Cucumber Salad

This salad is perfect for a hot day. It's light, refreshing and full of flavor. It's crisp and it’s a perfect dish for summer when cucumbers are in season.

I wanted to continue with my salad theme, like the one I shared last week, but this one is a lot easier to make! No cooking or something complicated, just a regular chop and mix salad. We are also still in the middle of the 9 days, and sometimes it can feel like you eat a lot of pasta and dairy, that’s where this salad comes in as it helps freshen up the meals.

Cucumber salad is a very popular dish in many countries. It can be served warm, at room temperature or even cold. Often cucumber salads are a variation of the classic Greek tzatziki, which includes feta cheese or yogurt and mint-infused olive oil. I wanted a parve salad so I created cucumber salad without any cheese or dairy products.

Cucumbers are a healthy and refreshing snack for any season. They contain large amounts of antioxidants and are very low in calories. It's easy to make this salad and you probably have all the ingredients on hand anyway. The salad itself is only made with 2 ingredients - cucumbers and dill. Since I'm located in Israel and the cucumbers here are small, I used what I had available. If you are somewhere else, try to find Persian cucumbers or small English cucumbers. The bigger the cucumbers are, the less is recommended for the salad since they have an extra bitter taste in the seeds.

For the dressing you will need olive oil, sugar, salt and white vinegar. If you want extra freshness, add chopped mint leaves too. Many times cucumber salads contain onions or chive, I prefer not to have raw onions so I didn’t add any, if you like it you can add some.

To cut the cucumbers I used a mandolin, it’s the easiest way to quickly cut it and get even slices. If you are using a knife try to make the slices as thin as you can. After cutting the cucumbers, mix them with the salt only and let it sit on the counter for 30 minutes in room temperature. The salt will draw out the extra moisture in the cucumbers. When the 30 minutes are up, you get rid of the excess water and add the chopped dill and also the rest of the dressing ingredients. Then you just mix and serve. Simple and easy! The flavor is so good that you will want to have this salad on every hot summer day.

This salad can be served with other salads on a buffet or as part of the starters in a big Friday night meal. When you want a verity of salads to serve, this one adds green color and yummy flavor. For other salad recipes, check out my salad recipe index.

Here is the recipe for this easy cucumber dill salad: