This Asian Cucumber Salad is cool and refreshing and pairs well with many things. It’s vegan and gluten-free and is a nice addition to meals and bowls you are already making. Vegan. Watch the video!
I am not these bones, this flesh, this greying hair, I am the fire inside the shell, passing the light forward.
Here’s a simple recipe for Asian Cucumber Salad, that I think you will fall in love with. It’s fast and easy and light and delicious! Cool, refreshing cucumbers are just what I crave during the hot summer months and this salad is no exception. It hits all the flavor notes as well- such a great combo!
And although I went the generic route and called this “Asian”, you can take this Cucumber Salad in many different directions based on what you are serving. For example, to go with a more Thai theme, you could add fish sauce, lime juice, Thai Basil, and crushed peanuts. To give it more of a Korean twist and add Gochujang. Leave out the chili paste and garlic to give it more of a Japanese spin. You get the idea. 🙂
Ingredients in Asian Cucumber Salad
- Cucumbers: Thin-skinned cucumbers like English, Turkish, and Persian cucumbers work best here!
- Rice Wine Vinegar– We use “seasoned” rice vinegar for the best flavor! Feel free to substitute rice wine vinegar or rice vinegar (most acidic), and see recipe notes for adjusting sweetness.
- Toasted sesame oil– make sure your sesame oil smells fresh – I always store this in the refrigerator because it goes rancid quickly after opening. Rancid sesame oil will not smell good and may affect the flavor of the salad!
- Soy Sauce- or sub Gluten-free liquid amino acids or Coconut Aminos
- Sweetener– maple syrup, agave, honey, sugar, or sweetener of choice
- Fresh garlic clove – for punchy flavor
- Fresh ginger root– grated, not too much!
- Scallions– for savory oniony flavor, or sub with ¼ cup chives.
- Chili Garlic Paste (Sambal Olek), or substitute with Sriracha or Gochujang paste.
- Toasted Sesame Seeds – for nutty flavor and nice texture.
What kind of cucumbers should I use?
Use thin-skinned, burpless cucumbers like Persian, Turkish, or English Cucumbers, for the least bitterness and best flavor. Waxy cucumbers will work in a pinch, but you will need to peel them first.
Expert Tips
- Score the cucumbers with the tines of a fork before slicing allows the dressing to cling to them, making each bite more flavorful!
- Salt the cucumber beforehand helps release liquid, also creating a more flavorful salad as the dressing doesn’t get as watered down.
- Acidity. Rice Vinegar (most acidic) Rice Wine Vinegar (medium acidity) and Seasoned Rice Wine Vinegar (least acidic, sweetest) all have different acitiy levels. That is why you MUST adjust sweetener to taste at the end.
- Toasted Sesame Oil. Has a smoky nutty flavor, different than untoasted regular sesame oil. It goes rancid quickly, store in the fridge and make sure it smells good. If it smells bad, your salad will taste like that too. 🙂
Cucumber Salad Instructions
Score the cucumbers. This helps the dressing cling to the cucumbers.
Salt the cucumbers and place them in a strainer for 15-20 minutes or up to a few hours.
Prep the remaining ingredients. Chop up the scallion, garlic, and ginger.
Asian Dressing Ingredients
You can directly add these to the salad bowl with the strained cucumbers and toss. Simple!
Combine. Place the strained cucumbers into a large bowl. Grate the ginger and garlic right into the salad bowl.
Add the remaining ingredients: rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, maple syrup (or other sweetener), chili garlic sauce, and sesame seeds. Toss well.
Taste and season. If it tastes overly acidic (sour) add a little more sweetener to balance it. Add more chili garlic paste for more spice. Find your perfect balance! See notes about the vinegar.
Storage
The Asian Cucumber Salad will last 3 days in the fridge- if it makes it that long! You can salt the cucumbers ahead, place them in a strainer over a bowl, and place them in the fridge overnight.
What to serve with Asian Cucumber Salad
- Fast & Easy Seared Tuna (Ahi or Yellowfin Tuna)
- Broiled Miso Salmon
- Instant Pot Teriyaki Chicken
- Japanese Teriyaki Chicken
- Seoul Bowl (Vegan Bibimbap!)
