A delicious Cucumber Salad with fresh herbs, citrus, and red onion. Easy to make with the simplest ingredients- it’s cool, crunchy, refreshing, and pairs with many things! Love cucumbers? Check out our 20+ Cool & Refreshing Cucumber Recipes!
I love how cucumbers come into season right when we need them most. Cooling and refreshing, they are just what our bodies crave on these hot summer days. Mother Nature, she’s a smart one; she is. 😉
This refreshing Cucumber Salad is a welcome reprieve from the summer heat, and this time of year, cucumbers are aplenty! Pair it with grilled fish or meat, tuck it into tacos, spoon it over Buddha bowls. I reach for it when I need a quick afternoon snack – a flavorful, low-calorie, low-carb treat.
What You’ll Love about this Cucumber Salad!
It is very adaptable! Borderless. What started off as Mexican-inspired in my mind, later became very Middle Eastern when swapping parsley for the cilantro and lemon for the lime. Using dill and lemon will take it up to Scandinavia. Adding mint can make it feel very Greek. So many options here, friends!
Cucumber Salad ingredients
- Cucumbers: Thin-skinned cucumbers work best. English, Turkish or Persian cucumbers allow you to keep the skin on. Waxy cucumbers can be used but should be peeled first.
- Red Onion (or sub-pickled onion or green onions!)
- Garlic– for a little bite!
- Fresh herbs– cilantro, dill, mint, basil or flat-leaf parsley
- Citrus- lemon or lime juice
- Olive oil
- Salt, pepper and spices.
Cucumber Salad Variations:
- Nordic: sub dill for the cilantro and sub lemon for the lime. Leave out the jalapeño.
- Greek: Try mint and parsley with lemon juice, and no jalapeño.
- Middle Eastern – use lemon instead of lime, sprinkle with Zaatar or Sumac!
- Mexican: add a pinch of chipotle powder for smokiness (starting very light)
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Enjoy the Cucumber Salad and let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
xoxo
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Cucumber Salad Recipe
- Prep Time: 15
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
- Category: Salad, summer salad, cucumber recipes
- Method: Sliced
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegan
Description
A delicious Cucumber Salad with fresh herbs, citrus, and red onion. Easy to make with the simplest ingredients- it’s cool, crunchy, refreshing, and pairs with many things!
Ingredients
- 1/4 of a red onion, very thinly sliced (or sub-pickled onions, or scallions)
- 3 tablespoons fresh lemon or lime juice
- 2 large English Cucumbers (or 6 Persian cucumbers) thinly sliced (skin on) see notes.
- one garlic clove, finely minced
- 1/2 cup chopped cilantro, Italian parsley, dill, mint or basil (or a combo)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon salt, or more to taste
- Optional spices: 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander , (or ground cumin) and/or chili flakes
- optional: 1 jalapeno, seeded and finely diced
Instructions
- Place the red onion and citrus juice in a big bowl, toss and let marinate while you prep the rest.
- Slice the cucumber, mince the garlic and chop the herbs and add to the bowl. Add the olive oil, salt, and any spices you like, and optional jalapeno. Toss well.
- Taste, and adjust salt and acid. You want this to taste flavorful!
- See the recipe notes below for other flavor combinations. This version above is a good “all around” salad- pairing well with American, Middle Eastern or Mexican Food.
Notes
The salad gets very “juicy” as it sits in the fridge, and I like to use the flavorful juice over cooked quinoa or rice. It’s really flavorful and refreshing- so make sure to add enough salt and acid. 🙂
Cutting the cucumbers thicker with keep them stay crisper longer. I personally like them cut thinly (⅛ inch) and don’t mind when they get soft after a few days in the fridge…but this is my personal preference. If you prefer them to stay crispy, cut them into thicker, ¼-inch slices. 😉
For a Scandinavian twist, sub dill for the cilantro and lemon for the lime. Leave out the jalapeño.
Greek- Try mint and parsley with lemon, leave out the jalapeño.
