Cucumber Vinegar Salad has thinly sliced cukes, red onions, seasonings, and a sweet vinegar dressing. This healthy cucumber salad is crisp, refreshing, easy, and low carb.
Cucumber salads should be a staple at picnics and get-togethers on lazy summer days. You know, like a tradition.
I'll admit I never had a cucumber salad until I was in my 20's but as soon as I took my first bite I was hooked.
I bet you love them too. Not especially the mayonnaise kind but the fresh and light marinated kind. Marinated with distilled white or apple cider vinegar that has been sweetened a bit with sugar and spices.
Jump to:
Salads are such a welcoming treat too. Whether they are leaf salads or made from other vegetables they always seem like a great addition.
And pasta salads can become a complete lunch! I have about 15 salads on this blog and every one of them is very different from the other.
And this healthy cucumber salad is right in keeping with my theme on beautiful, tasty and unique salads. Cucumbers and red onions are the stars.
🥒 What is an English cucumber
An English Cucumber has a thinner skin than a regular cucumber and its seeds are smaller.
They are mild in taste with no bitter taste.
English Cucumbers do not cause you to burp so their other handle is burpless cucumbers. I've seen them as hothouse cucumbers too.
Sometimes each cucumber comes in its own tight clear wrapper. Just look at those smooth long and thin English cucumbers in the photo below.
🥘 Ingredients
- English cucumbers or young regular cucumbers - are the main crispy flavored vegetable for this salad.
- Red onion - gives a flavor contrast in a milder way than other onions.
- Celery seed - are surprisingly flavorful and are often used in brines.
- Salt - a little bit goes a long way for this seasoning.
- Vinegar - is acidic and helps the flavors become infused into the vegetables.
- Water - helps dissolve the sugar when it is heated.
- Sugar - counterbalances the acidic flavor of vinegar and makes the best dressing when they are combined.
🔪 Instructions
- In a small saucepan, bring vinegar, water, and sugar to boil and stir until sugar is dissolved.
- Take off the heat and let it cool while you're preparing the vegetables.
- Slice cucumbers and onions and place in a large bowl.
- Sprinkle on celery seed and salt.
- Pour the vinegar mixture over cucumbers and mix well. You can enjoy the recipe right now but it gets even better after it has rested and marinated in the dressing overnight.
- Place in an airtight container, cover, and seal.
- Place in refrigerator. to meld.
📖 Cucumber salad variations
- Even though I consider this cucumber vinegar salad recipe perfect there are additions and changes that you can make.
- I quickly mentioned this above but you can use apple cider vinegar instead of white distilled vinegar. It is slightly less acidic.
- You can substitute coconut sugar for the granulated sugar. It is a wonderful flavor and that is what I did for this Mildly Marinated Cauliflower recipe.
- You can switch out the celery seed for fresh dill or dill seed.
- Sprinkle in a little black pepper.
- There are many more things that can be done including adding more seasonings and maybe even chopped tomatoes but then you'd have to change the salad name.
🥗 More great raw salads
- Apple Pecan Salad with Raisins
- Superfood Salad with Maple Vinaigrette
- Massaged Kale Salad with Tahini Dressing
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This post contains affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.
If you take a photo of your crisp cucumber salad I would love to see it. Follow me over on Instagram and tag me on your photo @vegan_in_the_freezer.
📋 Recipe
Cucumber Vinegar Salad
Ingredients
- 3 cups English cucumbers or regular cucumbers - thinly sliced and this is an estimate on the number of cups. It may be four cups.
- 1 ½ cups red onion - sliced
- 1 tablespoon celery seed
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup distilled white vinegar
- ½ cup water
- ¾ cup organic granulated sugar
Instructions
- In a small saucepan, bring vinegar, water and sugar to boil and stir until sugar is dissolved.
- Take off the heat and let it cool while you're preparing the vegetables.
- Slice cucumbers and onions and place in large bowl.
- Sprinkle on celery seed and salt.
- Pour the vinegar mixture over cucumbers and mix well.
- Place in an airtight container, cover and seal. Place in refrigerator to meld. It will keep nice for three to four days.
Notes
Nutrition
Debra
Pour the sauce over the cucumber and onion while it’s hot?!
Ginny McMeans
It has to cool. I thought I had that in there Debra. Thanks for the heads up.
Kaelin
This was delicious! It reminded me of the cucumber salad I had years ago and then I forgot about it. So glad to have this back in my life. Thank you for the easy recipe too.