Chilled Watermelon and Summer Berry Soup: Sweet, Cold, & Versatile for Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammie) Sundays

This Chilled Watermelon and Summer Berry Soup from Good Food, Good Life by Curtis Stone is a fabulous and very versatile recipe to add to your summer repertoire. It's easy, no-cook, chilly and refreshing, and versatile enough to make it perfect for a variety of occasions. 

I am no stranger to fruit soups having made several sweet or sweet and savory soups featuring fruit: Passion Fruit and Cantaloupe Soup, Red Currant Soup, White Grape Gazpacho, Cold Cherry-Lemon Soup, Watermelon Soup with Feta, Creamy Melon Gazpacho, Green Grape & Marcona Almond Gazpacho, and Blueberry Gazpacho. This one with it's sweet and tangy watermelon 'broth' and mixture of sweet summery berries may be my new favorite. Curtis's recipe is for Chilled Yellow Watermelon Soup with Summer Berries but yellow watermelon is not readily available here, he says that red watermelon "will do just fine," and I think it is just and pretty and perfect as a red, white & blue offering for a July 4th bash. ;-)

You could have this soup in small bowls as a light starter for an al fresco meal, for breakfast, as-is or with a scoop of yogurt, or as a light summer dessert. I even added a couple of small scoops of this yummy creamy vegan Vanilla-Bean Coconut Ice Cream and it was even more amazing. The only real change I made to the recipe beyond using red watermelon was increasing the lime juice slightly--I had it so I used it--and to still have a white accent but no added sugar, I used some unsweetened desiccated coconut as a garnish.
 

Watermelon and Summer Berry Soup
Adapted from Good Food, Good Life by Curtis Stone
(Serves 4) 

1 small watermelon (yellow or red) about 4 to 5 lbs, rind and any large seeds removed and flesh coarsely chopped (I used a small local seedless watermelon)
1/3 cup firmly packed fresh mint leaves
1/3 cup fresh lime juice (+ 2 extra Tbsp)
6 oz fresh strawberries, hulled & halved/quartered depending on size (about 1 cup)
4 oz fresh blueberries (about 1 cup)
4 oz fresh raspberries (about1 cup)
2 oz fresh blackberries (about 1/2 cup) (my blackberries were frozen) ;-)
powdered sugar for dusting (I used desiccated, unsweetened coconut)   
 
Combine watermelon, mint and lime juice in a blender and blend until the mint is finely chopped. Strain the soup through a fine-mesh strainer into a medium bowl. Cover and refrigerate for about 2 hours or until well chilled.

Mix all of the berries together and then mound them in the center of four wide soup bowls. Dust with powdered sugar (or coconut) if desired. Carefully pour the chilled soup around the fruit and serve. 

Curtis Make Ahead Note: The soup can be made up to 6 hours ahead and kept refrigerated. (Deb says: I made the 'soup' the night before and just poured it through a strainer once more before serving to remix any separation.) 

Notes/Results: I really loved this soup--it's like watermelon agua fresca meets fruit salad. The watermelon, mint and lime combination is delicious on its own but even better when paired with the berries. The beauty in this recipe beyond the taste and simplicity is that you can adjust it to what fruit you have available and as mentioned above, add to it--ice cream, a scoop of honey-sweetened yogurt, or even a shot of rum or tequila in the soup would all be lovely. And, I can't stress enough that it's no-cook, healthy, visually appealing, and can feed all your paleo, vegan, and gluten-free eaters. If you serve this soup in small bowls like I did (or even wide cups or glasses), you can easily stretch it to six or more. Really good and a big impact on the plate (or in the bowl) for minimal effort in the kitchen, I will definitely make it again.
 

I am linking up this soup at I Heart Cooking Clubs for this week's Fresh & Fruity theme. You can see all of the fruit-filled dishes that were made by checking out the picture links on the post. 

Souper Sundays is back with a new format of a picture link each week where anyone interested can post their soups, salads, or sandwiches any time during the week and I post a recap of the entries the following week. 

(If you are not familiar with Souper Sundays, you can read about of the origins of it here.)

My pal Tina of Squirrel Head Manor joined me with her sandwich-ish Mahi Mahi Quesadillas and said, "We wrapped it in regular tortillas and served cheese grits and avocado. I chopped some avocado onto the tortilla and wrapped the fish in that too. ... For the sauce we used this fantastically delicious sweet chili sauce. It's sweet with just the right amount of kick, not spicy hot. I think I could use this sauce on sandwiches, burgers, chicken and maybe even biscuits. Funny, I always associated Thai food with intense heat and so I have avoided it." 

Thanks to Tina  for linking up last week!

If you would like to join in Souper (Soup, Salad, and Sammie) Sundays, I would love to have you! Here's how...

To join in this week's linkup with your soup, salad or sandwich:

• Link up your soup (stew, chili, soupy curries, etc. are fine), salad, or sandwich dish, (preferably one from the current week or month--but we'll take older posts too) on the picture link below and leave a comment on this post so I am sure not to miss you.

On your entry post (on your blog):

• please mention Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammies) Sundays at Kahakai Kitchen and link back to this post.
• you are welcome to add the wonderful Souper Sundays logo (created by Ivy at Kopiaste) to your post and/or blog (optional).

An InLinkz Link-up

Have a happy, healthy week!