Russian Okroshka Cold Soup (Окрошка)

This Okroshka Cold Soup (sometimes spelled Akroshka) is so amazing in the summer;
right when you are looking to eat something light and to cool off. Combine cooked potatoes and eggs
with cucumber, radishes, cold meat, and dill to make this traditional Russian Cold Soup.

The soup part is made using sweet buttermilk, sour cream, and water. It’s like a salad, but in soup form. For some, the taste might be something to get used to. For us, this is an integral part of summer which just can’t be omitted. Even the baby loves it and asks for ‘Moh’😍.

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Russian Okroshka Cold Soup Recipe

Ingredients

You can see the main ingredients for this soup above (pictured). Also needed, but not pictured are buttermilk, sour cream, lemon juice and cold boiled water (to make this a soup).

Okroshka Cold Soup Preparation

Cooking

Water (best to do in advance) – Boil half a gallon of water and let it cool off. Once it is at room temperature, transfer to the refrigerator so that it is really cold. Tip: do this the night before so that the water is ready to go the next morning. You can use normal cold water as well, but just know that the Okroshka wont stand as long so make sure to eat it up as quickly as possible.

Potatoes – Wash four medium potatoes and bring to a boil in a small pot. Reduce heat, cover and cook them for about 20 minutes. You know the potatoes are ready when you poke them with a fork and they are soft. Remove the potatoes out of hot water once they are done and let them cool. Once they are cool enough to handle, peel them using a small serrated knife.

Eggs – Add eggs to a small pot, bring to a boil, and let cook for 10 minutes (Here in Germany it really does take me 10 minutes to get hard boiled eggs!). Remove eggs from heat and pour cold water into the pot so that they cool off. Peel the eggs once they are cool.

Side note: here is an interesting post from Natasha’s Kitchen on cooking eggs: Perfect Boiled Eggs. Though it has good information, keep in mind that the time might deviate depending on your stove and/or location (e.g. Germany), as well.

Chop, chop chop

All the ingredients for this recipe need to be chopped. To do that, I use a vegetable chopper which makes things easier. The one I have is no longer available, but I linked the bestseller on Amazon here.

I first slice all the vegetables with a knife and then use the chopper to chop them into squares. If your chopper also does slicing then use it for that too.

To chop the items, I usually lay down a soft item like the meat or the potato and then a “hard” item over it because the soft items don’t go through the chopper that well and often get stuck. So this helps everything to go through smoothly. I just have a couple slices here, but feel free to chop more at a time to make things go faster.

If you don’t have a chopper, you can definitely chop everything with a knife. That is how we did it in our family for years and years. I would recommend chopping the cucumbers and radishes in little strips instead as that would save you time. And they look so pretty in the soup:) (picture below). You should still chop the potatoes, meat, and eggs into little squares.

Chop the eggs into little squares. As I mentioned above, the soft items don’t go so well through the chopper and for this reason I don’t even bother with the eggs. They would just crumble in there. I always chop these with a knife.

Add the chopped ingredients to the pot as you chop or as your vegetable chopper fills up. I use my biggest pot from the set I have (5 liter pot) because it makes it easier to mix everything in there.

Chop the green onion and the dill. I usually add them to the pot at the end, but you can add them anytime.

Juicing a Lemon

Juice a lemon. I love using my little lemon juicer for this job. Got this at Home Goods many years back and use it all the time.

Liquefying Sour Cream

Liquefy the sour cream before adding it to the soup, otherwise you will have little lumps of sour cream swimming in there. To do this, measure out the sour cream and add it to a cup. Add a tablespoon of water to the sour cream and mix until well incorporated. Add another tablespoon or two and mix well again. Keep adding water and mixing until the sour cream resembles heavy whipping cream.

Putting Okroshka Cold Soup together

Add buttermilk to the pot with the chopped ingredients. Then add the liquefied sour cream. Mix well until the mixture resembles a very wet salad.

Add the water, dill, green onion, salt and lemon juice. Mix everything together

Let the cold soup stand a bit for the flavors to meld together. I have to tell you the truth that I usually can’t wait that long:)

Lastly, if you make this Russian Okroshka Cold Soup, make sure to leave a comment and/or give this recipe a rating here! I’d love to hear back from you and will do my best to answer and respond to every comment. And of course, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram if you make this recipe. I’d love to see the photos of the recipes you have made!

Check out my Sorrel Soup recipe if you’re looking for other cooked potato and egg recipes.