The Best Cold Spanish Dishes to Enjoy this Summer

The Best Cold Spanish Dishes to Enjoy this Summer

The hot summer weather in Spain, with the lack of desire to spend long hours in a hot kitchen preparing elaborate meals that accompanies it, makes opting for cold Spanish dishes, that are easy to make but don’t lose out on flavor, an obvious choice. Here are some of the most famous ones:

Andalusian Gazpacho
One of the most common cold Spanish dishes, coming from Andalusia, is Andalusian gazpacho. It’s easy to prepare and it can even be eaten with ice, making it even more refreshing, although it can dilute the dish a bit.
Gazpacho is made with tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, onions and garlic, which should all be peeled and chopped. To prepare it, blend together all of these ingredients (you can also save some of the chopped ingredients to sprinkle over the top when it’s served) along with bread, olive oil and cold water. Before serving the soup, make sure to refrigerate it, and serve very cold.

Summer Salad with Potatoes
Also called “papas aliñás” (dressed potatoes) in some parts of Spain, this salad is a mixture of typical, in-season, salad vegetables and boiled potatoes. Although the salad is dressed with the best quality olive oil and vinegar, it’s the parsley and chives that give it its characteristic flavor. Serving the salad when the potatoes have cooled naturally is recommended, they shouldn’t be chilled in the refrigerator.

Pasta Salad
This salad is similar to the summer salad described above, but in this dish, pasta is the extra ingredient used to leave diners satisfied. The pasta in the dish can be combined with any ingredients, although it is best to let it be the main player on the plate.
As with the potatoes, the pasta should be added to the salad once it has cooled, so that the dish is refreshing; preparing it in advance is recommended. Some of the most popular combinations for this salad include cheese, fresh cream, anchovies, parsley, chives and salmon.

Seafood Salad
Seafood salad is a typically Mediterranean dish since it combines fresh produce and seafood. Prawns and shrimp should be boiled beforehand if they are added to the mix. Afterwards, add tomatoes, peppers and onions to the seafood, then mix salt, olive oil and vinegar in a separate dish, and pour the dressing over the salad. The salad should be eaten when it has been completely chilled.