Cucumbers are kind of an unloved vegetable. Mostly they’re relegated to sad salad bars and diet blogs, but this crunchy and refreshing veggie deserves more respect.
And this amazingly delicious (and easy!) cucumber salad is exactly the way you should pay homage to the previously unloved cuke.
This dish, from food blog The Kitchn, is the perfect side to any meal. It works just as well with a spicy beef stir fry as it does with delicate grilled fish.
The quick-pickle technique used here is an invaluable one—you can apply it to just about any vegetable you can think of (my favorite is red onion for instantly upgraded taco Tuesdays).
And a major bonus: You probably already have all of the ingredients already sitting around in your cabinet. This recipe uses the workhorse apple cider vinegar as part of the pickling liquid, but you could swap it out for rice wine vinegar for a more Asian flair.
The chopped chives also add delicious brightness. Cilantro, dill, parsley and tarragon would all work interchangeably here.
Also, conveniently, cucumbers are surprisingly good for you. Most people already know that cucumbers are super-hydrating (they’re 95.2 percent water!), but did you also know that they contain tons of potassium, which is crucial to heart health?
Cucumbers are also a great source of vitamin K, which keeps bones healthy and improves your ability to absorb calcium. Just one cup of this cucumber salad (and it’ll be easy to eat that much with this delicious recipe) contains 22 percent of the recommended daily intake of vitamin K.
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For the full recipe, check out The Kitchn! Let us know if you make it… and then invite us over to eat it. We also came across this classic cucumber salad recipe from Betty Crocker if you want to go a more traditional route.