When life gives you cucumbers, you can make cucumber soup, cucumber salad, add cukes to green salads and grain salads and make pickled cucumbers (that’s “pickles” to most of us, although any fruit or vegetable can be pickled).

You can make cucumber sandwiches or tea sandwiches (with butter and watercress, please!), add slices to wraps and summer rolls, mix diced cucumbers with yogurt and cottage cheese (and some fresh-cracked pepper). TIP: Instead of adding lettuce to a sandwich—or in addition to it—add thin cucumber slices.

You can get fancy with cucumber-wrapped sushi maki (called a naruto roll) or use cucumber slices as the base for goat cheese, tartare or other canapés.

And you can drink your cucumber: puréed into a juice or cocktail base, as a garnish in a Bloody Mary or Martini or other drink.

In fact, the easiest thing to do with a cucumber is to make cucumber water. If you’re a cucumber fan, you’ll love it: refreshing, flavorful and virtually calorie free.

CUCUMBER WATER RECIPE

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. WASH cucumbers. You can leave the peel or remove it, especially if the cucumber is waxed.

2. SLICE cucumbers to desired thickness.

3. ADD optional lemon slices to make cucumber lemon water.

5. ADD to water. It infuses almost instantly.
 
CUCUMBER WATER IN A PITCHER

A pitcher gives you the opportunity to infuse fresh herbs into the water as well. We particularly like basil or rosemary, but experiment with your own favorites.

You can keep a pitcher of cucumber water in the fridge for a day or two. After that, the cucumber will start to go bad, so drink up!