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Grandma’s Cucumber Salad combines the crisp freshness of cucumbers with the tangy zest of a vinegar mixture, creating a refreshing and delicious salad that’s perfect for those hot summer days. Using simple ingredients like English cucumbers, thinly sliced onions, and bell peppers, this recipe is both easy to make and packed with flavor. If you’re in a cucumber kind of mood, you must also try my Cucumber Tomato Salad!
Why You’ll Love this Perfect for Summer Cucumber Salad
This easy Cucumber Salad recipe is one of my Grandma’s beloved recipes. I use the term ‘recipe’ loosely because she never really wrote any recipes down. “Just make it until it tastes right” is really hard to do with any of Grandma’s recipes, especially this cucumber salad. But don’t worry, I have cracked the code! “Just make it until it tastes right” is today’s “measure with your heart”.
This salad is a perfect side dish for a family dinner, a summer bbq, or even a picnic. Plus, it’s a great way to use up those fresh garden cucumbers. And, of course, it’s a classic recipe straight from Grandma’s kitchen, bringing a touch of nostalgia to your table.
Ingredients Needed for Cucumber Salad
Just a few, very simple ingredients are needed to make this fresh cucumber salad! Here’s what you’ll need:
- English cucumbers: Fresh, crisp cucumbers with thinner skin, perfect for salads.
- Onion: Thinly sliced; red onions or yellow onions work great.
- Green bell pepper: Adds a nice crunch and color.
- Garlic: Smashed for a subtle hint of flavor.
- White vinegar: The base of the tangy dressing.
- Cold water: To dilute the vinegar mixture.
- Sugar: Balances out the acidity.
- Salt and ground black pepper: For seasoning.
Variations
- Persian cucumbers instead of English cucumbers for a different texture.
- White onion or sweet onions for a milder flavor.
- Red bell pepper for a pop of color.
- Fresh herbs like fresh dill weed or fresh basil for added freshness.
But, Where is the Sour Cream?
The most common question I get about this recipe is how to make this cucumber salad recipe with sour cream. Lots of German grandmas used to make their cucumber salads with sour cream and mine did not, hence this recipe. The best answer I have for you is to add your sour cream sparingly and taste as you go. Find what is most delicious to you and go from there. Some stir in half a cup to the entire recipe while others just dollop it on top at the end. It’s totally up to you!
Or try using Plain Greek Yogurt, Ranch Dressing or Mayonnaise or Miracle Whip as your creamy stir in. Whatever floats your boat.
How to Make Cucumber Salad
This simple cucumber salad is filled with fresh crunchy ingredients. For full recipe details, including ingredient measurements, see the printable recipe card below. Here are my step by step instructions for making this cucumber salad:
1. Peel + Slice Cucumbers
You can use a knife or a mandoline slicer. You want your cucumbers 1/4-1/8 inch thick. The thinner they are, the easier they absorb the dressing. If you’re buying from a store, English cucumbers are the best choice, but if you have fresh garden cucumbers, feel free to peel, slice in half lengthwise and scoop out the larger seeds if needed.
Pro Tip: Use a paper towel to pat the cucumbers dry and remove excess water.
2. Thin Slice the other Veggies
Slice onion, green pepper, and garlic. These don’t have to be nearly as thin as the cucumber but small enough to be bite sized.
3. Make the Dressing, Pour over Veggies + Marinate
This vinegar and water based marinating liquid is as good as it gets. Stir it together with salt, pepper, and sugar.
Pour the dressing over the cucumbers and marinate. The longer it sits, the better it tastes!
Refrigerate for minimum of 6 hours (or even overnight!) and then serve.
Pro Tip: You need to store your cucumber salad in an airtight container in the refrigerator . You’re essentially pickling your cucumbers and the best way to do that is in an air-free environment. Also, you don’t want your fridge to stink! So, a bowl with a good lid, a large jar or a plastic container all would be great. My grandma used to use larger jars with a little plastic wrap under the seal for a little extra anti-leak insurance.
