I’m always looking for ways to eat healthier and add low-calorie vegetable dishes to our meals, and cucumbers seems to be a family favorite of ours. We’ve played around with our Thai Cucumber Salad a lot and I think we’ve finally got it just right! With hot summer days quickly approaching it’s such a refreshing salad to make! I seem to be obsessed with all salads that have cucumber as a main ingredient, but this one is hands down my favorite! Do you remember when I recently shared my Asian Sesame Salmon recipe? This pairs fabulously with it as a side.
This salad has amazing flavor, but another reason it shines is how the cucumbers are prepared into long noodle like strips. You can use a vegetable spiralizer or julienne strip peeler like I did in the above photo, it’s such a useful kitchen tool. I do remove most of the green cucumber peel because I find those strips too stiff and they also don’t absorb flavor as well. To preserve the texture of the salad I stop when I get to the seeds.
If wasting the seed part of the cucumber bothers you, why not slice it up and make some delicious cucumber water?
After prepping the cucumbers I mix up the dressing. It’s yummy goodness. Then I simply pour it into a bowl with the cucumbers and toss.
Once mixed together add chopped peanuts and sliced green onions. Amazing!! By the way feel free to add some cilantro instead of the green onions, and for a fresh twist of flavor and add more chili flakes if you like things spicy!
I must confess when I blog my own recipes I have trouble with estimating how many it serves. It seems serving sizes are all over the place these days – especially with us. I have a very hungry husband who can devour a whole entire recipe if I let him, so do I say it serves 1 hungry man or 6 smaller appetites? Like I said it’s hard.
As a side dish to a main meal I’d say it serves 4-6 but Brian and I can easily split this recipe for a light lunch. Feel free to double it if you feel you need more. I wouldn’t recommend making more than you need though because cucumbers get really watery and don’t always keep well.
Make sure you use toasted sesame oil instead of regular, toasted sesame oil adds incredible flavor! When I’m watching my carbs I’ll omit the honey and use stevia drops instead in the dressing. You’ll want to add one drop at a time, whisk together and taste each time with a clean spoon before adding more to make sure you don’t over sweeten it.
Thai Cucumber Salad
Ingredients
- 3 cucumbers
- 2 tbs toasted sesame oil
- 3 tbs seasoned rice vineger
- 1/4 tsp chili flakes
- 1 tbs honey
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup chopped peanuts
- 3 green onions thinly sliced
Instructions
- Wash and peel cucumbers, then using a vegetable spiralizer or julienne peeler, peel cucumbers into strips stopping once you've reached the seeds, then place in a medium sized bowl.
- In a small separate bowl add toasted sesame oil, rice vinegar, chili flakes, honey, and salt, then whisk until combined. Pour over cucumber strips and mix well. Top with chopped peanuts and sliced green onions.
- Add extra chili flakes if desired. Best when served immediately.
Like I mentioned above this salad is best served soon after making because cucumbers get watery. We’ve also made this recipe with thinly sliced cucumbers but the julienne strips are our favorite, the flavor distributes better and we can have fun eating them with chop sticks. Haley picked up these chopsticks for us while she was in Japan last summer. I love them!
