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I call this Okroshka a summer soup because it’s served cold. It’s very refreshing to have chilled soup on a hot summer day.
I can eat three bowls of this on a hungry stomach. (A mom who chases after a 1-year-old gets hungry ok?!) It’s relatively guilt free; no butter or oils required. Easy, cheap and healthy; that’s my kinda meal.
Ingredients for Okroshka Soup:
8 cups cold water
1/3 cup sour cream
3 1/2 Tbsp Vinegar divided
2 1/2 tsp Salt
3 Tbsp chopped dill (fresh or frozen)
1/2 cup green onion, finely chopped
1/2 ham diced
3-4 medium cooked potatoes, peeled and diced
3 hard-boiled eggs, diced
3-4 cucumbers, diced
How to Make my mom’s Okroshka:
1. Peel potatoes and dice them into 1/4″ cubes (we used the Vidalia Chopper). Place diced potatoes in a medium pot and cover with water. Add 1 Tbsp vinegar and bring to a boil then continue boiling for 10 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked, but not falling apart.
Drain well and set aside to cool. For quicker cooling, you can rinse potatoes with cold water. (This cooking potato method is thanks to one of my readers. Nadia thank you for sharing!).
2. While potatoes are cooking , boil 3 eggs and cooled them in ice water. Here is the link to make perfect boiled eggs.
3. Next, dice 3 eggs, 3-4 cucumbers, and 1/2 lb of ham. Also chop 3 Tbsp of dill and 1/2 cup of green onions. Place everything in a large pot.
4. In a separate large bowl, whisk together 8 cups of cold water, 1/3 cup of sour cream, 2 1/2 Tbsp of vinegar, 2 1/2 tsp of salt until combined. Pour the mixture in the pot with the rest of ingredients. Stir to combine and serve.
And I just realized I’m very much a part of this picture. Lets play, find Natasha…
Okroshka Recipe: Russian Summer Soup
Ingredients
- 8 cups cold water
- 1/3 cup sour cream
- 3 1/2 Tbsp Vinegar divided
- 2 1/2 tsp Salt
- 3 Tbsp chopped dill, fresh or frozen
- 1/2 cup green onion, finely chopped
- 1/2 lb good ham, diced (we used black forest ham)
- 3-4 medium cooked potatoes, peeled and diced
- 3 hard-boiled eggs, diced
- 3-4 cucumbers, diced
Instructions
- Peel potatoes and dice them into 1/4" cubes (we used the Vidalia Chopper). Place diced potatoes in a medium pot and cover with water. Add 1 Tbsp vinegar and bring to a boil then continue boiling for 10 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked, but not falling apart. Drain well and set aside to cool. For quicker cooling, you can rinse potatoes with cold water. (This cooking method is thanks to one of my readers - Nadia).
- While potatoes are cooking, boil 3 eggs and cool them in ice water.
- Next, dice 3 eggs, 3-4 cucumbers, 1/2 lb of ham. Also chop 3 Tbsp of dill and 1/2 cup of green onions. Place everything in a large pot.
- In a separate large bowl, whisk together 8 cups of cold water, 1/3 cup of sour cream, 2 1/2 Tbsp of vinegar, 2 1/2 tsp of salt until combined. Pour the mixture in the pot with the rest of ingredients. Stir to combine and serve.
Natasha Kravchuk
Hi! I'm Natasha Kravchuk. Here you'll find delicious, trusted recipes with easy step-by-step photos and videos. 
Thanks for the recipe as my kids LOVE this soup. When we were in Kazakhstan, we had this with kumiz. At home, I have recreated it with 1/2 soda water and 1/2 plain kefir. It gives it that extra tang than just plain water.
Awesome! I’m so glad that your kids love this soup, thanks for sharing.
My Mom omitted the potatoes, substituted sliced hot dogs for the ham (although babushka always used ham!) and used buttermilk instead of kvass.
Thank you so much for sharing that with me.
Yummm♥️
I don’t eat meat -how can I substitute the ham?
