Summer Gazpacho Salad and a 5 Year Old’s Birthday!

Summer Gazpacho Salad brings all the flavors of the popular chilled soup to a refreshing, bright and healthful summer salad filled with garden fresh vegetables. There is one added surprise in this salad…it’s a vegetarian protein source…hello my love…EDAMAME!! 

My boyfriend’s son, Hank, turned 5 years old and we wanted to have a some of his family down to celebrate! My parents hadn’t met that side of the family, so we decided to have them all down for an afternoon of swimming, playing, grilling and FUN!! His brother has FIVE boys!! Yes, I said five and they are all under 6 years old!! Talk about tiring! I don’t know how they do it!! I mean I get tired just having Hank part-time 🙂 LOL! Anyways, the boys love to play together so they had a blast that afternoon and it was the PERFECT day for Hank!!

Look at those good-looking boys!! Hank is the one all the way to the right…what a cutie-pie!! The other four are is cousins and there is one missing because he is only 5 months old (not quite ready to keep up with the bigger boys). For the party, we wanted to keep it pretty simple and kid-friendly 🙂 So it was hamburgers and hotdogs and chips for the kiddos. For the big kids, I made homemade southern style potato salad. Sorry I didn’t get pictures of it, but will make it again for the blog because I was told that it was “THE BEST” potato salad that I have ever made! That made me a little sad because I really like my Creamy Cilantro Potato Salad…but this one was good too 🙂 I also made Spanish Gazpacho Salad, which turned out to be the food star of the party!

I was a little skeptical of this salad when I first saw the recipe…we had it for a culinary class at work and this was one of the recipes that was made in the class. Our guest chef had learned this recipe at a Taste of Home Cooking School that was held here in town. She adapted it for the class and it was a hit at the cooking class.

I LOVED all the fresh-from-the-garden veggies and was intrigued by the added vegetarian protein in the edamame in this recipe, but wasn’t sure that it would go over that well with our guests. Man, I was wrong! Everyone loved it!! I had doubled this recipe for the party and it made a TON!! I sent some home with our guests and still ate it for lunch for a week!! Ok, I might be exaggerating a bit…but it did make quite a bit.

This refreshing salad is perfect for any summertime gathering! I loved that you mixed most of the ingredients ahead of time and that is it totally portable. This salad looks difficult when you see the long list of ingredients, but it’s not complicated at all. It is also really versatile because you can eliminate some of the vegetables or add some other that you have available. Some additions could be squash, zucchini, avocado, roasted corn, hot peppers, banana peppers, etc.

Here is the recipe for Summer Gazpacho Salad:

Summer Gazpacho Salad

 

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Prep time

20 mins

Total time

20 mins

 

Author: Becky's Best Bites

Serves: 6

Ingredients

FOR THE SALAD

• 1 cup edamame (green soybeans found in the frozen vegetable aisle)
• 5 tomatoes, seeded and chopped
• 1 medium, seedless cucumber, chopped
• 1 medium yellow bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• 1 medium orange bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• 1 medium red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
• 4 green onions, sliced
• 1 celery rib, thinly sliced
• Handful of cilantro, chopped
• 12 oz. hearts of romaine lettuce, chopped or torn into small pieces

FOR THE DRESSING

• ½ cup red wine vinegar
• 2 tbsp. lime juice
• 2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
• 1 tsp. hot sauce, optional
• ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
• Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Instructions

1. Cook edamame according to the package instructions while preparing the rest of the vegetables. The edamame to be "al-dente," that is still a bit crunchy. Rinse in cold water to stop the cooking process, drain and set aside.
2. In a large bowl combine all the vegetables, except the romaine lettuce.
3. In a small bowl mix mix the dressing ingredient, except the olive oil . Stream in the olive oil and whisk to fully combine.
4. Pour the dressing over vegetables; toss to coat.
5. Cover and refrigerate for 4 hours to overnight.
6. Just before serving, add the romaine lettuce and toss to combine.

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