While the weather has been cold and bleak lately here in New England - perfect for bowls of steaming soup - warmer weather is in the forecast.  If you start feeling luke-warm about eating hot soups at this time of year, you're not alone.  But, don't give up on soups altogether at this time of year - there are a multitude of warm weather soups to try, and I've scoured the web to find some of the best recipes! Whether you have minutes or hours, there's a chilled soup option for you.  Some don't even require cooking!

Perhaps the best-known chilled soup option is gazpacho.  Gazpacho is a tomato soup that is served cold and is wonderful garnished with pesto or croutons.  In addition to traditional gazpacho, Gourmet magazine also offers up recipes for watermelon gazpacho and beet gazpacho -so there's a gazpacho for every mood!  Tomatoes also work well in other non-gazpacho, chilled tomato soups.

Cucumbers are equally cool and refreshing and work well in creamy chilled soups, whether you prefer a slightly spicy version or a more straight-forward chilled cucumber soup.

For less traditional cold vegetable soups, try avocado bisque, carrot soup, or fresh asparagus soup.

Finally, one of my favorite soups of all time was a chilled fruit soup at a cafe, many years ago.  It was cool and refreshing, perfect for a light lunch on a hot day.  Chilled fruit soups are great as a light meal, an appetizer, side dish, or sometimes even dessert!  Try a mixed summer fruit soup, fruit and champagne soup, or spiced blueberry soup.

With chilled soup options, soup works for all seasons, and nearly all times of day!