Cold-Soak Gazpacho
Tomato powder, dried vegetables, oil, and vinegar. A cold dinner for days too hot to stand over a stove.
- calories
- 540
- weight
- 4.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 120
- protein
- 10 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 0 min
- total time
- 5 min
- water
- 400 ml cold
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Lunch
- Dinner
- Cold soak
- No cook
- Backpacking
- Thru-hike
- Bikepacking
- Day hike
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- Eat in the bag
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Tomato powder | 1/2 cup | sold as dried tomato paste powder; the whole recipe rests on it |
|---|---|---|
| Dried bell pepper flakes | 2 tbsp | |
| Dried onion flakes | 1 tbsp | |
| Dried cucumber or celery flakes | 1 tbsp | optional, but it is what makes it read as gazpacho |
| Garlic powder | 1/4 tsp | |
| Dried parsley or cilantro | 1 tsp | |
| Salt | 1/2 tsp | |
| Sugar | 1/2 tsp | cuts the acid, do not skip it |
| Black or white pepper | 1/4 tsp | |
| Olive oil | 2 tbsp | dropper bottle |
| Red wine vinegar | 1 tbsp | small leakproof bottle, or 1 tsp powdered vinegar in the dry mix |
| Hot sauce packets | 2 | the diner kind |
| Croutons or crushed crackers | 1/2 cup |
Method
- Pour 400 ml of cold water into the jar with the dry mix. Stir or shake until no powder is stuck to the bottom.
- Add the oil, vinegar, and hot sauce. Shake again.
- Leave it an hour, longer if you can. The pepper and onion flakes need that time to stop being gravel.
- Stir once more, then drop the croutons in and eat immediately.
Gazpacho is a soup that was never heated, which makes it one of the few cold home recipes that survives the trip to a backpack intact. Fresh tomatoes and cucumbers are out on weight alone, so tomato powder and dried vegetable flakes do the work. The powder rehydrates into a real base rather than the thin red water you get from bouillon.
The soak time is the actual cooking. Dried pepper and onion need at least an hour in cold water to soften, so mix this at a break and eat it two hours later. Oil and vinegar go in last and stay separate at home, because fat in a dry bag turns the powder into a paste that will not dissolve. The sugar and salt are not garnish either; without them the acid has nothing to sit against.
Packing
Everything dry goes in one jar or bag at home. Oil, vinegar, and hot sauce ride separately. Croutons in their own bag or they turn to dust in the pack.
Variations
- Powdered vinegar in the dry mix removes one bottle from the kit.
- A packet of instant refried beans stirred in thickens it into something closer to a meal.
- In cold weather this works with boiled water instead, though it stops being gazpacho.
https://www.hunttalk.com/threads/gazpacho-cold-vegetable-soups.216024