Storing + Make Ahead Directions for Cucumber Salad
Because this is vinegar based and essentially pickles, this cucumber salad can last in the refrigerator for up to two weeks, if stored in an airtight container like a mason jar kind of container. Of course it won’t last that long because it’s so good, but it should be good for at least two weeks.
To Make Ahead: This salad is one that actually tastes better after it has sat in the fridge for at least 6 hours! Prepare it the day before and let it chill overnight for the best flavor.
Freezing: I don’t recommend freezing it. Cucumbers break down and don’t hold the same texture after they are frozen. They would be mushy. No thank you. Also if you added any sour cream or mayo to the dressing, it would separate and really compromise the entire salad texture. Enjoy it fresh!
Cucumber Salad FAQ:
If I don’t have garden fresh cucumbers, I used English Cucumbers. I like these because they have thinner skins and don’t have to be peeled, but you certainly can. Persian cucumbers are another option. If you have garden fresh cucumbers coming out of your ears, feel free to use those too! You’ll want to peel or peel strips on your garden cucumbers because they typically have a thicker skin and can taste bitter. They also have bigger seeds that you can scrape away with a spoon.
For a sharp, strong oniony taste, use white onions. If you’re looking for a more mild flavor, try using red onions.
Green pepper is the most bitter and unripe of all of the bell pepper colors. It goes perfectly with this cucumber salad.
Use a knife or a mandoline slicer. You want your cucumbers 1/4-1/8 inch thick. The thinner they are, the easier they absorb the dressing.
Remove cucumbers and vegetables from the jar using a slotted spoon to drain the liquid. Serve in a small bowl as a snack or easy side dish.
Main Course Ideas to Serve with Cucumber Salad
Here are a few of my favorite dinners that pair well with this delicious salad. Trust me, you’ll be making this salad all summer long!
- Goulash
- Easy BBQ Pulled Pork
- Easy Oven Baby Back Ribs
- Stuffed Peppers
- Smoked Pork Butt
- Smothered Pork Chops in Oven
More Summer Salad Recipes to Try…
Here are a few other simple summer salads that are delicious and perfect for potlucks, family get-togethers and BBQ’s:
- Simple Macaroni Salad
- Classic Coleslaw
- Amazing Broccoli Salad
- Creamy Potato Salad (no eggs!)
- Southwest Chicken Chop Salad
With this easy recipe for my Grandma’s Cucumber Salad, you’ll have a fresh and delicious side dish ready for any occasion. Whether you’re serving it at a family dinner, a summer cookout, or just enjoying it on a hot summer day, this cucumber salad is sure to be a hit. The printable recipe card is below! Have a great day, friends! 🙂
This recipe can become an heirloom to pass down for your family too, so try making it the next time you’re looking for a salad. If you make this recipe, I would really appreciate it if you would give it a star review! If you have a picture of your finished dish, post it on Instagram using the hashtag #laurenslatest and tagging me @laurens_latest.
Grandma’s Cucumber Salad
Ingredients
- 2 English cucumbers
- 1/4 small onion sliced thin
- 1/4 green bell pepper sliced thin
- 1 clove garlic smashed
- 1 cup white vinegar
- 2/3 cup cold water
- 4 tablespoons sugar
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
Instructions
- Peel cucumbers and slice very thin. Place into a bowl with onion, bell pepper, and garlic.
- In a liquid measuring cup, stir remaining ingredients together. Pour over veggies and stir. Cover and refrigerate 6 hours (at least!!) to overnight before serving.
Very much like my mother’s recipe–except she always used cider vinegar, and probably more sugar than this recipe. Yummy! We always had a jar of it in the refrigerator all summer, with the veggies from our garden.
This sounds so yummy!! Can’t wait to make it 🙂 Any chance you know the nutritional values for this? Thank you so much for sharing your Gramma’s recipe 🙂
I love this recipe my Mom & Grandma made this all the time in the summer time. Sometimes if the mood hit them they would add sour cream. Thanks for sharing this recipe with us. Brought me back to so many good memories 🙂
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What would happen if you omitted the salt or at least cut it in half, we need to be on a low sodium diet in our home.
