Making Honeydew Soup

During hot summer days to counter the sweltering heat, make and serve this chilled honeydew soup as an appetizer. The sweet and tasty honeydew soup is combined with nonfat yogurt and flavored with white wine vinegar for an invigorating dish. For a salty and savory contrast slices of hard salami are garnished on top. However, you can also use Parma Prosciutto to garnish the soup instead of salami, or bacon bits if that is what you have in the fridge. Garnish the honeydew soup with mint leaves instead if you want a meatless version. 

Especially at the peak of its ripeness, honeydew melon, which is member of the muskmelon family, is the sweetest type of melons. It has a smooth and creamy yellow rind and its flesh is a pale green. It has an extraordinarily sweet, succulent and juicy flesh prized by the Egyptians thousands of years ago. Honeydew which generally has a slightly oval shape can weigh from 4 to 8 pounds. In this healthy recipe, together with the yogurt and other ingredients honeydew is pureed in the blender. No cooking is required to make this soup. It can be done in a few minutes, making it perfect for busy weekdays and for entertaining guests at the last minute. The cool and refreshing soup stimulates the senses and also gives an energy boost. 

Choose honeydew that is ripe and not those picked prematurely. Once it is picked the flesh of this fruit won’t get any sweeter but will become softer and juicier. Perfectly ripe honeydew can be detected by touch as it will have a subtle wrinkling on the skin’s surface. Choose honeydew that feels heavy for its size. Do not buy the melons that are too firm or too soft. Avoid those with dark blemishes on the skin or those with skin that is still green indicating that it is not yet ripe. 

Ingredients 

1 (1 ½ lb.) honeydew melon 

¾ cup plain nonfat yogurt 

1 ½ tablespoons white wine vinegar 

4 slices hard salami (chopped) 

1. Peel and seed the melon then cut into cubes. Puree with an immersion blender, traditional blender, or a food processor. 

2. Add the yogurt and vinegar. Finish pureeing. Cover. Refrigerate for 1 hour, or until thoroughly chilled. 

3. Serve the soup in chilled bowls. Garnish with about 1 tablespoon of the chopped salami.