ingredients

• 15 ounce cannellini beans (1 can) rinsed or 8 ounces/1 cup dried beans cooked and rinsed, white
• 2 English cucumbers peeled, centers scooped out, & roughly chopped, long, 1 - 1¼ pound
• 1/4 teaspoon minced garlic about 2 small cloves
• 1 lemon zested and juiced
• 1/2 cup tightly packed fresh mint leaves washed and roughly chopped
• 1 cup "regular" i.e. not Greek, yogurt (I used whole milk)
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt and freshly ground pepper plus more after chilling if you so desire (go light on the salt if you are adding olive slivers)
• 2 Ice cubes
• 1/4 cup Optional garnishes - diced cucumber shelled pistachio nuts, chopped and roasted, black or green olive slivers, 1-2 tablespoons olive oil

Prep Time 20 minutes Servings Ingredients 15 ounce cannellini beans (1 can) rinsed or 8 ounces/1 cup dried beans cooked and rinsed, white 2 English cucumbers peeled, centers scooped out, & roughly chopped, long, 1 - 1¼ pound 1/4 teaspoon minced garlic about 2 small cloves 1 lemon zested and juiced 1/2 cup tightly packed fresh mint leaves washed and roughly chopped 1 cup "regular" i.e. not Greek, yogurt (I used whole milk) 1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt and freshly ground pepper plus more after chilling if you so desire (go light on the salt if you are adding olive slivers) 2 Ice cubes 1/4 cup Optional garnishes - diced cucumber shelled pistachio nuts, chopped and roasted, black or green olive slivers, 1-2 tablespoons olive oil

Instructions

1. Puree the beans, garlic, lemon zest and juice, mint and yogurt in batches, until all of those ingredients are fully combined. The mixture should be medium-thick, close to pancake batter in consistency. If the soup is not smooth enough for your taste, put several ladles of it (or all) through a strainer.
2. Add the salt and pepper and the ice cubes. Stir the soup, cover it and chill for at least one hour. Serve with the garnishes.

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