Give it a try and see how you like the taste!
Hi Lauren! Can you tell me what happened to the Ziplist save option on all of these blogs lately. I used to save the majority of the recipes that I like to Ziplist and now I can’t see a save button. Thanks so much!!
Ziplist shut down!! Totally sucks, right? It was a good service.
so funny – I’m doing thanksgiving this year and want to do my grandma’s recipe for cucumber salad but i don’t remember it. so looked up cucumber salad and found Lauren’s Grandma’s cucumber salad. 🙂
Enjoy –
Also Lauren
Thank you for this recipe! It is the closest I’ve had to recreating my grandmother’s. Don’t feel bad about giving out the family secret! I gave out my grandmother’s Passover sponge cake that was NEVER to leave the family. If I Haden’s, a great recipe would have been lost forever!
Stupid question… are you supposed to drain the salad before serving or eat it as is?
I just serve it with a slotted spoon!
[…] found this cucumber salad recipe on Pinterest from Lauren’s Latest, and I just had to try it. Just like Lauren, my Grandma used to make a similar version to it. I […]
I was unsure about the amount of sugar but decided not to cut back. Added a little extra garlic. Delicious! I’d like to try adding sour cream as others have suggested. Any ideas how to do so?
Love the sound (and comments) for this recipe. How long does this keep-?? Thanx much-!!
2 weeks in the fridge! But it shouldn’t last that long because it’s so tasty 🙂
Just wanted to say thanks SO MUCH for sharing this recipe — I’ve been craving a really vinegar-y cucumber salad ever since last week when I saw a girl at work chowing down on some salted cucumber spears. 🙂
One dip of the finger confirmed it — this is EXACTLY what I was looking for. I’m sure it’ll taste even more amazing once it sits overnight!
So…thanks a million!
Am thankful to have many of my dear Mother’s recipes to pass on. It’s like sharing my memories
with future generations! I will try your grandma’s cuke recipe when I return home as am out of town. Thanks for sharing!
I have to ask where one can find the measuring cup in the photo – it’s AWESOME!
I just made this salad tonight. Sorry to say, but my husband and I both thought there was too much vinegar in it. I added more water and sugar; but still too sharp. Sorry.
Ginny
How long can you keep this??? I have a lot of cukes …
This looks so yummy! Pinning to use when my cucumbers grow! Question: can you can this for later use? I’m sure it would give it more of a pickled taste, but I’m thinking that would taste good?
This looks so wonderful! Just one question- what size of jar would you recommend for storage? I’d be making this without the green peppers due to a food allergy. Thanks in advance. =)
Maybe one quart? Or just do a bunch of smaller jars.
My great-grma & grma made what was called “Bellyache” similar to this. No garlic. Just super tart & crisp. If you ate a lot of it you could end up w/a bellyache.
These are the best cucumbers I’ve ever tasted. I shared with my facebook page today. I can’t stop eating them. I eat them for breakfast lunch and dinner, then snack all day. Thank you for sharing this. 🙂
My mother in law makes this as well (hungraian style) she some times adds paprika to it and even cream and i love it
I made and LOVE !!! This cucumber salad…..thanks grandma!!! I used a red pepper because well, that’s what I had, I also used a bag of Persian cucumbers I got from my 99cent store., they worked great. My cucumber plants outside are starting to flower, now when I have too many home grown I know what I’m making…..
