Hungarian Chilled Sour Cherry Soup – Hideg Meggyleves 🇭🇺
Ingredients
700 g (about 1½ lb) sour cherries, pitted (fresh or frozen)
1 liter (4 cups) water
120 g (½–⅔ cup) sugar (adjust to taste)
1 cinnamon stick
2–3 whole cloves
Zest of ½ lemon (optional)
Pinch of salt
200 ml (¾–1 cup) sour cream or heavy cream
1 tbsp flour or cornstarch (optional, for thickening)
Instructions
Cook the cherries In a pot, combine cherries, water, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, lemon zest, and salt. Bring to a gentle boil, then simmer 10–15 minutes until cherries soften.
Thicken (optional) Mix sour cream (or cream) with flour or cornstarch until smooth. Slowly ladle in hot soup to temper, then stir back into the pot.
Finish cooking Simmer gently 2–3 minutes. Do not boil hard.
Chill Remove cinnamon and cloves. Let cool completely, then refrigerate at least 2–3 hours.
To Serve
Serve ice-cold
Garnish with extra cream or a few whole cherries
Sometimes finished with a splash of red wine (optional, traditional)
Tips
Sour cherries (meggy) are essential—sweet cherries change the dish.
Adjust sugar after chilling; flavors mellow when cold.
Can be made a day ahead.
Sweet, tangy, creamy, and refreshing—one of Hungary’s most beloved summer soups 🇭🇺
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