I haven’t tested a substitute. You can make it without the ham and just add more of the other ingredients.
you could probably use firm tofu, maybe marinate in teriyaki and brown sugar first to add flavor
Sounds delisious . After a bowl of this i would have the strength of five buffalos and the stamina to make love for two days. I would be the one man red army..!
So glad you enjoyed the recipe!
I just saw my favorite tv program somewhere street by NHK of Japan. The visit was to Tajikistan and the selected dish was okroshka. My first ever recipe to save.
That’s great! I hope you love this recipe.
Love it. So refreshing light power food. More better with chopped red radishes included. Also I like it better with cold buttermilk instead of the sour cream, water , vinegar. But not many people like buttermilk anymore.
Thank you so much for sharing that with me!
Because it’s completely new to Mei, I made it as per recipe and I like it! Will make regularly now in hot weather.
And thank you for easily scaling the ingredients according to number of servings– that is especially helpful to save me the extra time and mental load.
You are very welcome. Glad you enjoyed the recipe, thank you for sharing your good comments and feedback with us.
Is it normal that the sour cream separates from the water? I used fresh container of full fat sour cream and purified water. I stirred it well. Thanks. Mike
HI Michael, some slight separation may occur, but it should come together quickly with stirring before serving.
I love this soup! But I can’t dice all the ingredients uniformly. Do you use a pairing knife? Nevertheless the soup tastes delicious! Mike Krulak
I have a Vidalia chopper … worth the $20 I spent years ago. Everything is exactly the same size chop.
Water
Where is the Kvas?
Hi Christian, I have always preferred the greater depth of flavor from using vinegar, but alot of people do put kvass in their cold soup instead. Since vinegar is so much more potent in flavor than kvass, you will want to replace some of the water with kvass for it to be flavorful enough. I don’t have a recipe for the kvass version posted so I don’t have an exact conversion to recommend.
My children loved this recipe! We made it for mother’s day, they had fun helping make it and they ate the entire pot! This will be great over the summer!
Glad that they loved it! Thanks for sharing and I hope they will also love all the other recipes that you will try.
We use turkey balogna instead of ham and add radishes for more crunch and flavor! Instead of cutting up the potatoes we just boil them and do a rough mash and add them. And we use buttermilk mixed with water as the base. Soooo good! Hands down the best summer food! Now if only I could get my Scottish husband to eat it
I’m so glad you enjoyed it, Natalie! Thank you for the wonderful review with us!
Just finished enjoying okrashka with Aryan instead of water/sour cream. But I’ve eaten it often in Russia and Ukraine in Summer in the stalovayas/cafeteria diners. Definitely best cold Summer food!
So lovely to know that Paul! Thanks for giving this recipe a try, I am so glad you liked it.
The recipe is great, however, in the event you guys don’t end up liking the dish itself – strain the soup, add some light mayo and sweet corn and BAM! You have a really nice salad 😀
I’ve never had anything like this before and actually heard about it it on a Russian visual novel. I found your recipe and wow I must say it is absolutely outstanding, one of the best things I have ever had. Thank you so much!
Thank you for your great feedback, Alex. I appreciate your good comments.
Great recipe. I’m wondering if you could replace the water and sour cream with kefir?
Hi Liam, one of my readers reported great results using Kefir: “I make mine the same but with 1 ltr of kefir instead of sour cream, and I mix / mash the cooked yolk with 1.5 tblspn Russian mustard.”
Making this for bookclub. Can it be made a day ahead? Is it better made in advance for flavors to get picked up in broth, or better not?
Hey there Jennifer! It should be just fine the next day. Growing up we would have a large pot in the fridge that lasted a few days!
Can this be frozen?
Hi Andy, I haven’t tried freezing it. We’ve always gobbled it up so quickly that we didn’t need to freeze it. It’s just one of those things you don’t get tired of I don’t think I would try to freeze it because it has cucumbers in it and I think freezing might make them weird and gooey. Hope that helps. Enjoy the soup!