Middle Eastern – use lemon instead of lime, try a little sumac or zaatar!
Mexican– add a pinch of chipotle powder for smokiness (start very light)
Asian – Try our Asian Cucumber Salad!
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cup
- Calories: 61
- Sugar: 2.2 g
- Sodium: 196.9 mg
- Fat: 4.8 g
- Saturated Fat: 0.7 g
- Carbohydrates: 5.1 g
- Fiber: 0.8 g
- Protein: 0.8 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
This recipe is amazing! We’re having it along with some watermelon, Mexican street corn, and jalapeno burgers for dinner. Thank you so much!
Awesome Heidi- sounds tasty!
Love the combination of ingredients, but found myself wishing it had a bit more “tang”. I added garlic for another layer of flavor.
Glad you made it work for you!
Could you put avocado in it
Yes, I think that would be yummy! Add the avocado right before serving.
My family is from Barbados and we have been making this recipe for over 100 years. I like it with lime instead of lemon but I do both with and without cilantro. Delicious. We use as a tonic so to say.
Awesome Crystal!
Whole or ground coriander, please?
Use ground coriander!
We served this in a make your own tostadas, taco salads, fajitas buffet – everyone loved the cucumbers (sliced paper thin as suggested)! Thank you so much for this very versatile recipe!
Thanks Leslie- glad everyone enjoyed this!
perfect! I added some sliced green cabbage and tasted great as a snack, would be really good inside some tacos too
Glad you liked this!
Thanks for the perfect summer salad recipe. I love that you can do so much with this. I spooned some over chunks of seedless watermelon – so good! Sweet, spicy and refreshing.
Love it! Asian variation: 3 tbsp soy sauce + 3 tbsp rice wine vinegar + 1-2 tbsp maple syrup…splash of toasted sesame oil, and sometimes I add ginger/garlic. Garlic chives or green onion, + cilantro as herbs…
Or use your base recipe and add in some juicy sweet fruit (nectarines, mango or pineapple).
So funny you should add this right now…posting a recipe today for Asian Cucumber Salad with almost these exact ingredients. We are on the same page Bri. 🙂
add a little love take a fork run it down sides just to break skin surface top to bottom great look plus an area to hold more dressing. ENJOY
Love this Joseph-totally agree!
Awesome recipe. Everything you have on here is 5 stars!!
Apprecate this!
Appreciate this!
I am making this today, so simple, refreshing and healthy.
Hi Sylvia, I love the recipe. I’d like to share it, with full credit and a screen grab of one of your photos, on my blog Head Roam, where I’m doing a Cuban-inspired Super Bowl menu. Please let me know if that would be ok, and thank you.
You can share a photo- but please link back to the recipe itself. Thanks!
I took a punt to find a new way to use up 2 spare cucumbers. I was delighted that my frequently used Indian spice (ground coriander) was part of the dressing. I do think that lime brings a unique fragrance so do try to use that. If you wanted to cut calories virtually to zero, leaving out the olive oil would not detract too much from the result. Overall a great new salad I have learnt today. Thank you Sylvia!
thanks so much Nasreen!
Another beautiful recipe! And we had the enormous pleasure of making with our first two home-grown cucumbers. It was incredible – the perfect recipe to enjoy the flavours of cucumbers we’d grown ourselves. We served it with your Pad Thai (with Shrimp). Delicious.
Thank you again, Sylvia.
Thanks so much Laura and glad you enjoyed it!
I made this last night for company along with your Tikka Masala.
Both were a big hit!
I added sliced cherry tomatoes and some diced avocado to the salad, since I had some around. My husband has already asked me to make it again!
Great to hear Carol!
Goes great with tomatoes!
Great to hear Declan!
Love the cucumbers as a side dish for tacos and on top of avocado toast. Thanks for sharing the recipe!
I’m so happy you liked this!
Refreshing and spicy! A perfect way to use cucumbers!
Thanks Josie, glad you liked it. 🙂
Just made it with cucumbers from my garden. Super simple, refreshing!