Low-Calorie Cucumber Salad Recipes & Food Pairings
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Updated July 2026 One dish that has almost dropped from sight is marinated cucumber salad. Why? It’s flavorful, low-calorie, refreshing-hydrating (they’re 96% water), and full of essential vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. It’s a great side with just about any sandwich, pairs beautifully with grilled fish and chicken, and is side-salad-worthy year-round (see food pairings below). Perhaps our favorite summer recipe is cucumber salad drained and topped with grilled fish or shrimp. Below: > Food pairings with cucumber salad. > Do you have to peel cucumbers? Elsewhere on The Nibble: > Cucumber sandwiches with afternoon tea. > 9 ways to use cucumbers besides “the usual,” plus recipes. > The year’s 95+ vegetable holidays. > The year’s 4 cucumber holidays. > Heirloom cucumbers. Cucumber salad has been a favorite of at least four generations of my family. (We don’t know about the family beyond that, but given that much of the family is from Russia, the odds are that it may be scores of generations.) Although it’s a great warm-weather dish, we eat cucumber salad year-round: as a side with dinner, as a bed for grilled fish, a condiment on fish sandwiches, on toast and as a filling for toasted pita, as a side with bagels and lox. Russian style cucumber salad includes sour cream mixed with lots of chopped dill, and sliced onions. And a seasoning of salt and pepper, of course. Our second favorite recipe is for Greek-style cucumber salad: Cucumbers pair with almost any regional or global cuisine. So check out the recipe ideas below, and create your own signature recipe. Did we mention: Cucumber salad is very low in calories? And a piece of food trivia: Cucumbers belong to the same botanical family as melons. Because cucumbers contain a lot of water, they will release some into the salad. To get around this, dress the salad and refrigerate it for 20 minutes or more. Then drain the dish, or transfer the salad to another serving dish with a slotted spoon. You can create scores of variations to a standard cucumber salad. |
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 [7] Pita is tied with baguette as our favorite bread to serve with cucumber salad (photo © The Nibble). 3. CUCUMBER SALAD SIDE DISH PAIRINGS A crisp cucumber salad with a vinaigrette dressing provides a refreshing, acidic, and crunchy contrast that balances out many different types of main courses. Because the dressing is usually tangy (vinegar or lemon based) and the cucumbers are high in water content, it acts as a perfect palate cleanser for spicy or strong-flavored foods. Cucumber peel is a good source of dietary fiber. The flesh is low in calories and high in vitamin K, anti-oxidants and potassium. Some people may have a hesitance to eat the peel, but try it. The thinner you slice the cucumbers, the easier it is to chew the peel. In fact, one way to solve the problem is to buy the long English cucumber instead of the fat, waxed supermarket variety. Many supermarkets carry them. Also called the burpless cucumber, European cucumber, hothouse cucumber and seedless cucumber, these cukes are thin skinned and almost seedless. They are easily 12″ to 14″ long, but some grow up to two feet in length (photo #6). English cucumbers were actually bred to eliminate some of the more undesirable characteristics: a tough outer skin, large seeds, in some varieties, a bitter taste, and yes, burping. The cucumber originated in India and was cultivated more than 4000 years ago. Easy to cultivate, it spread to other parts of the Pacific. By the first century B.C.E., it was traded to ancient Greece, Rome, the Middle East, and to modern-day Bulgaria and Serbia. They were a favorite food of Emperor Tiberius, who ruled Rome in the first decades of the Common Era. The march of the cucumber was global. Today it’s the fourth most widely cultivated vegetable in the world [source]. Published records of cucumber salad appear in 17th century Europe. These cucumber salads were simply sliced and marinated in vinegar or lemon juice, with or without oil. Sliced onion could be added, plus fresh herbs—dill became a favorite pairing, or dill seeds. The Roman Emperor Tiberius (14 B.C.E. to 16 C.E.) ate cucumbers every day of the year. Special gardens were tended just for his vegetables. In the winter, the cucumbers were grown on bed frames or wheeled carts that were moved around to follow the sun, and brought indoors at night for warmth. (The first practical greenhouse was invented by the French botanist Charles Lucien Bonaparte during the 1800s, to grow medicinal tropical plants.) Because it is such a prolific grower (one vine grows many cukes), the vegetable was inexpensive and accessible to both the wealthy and peasants. In addition to eating, cucumbers were widely used as medicinal remedies. After the fall of Rome, cucumbers receded for a long period, resurfacing in France at the court of Charlemagne in the late 8th and 9th centuries. †The name “Amish” is derived from Jakob Ammann, a Swiss Anabaptist leader who lived in the late 17th century. The group formed as a result of a religious schism within the Swiss Brethren, a branch of the Mennonite church. Ammann believed the church had become too lax, and advocated for stricter adherence to the Ordnung, the unwritten set of rules for daily life. He pushed for more rigorous practices, such as Meidung (shunning of excommunicated members), more frequent communion, and traditional dress including the wearing of beards by men. Those who followed Ammann’s strict interpretations became known as Amman-ish or Amish. When these followers immigrated to Pennsylvania in the 18th century as part of a larger wave of German-speaking settlers known as the Pennsylvania Dutch (a corruption of “Deutsch”), the name stuck to their specific community. While they are a subset of the Pennsylvania Dutch, the term Amish specifically marks their lineage back to Ammann’s reform movement. In other words, all Amish are Pennsylvania Dutch, but not all (in fact, very few) Pennsylvania Dutch are Amish. Pennsylvania Dutch refers to all descendants of German-speaking immigrants—primarily from the Palatinate region of Germany, Switzerland, and Alsace—who settled in Pennsylvania throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Roughly 90% of these settler were “Church People,” meaning they belonged to mainstream Lutheran or German Reformed denominations. The remaining 10% were the “Plain People,” which includes the Amish, Mennonites, and Brethren. Most Pennsylvania Dutch families today are not, and never were, Amish. CHECK OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING ON OUR HOME PAGE, THENIBBLE.COM. |
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