- Thai Turkey Burger Recipe w/ Asian Slaw
- Chinese Eggplant with Spicy Szechuan Sauce
- Miso Mushroom Bowl
- Grilled Lemongrass Chicken
- Instant Pot Peanut Chicken
- Indonesian Grilled Sambal Chicken
- Pan-Seared Thai Chicken with Red Curry Paste
- Thai Fried Rice
- Sticky Gochujang Salmon Bowls
- Korean Beef Bulgogi
Variations
- Thai Version: add crushed roasted peanuts, fish sauce, sugar, and lime juice or tamarind (instead of the vinegar).
- Korean Version: Go to our Korean Cucumber Salad Recipe– add Gochujang, cilantro and extra ginger and garlic.
- Japanese Version: Leave out the garlic and chili paste, try chive blossoms.
More Favorite cucumber recipes!
- 20 Cool & Refreshing Cucumber Recipes
- Persian Cucumber Walnut Salad
- Cucumber Salad with Jalapeno & Lime
- Chilled Cucumber Melon Soup
- Cucumber Gazpacho
- Creamy Cucumber Salad
- Easy Crunchy Asian Slaw
- Blueberry Salad
Enjoy the Asian Cucumber Salad– please leave your feedback and/or adaptations below; everyone loves reading these! Hope you are having a lovely week. All is well here, hope it is with you too. xoxo Sylvia
More from Feasting at home
Watch the video
Asian Cucumber Salad Recipe
- Prep Time: 25
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 4-5 1x
- Category: Appetizer, Asian, easy recipe, Make-ahead, meal prep, salad, Side Dish, summer recipe, vegan
- Method: tossed
- Cuisine: Asian
- Diet: Dairy-Free, Gluten-Free, Vegan, Vegetarian
Description
Asian Cucumber Salad is made with rice vinegar, sesame, ginger, garlic and soy, cool and refreshing and pairs well with many things. It’s vegan and gluten-free and is a nice addition to meals and bowls you are already making. Watch the video!
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 pounds Turkish, Persian, or English cucumbers (about 5 cups sliced)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 4–5 scallions, finely sliced
- 1 teaspoon ginger, grated, more to taste
- 1 fat garlic clove, grated, or finely minced
- 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar (or sub rice vinegar, see notes)
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce (or substitute Bragg’s Liquid Aminos or Coconut Aminos)
- 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil (do not regular sesame oil)
- 1 – 2 tablespoons maple syrup (or agave, honey, or sugar), more to taste, see note.
- 1–2 teaspoons chili garlic sauce (Sambal Olek) or sub sriracha, more to taste
- 1–2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
Instructions
- Score and Salt Cucumbers. Using the tines of a fork, score the cucumbers lengthwise- this will help the dressing cling to the cucumbers. Slice the cucumbers thinly and place them in a bowl, and toss with the salt (to help them draw out their liquid). Let this stand 10-15 minutes while you gather the remaining ingredients. Strain (but do not rinse).
- Combine. Place the strained cucumbers in a large bowl with scallions, ginger, garlic, rice vinegar, soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, sweetener, garlic-chili paste, and toasted sesame seeds. Mix well.
- Season. Taste and adjust salt, sweetness, and spice level to your liking. Find the balance- see notes.
- Refrigerate until ready to serve. Cucumber salad is best served on the same day but will keep for up to 3 days in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
Notes
Flavor Balance. If your dressing tastes too acidic or sour, add more sweetener to taste. This will help balance it out. Rice Vinegar is more acidic than Rice Wine Vinegar. Seasoned Rice Wine Vinegar is the least acidic and is sweetened. So, depending on what you are using, the amount of sweetener needed will change.
Toasted Sesame Oil– Tastes wonderfully smoky and nutty. It can go rancid pretty quickly, so store it in the fridge after you open it and make sure to smell it before using; it should smell pleasant. Regular sesame oil will not have the same flavor here, and I don’t recommend it.
Optional Additions (See variations in post body)- fish sauce, crushed roasted peanuts, Gochujang, cilantro or Thai Basil, red onions, peanut chili crunch, radishes
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cup
- Calories: 89
- Sugar: 6.4 g
- Sodium: 404.5 mg
- Fat: 4.8 g
- Saturated Fat: 0.7 g
- Carbohydrates: 11.5 g
- Fiber: 1.4 g
- Protein: 2 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
I really enjoyed the Asian Cucumber Salad! Rather than drizzling or sprinkling the individual dressing items on the cucumbers as seen in the video, I made a little dressing in a bowl. I sampled the salad for lunch and will definitely be serving it to my family for dinner tonight! I think I will even experiment with using the dressing as a marinade for tofu sometime soon.