My grandma made the best cucumber salad – it was very similar to yours but none of us has ever been able to duplicate it. She showed us and showed us and tried to write it down but something was always missing. Her salad dressing was the same. No salad has ever come close. I’m going to try this one and see if it’s close. I sure miss my Grandma. She was an amazing cook!
if you just use onions and peppers it is great as a relish on burgers and sandwiches
I sprinkle the sugar salt n pepper over the onion and cucumbers let it stand for a while. It draws the natural juices out add vinegar no water needed. I have never added garlic but love it. Trying it today! I can’t handle green pepper so I’ll omit it. Thanks Does anyone have a picture of a dammit doll?
http://www.amazon.com/Dammit-Dolls-Doll-Leopard-Rose/dp/B00DEUCHWW
Just an example. Amazon has many different patterns available.
haha, thanks!!
I had all the ingredients and a bit of free time this morning so I just stirred it up and put it in the fridge. We’ll have it for dinner this evening. Can’t wait to see how it turns out! Thanks for sharing it with us.
Love the sounds of this, and headed to the grocery store soon, does this require pickling salt, or regular table salt?? all I have in the house right now is light sea salt, I am assuming that will not work? thanks for the great, simple, recipes….
What is light sea salt? I think that or regular table salt is just fine 🙂
So sorry, I meant to say fine sea salt, Mortons brand, no clue where light came from, think it might have been a senior moment, lol….ok, thanks for the fast reply…
My grandmother made dammit dolls for the church bazaar! After she died and I was going thru her patterns & recipes, I chuckled at all the little slips of paper she had typed the explanation which included, “dammit, dammit, dammit”. She was the cutest little granny and that always cracked me up. We also ate a similar version of refrigerator pickles.
My Grandma used to make something like this all the time when she was living … Except she didn’t use water …
Her’s was: Cucumbers, Onion, Vinegar, Salt, Pepper, and Sour Cream … and Dill if you like …
LOVED it!!!
oooh I’m trying this one too! sour cream and dill…my favs!
Made it, tasted it, loved it! I’m going to make this a uk classic now
My gramdma never wrote her recipie down either, but I think they used the same recipie sans the bell pepper, made it today and I could almost close my eyes and be back in her kitchen. Thanks for restoring the memory!
My grandmother measured by handfulls. A hand full of this a hand full of that. She poured liquid in until it looked right. Hard to duplicate that. I do the same when i am cooking. My bicuits neve turn out like hers.
Ours is similar also, except we add dill weed
This is the exact recipe I have used forever– except mine doesn’t have bell peppers in it. I will have to try that!
My mother is Hungarian and she makes cucumber salad all the time a little different, lots of garlic, and salt. sit the cucumber in water then she squeeze all the liquid out. And sprinkles paprika over the top, sometimes she adds sour cream.
My mom covered the cucumbers and sliced onions with salt first and let them sit…the cucumbers will them have to be drained. You will have abit of liquid, then add sugar, vinager, and salt & pepper. No green pepper or garlic in ours. Some add sour cream…..not us.
DeeDee- Yours is more like my mother made. Peeled the cucumbers and sliced very thin (she used her potato slicer) and salted. Sometimes, we had to rinse them if it seemed too salty. We used a LOT more sugar than this called for, cider vinegar and water. No green pepper or garlic. My mother liked it with onions but I have never liked raw onions, so I make it without. I can’t wait until fresh cucumbers come in season in the summertime so I can make a big batch!
Sounds like my German grandmother made her cucumber salad. She salted the slices, let sit for 15-20 minutes, then rinsed some of the salt off. She added thinly sliced onions, vinegar, water and sugar, as stated and also added some dill. No green pepper, garlic or sour cream.. Served only icecold. I could have eaten the whole bowl by myself, lol
When you say “sour cream;” instead. Do you make it the same way and when you serve it you add sour cream . Or what do you mean ?
We make a version of this recipe in my family too! Only we use just cucumbers and onions. It’s soooo cute!
We have a cucumber and onion salad in the fridg almost year round. It is a favorite of mine and my husbands. So good as a side dish for just about anything.
I love old timey, Grandma recipes like this. It seems we can never duplicate them exactly because Grandma always added her loving touch to it. Beautiful post, Lauren.
Do you use white onion, Vidalia onion or yellow? And, ever use cider vinegar instead of white?
