Recipe: Chilled Cucumber Soup

Cucumbers are the July Harvest of the Month!

Find ready-to-go materials for the classroom, cafeteria, and community that promote seasonal eating, inspires healthy diets, and encourages the use of local Vermont foods. Run by Food Connects.

Explore the harvest

Posted on July 18, 2025

Three participants are engaging in a cooking class, preparing food together. One individual handles a spatula over a stovetop, while another holds a wooden spoon, and a third observes their actions closely.

Dana Hudson (far right) facilitates a workshop for educators focused on cooking with kids. Photo: Sarah Webb.

 

“Mistakes are great when you’re cooking. It’s a chance for a kid to problem solve and build confidence that they can work through it. And, kids will almost always like a food they made, even if it doesn’t taste great!”

Educator Dana Hudson has spent a lot of time cooking with students. She brought this enthusiasm for experimentation in the kitchen to a recent Northeast Farm to School Institute workshop, where she and Shelburne Farms Farm Functions Chef Jackie Major taught educators how to bring more cooking into the classroom and connect kids to what they eat.

“When I’m working with adults to inspire them to cook more with kids, my big goal is to convey the importance of letting go. It’s all about giving kids the space to take healthy risks so they can show themselves they can handle a challenge.”

“Everyone needs to eat,” says Chef Jackie, whose career has included mentoring teens at the student-run ARCafé in Maine. “But the basics of cooking aren’t always taught in schools anymore.” As a mentor, she witnessed the life skills that grow in the kitchen: teamwork, responsibility, and the simple joy of feeding yourself and others. “A tasty meal with minimal ingredients is so easy,” she says. “As long as I’m preaching that, I’m doing my job on this planet.”

Try one of Chef Jackie’s recipes from the workshop, a chilled cucumber soup. It’s a simple preparation that leaves lots of room for experimentation and bound to be a delicious lunch on a hot summer day.

 

Two images: (left) a chef blends soup in a food processor as a group watches, (right) a tray of white cups filled with green soup, arranged in a neat row.

Chef Jackie blends the ingredients for the soup as workshop participants look on. The milk works to bring the ingredients to a soup-like consistency. The overall consistency can be adjusted to your liking when adding the Greek yogurt. Photos: Sarah Webb.

 

Chilled Cucumber Soup

Ingredients

  • 4–6 cups cucumbers, peeled, seeds scooped out, roughly chopped (you can use any variety, but Jackie most prefers the fancy slicing variety)
  • 1–2 cloves garlic
  • 1 small onion, sliced (¼–⅓  cups) 
  • 4 sprigs dill, chopped
  • 6 sprigs parsley, chopped
  • 2 Tablespoons chives, chopped
  • 1 lemon, zest and juice
  • 1–2 Tablespoons rice wine vinegar
  • Salt to taste (start with 1 teaspoon and add from there while tasting) 
  • 1.5 cups milk
  • 2–4 cups Greek yogurt

Method

  1. Using a blender, blend all ingredients aside from the yogurt well until it looks like a cucumber smoothie.
  2. Add 2-4 cups of Greek yogurt (depending on how creamy you want it to be). For a thicker soup, blend for only a short time. For something thinner, run on high for a longer time. Taste for salt and adjust as needed.
  3. Pour and enjoy.
     

Three people wearing aprons prepare food in a commercial kitchen, chopping herbs and slicing lemons.

Chef Jackie works alongside workshop participants, showing how to use simple ingredients to create flavorful dishes that are easily adapted to what you have available. Photo: Sarah Webb.

 

Congratulations to the 2025–26 Northeast Farm to School Institute cohort!

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