Thank you, Sylvia!
Perfect Nancy- glad you enjoyed this!
Love this recipe. I also love the glass salad bowl with the wooden bottom. Can you share the source?
Thanks so much for your beautiful recipes.
Thanks Winnie! I love that bowl too- it was a gift, so not sure where it came from!
I absolutely love this! I made it to go in my salmon rice bowl a few weeks ago and the combination was amazing! Making it again tonight.
Love it Ashley!
this is so good and honestly addicting 😋 i like to add a little bit of hot chili oil into the dressing
Perfect Sarah!
Tasty!
Thanks Marlene!
I am assuming the rice wine vinegar you.use is unseasoned, as you add syrup or honey. I wish people when posting recipes would indicate what kind of sauce they are using, if there are multiples.
Thank you.
hi Judy- either would work in this case!
Do you keep it in the liquid when you store it in the fridge?
Hi Toni- Do you mean the dressing?
Excellent! Flavorful and spicy. Me and husband loved it.
Thanks so much Jessica!
Excellent
Looove it. I ate the whole thing myself sorry fam! Haha
Haha! Well at least it is something light and healthy! Glad you enjoyed it.
Very good and quite easy for something so flavorful!
Thanks so much!
Sprinkled some furikake seasoning eight before eating. So good!!
Perfect Amanda!
I love it I highly recommend it.
Awesome Fred!
Delicious! To keep it keto friendly, I used sugar free maple syrup. I call it “Faple” syrup because it is as far from the real thing as you can get.
Either way, you couldn’t tell the difference in this salad.
Quick, easy and diet friendly! Thanks for this.
Glad you enjoyed this Gary!
Delicious! To keep it keto friendly, I used sugar free maple syrup. I call it Faple syrup, because it’s about as far from the real thing as you can get!
Either way, you couldn’t tell the difference in this salad. Quick, easy and diet friendly! Thanks did for this.
Great to hear!
Do you rinse the cucumbers after salting or just drain the excess liquid? Looks delish!
Hi Julie- no rinsing here, just drain. 😉
Made this today – delicious! Would love to can – have you tried canning them?
No, sorry I have not!
Used a couple of English cucumbers from my garden. Super crispy, until I salted them. Now I have limp cucumbers for my salad. Is this traditional in Asian cooking? I am thinking I would have liked this better without the salting step. Love you blog! Have made several of your recipes. Thank you! Next up, Curried Zucchini Soup.
Try it with out salting. Yes, it is somewhat tradional but there are no rules here.;) Be a rebel! xoxoxo
Another hit! I used garden cukes because I have like 400 of them, opted in for sambal olek, and I also folded in some perfectly ripe avocado because that’s what one does with perfect avocado. Then I ate the whole thing by myself.
Sounds perfect and reasonable Abbie! 😂
We have been making this Asian Cucumber Salad every week since you posted. It’s simply the best!
Great to hear!
My new favorite cucumber salad recipe, even without the scallions and subbing 1/2 tsp ground ginger because I was in a hurry. Thanks!
Great to hear Elle!
Beautiful presentation! We love this and all your recipes. Thanks for sharing. We know a blog is hard work, and we appreciate it. xo
Thanks so much Heather- it is a labor of love!
This Asian Cucumber Salad is my new favorite! Used cucumbers from the garden and the flavor was outstanding. served it with your Katsu Tofu and Furikake Rice. All excellent!.
I’m so glad you liked this Jenny, and I imagine it was even better with those fresh cucumbers!
Mid-summer last year, I had an abundance of nice young zucchini–sliced thin, it also works well with this same dressing. You don’t have the juiciness or crispiness of the cukes, but the tender-firm texture of young raw zucchini is lovely in its own right, and it doesn’t dilute the dressing. One of my summer faves. Thanks for this Sylvia!
Love that idea Bri!
So I was planning to make cucumber salad the way my granny made it-cucumber, sliced white onion, white vinegar, salt, black pepper, and sugar to taste. Then I read your recipe. I’ll let you know how it turns out. 😉
Please do!