Yellow onion. And you can use apple cider vinegar, it just won’t taste quite the same 🙂 Still good though!
Lauren…..I have made many cuke recipes. I followed yours to a tee except a smashed a couple of extra cloves of garlic.
This salad was the best ever cuke salad I’ve ever made. So crunchy, refreshing with just the right bite. I cannot thank you enough for being thoughtful enough to share your Grams recipe with us.
Thank you, Karen Barry
I use purple onion. It makes a pretty salad!
My dad used to keep a big bowl of this in the fridge during the summer and snack out of it. I think he used to add some red pepper flakes for a little heat too. I never touched it as a child, but have wanted to try it as an adult. And it will be much less daunting with a recipe. Thanks!
I am also wondering if the green peppers can be omitted I can’t tolerate them very well.
Yes, you totally can!
This just like or almost like mine (but I never measure anything either) – I’ve never put garlic in it but will be giving it a try!
I’m not a fan of bell peppers. Do they give it that distinctive flavor or is it just another taste that blends in and makes it better?
This salad is dear to me as well. It proves that some of the most wonderful gifts we’ve received from our parents and grandparents are cheap, insignificant to some and full of love to us.
Thank you. I will make it today for my too busy daughter to pick up on her way home tonight. It is a special treat to her.
Ha ha…meant to say, your dear Grandmother’s recipe…..sorry!
Thank you for sharing your grandmother’s dear recipe. It looks beautiful in the jar. Next time I make cucumber salad, I will put it in a jar….guess everything looks good in a jar, come to think of it. I got a huge laugh at the dammit doll reference. Thank you for that…I have one!
I laughed at the dammit doll reference too. I bought one when they first came out. My cousin and I each bought one and laughed until we lost our breath because they were so funny. That was either 1962 or ’63. They went out of style for awhile but when my daughter was in late elementary or junior high, they got popular again. They called them trolls and made fun of me because I called them dammit dolls.
My parents used to make a similar cucumber salad that I really liked. I still make it occasionally but prefer it with sour cream.
How do you make this with sour cream
Can’t wait to make it! love recipes with summer veggies
Sorry my phone has a mind of its own! Anyhoo so u need to refrigerate it or u can it on the counter? Can we use other veggies like celery n beets? It looks a lot like te fermented veggies so wasnted to know. TIA
store in frig – it’s best cold. I don’t know about other veggies, sorry.
Thanks a lot for the recipe! Sounds absolutely delish! Will be making it soon. One question though so how do I store it, in the fridge
if you served this with sour cream it would be MY grandmothers cuke salad.
Without the peppers and with the sour cream it is my Mother-in-Loves recipe.
It is always a hit.
Can you tell me how much sour cream? [email protected]
Thank you…
My Eldest Daughter’s Grandmother made it with sour cream. It was her papa’s favorite!
I love cukes and snack on them all day every day even with nothing on them. This recipe is a bit different than what my gramma made but very similar. I know she didn’t use garlic but did use a little dill weed and mayonnaise of all things. It made it creamy and just the right amount of sweet & tangy too! I don’t know how much mayo was used and I was never able to get the exact results when I made it but seeing this now again makes me want to try it over the weekend since its SuperBowl weekend and we will have some snacks etc. I’ll try the mayo and maybe use a half-cup or a cup. I don’t know. If I get it right to where it tastes good & others are wondering how much etc I’ll reply back with that. Stay warm my friends in the mid-west and northeast. I’m from Pittsburgh but living in GA last 2years. I don’t miss the weather but we’ve had our share here this winter, this week with temps in the 20s.
Thank you for sharing it sounds delicious.
Awesome recipe!! Just like my mother made.
This recipe is my comfort food. My Dad had family from NC, who made a salad very much like this and I searched for years to find one that was remotely close. This is it, dead on. I make it as often as possible. My kids will not even try it (another comment for another day) but I don’t care because it’s all mine. Memories abound and it transports me to my happy place.