This recipe for Asian cucumber salad is sliced cucumbers and colorful veggies tossed in a zesty sesame dressing. The perfect quick and easy side dish!
Marinated cucumber salad is a cool and refreshing complement to almost any meal. This Asian style cucumber salad utilizes soy sauce and sesame oil to bring lots of flavor without a lot of work. When I want a flavorful salad, I choose ramen noodle salad, Chinese chicken salad or this savory Asian cucumber salad.
Who doesn’t love cucumbers? They’re mildly flavored, super refreshing and are amazing in so many different dishes. This Asian cucumber salad is one of my family’s favorite sides, you can serve it alongside grilled chicken breast or honey garlic salmon and it makes the perfect picnic or potluck offering.
I often enjoy this salad with some of my Asian food favorites like beef lettuce wraps, ginger chicken, teriyaki shrimp stir fry.
Table of Contents
Asian Cucumber Salad Ingredients
To make this Asian cucumber salad, you will need cucumbers, a red onion and a red bell pepper. For the dressing make sure you have soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, honey, cilantro or green onion, sesame seeds, salt and black pepper. See the recipe card below for amounts and details.
How Do You Make Asian Cucumber Salad?
To make this Asian cucumber salad recipe, first slice your cucumbers and place them in a large bowl. Next, add your sliced red onion and chopped red bell pepper. Make the dressing by mixing together in a small bowl soy sauce, rice vinegar, toasted sesame oil, honey, chopped cilantro, sesame seeds, salt and black pepper. Pour the dressing over the salad. Toss everything together and enjoy!
Tips For The Perfect Asian Cucumber Salad
- Feel free to choose standard cucumbers, the long plastic wrapped English cucumbers, cute little Persian cucumbers or Japanese cucumbers. They all work for this salad.
- If you use standard cucumbers, remove the seeds before you slice them. If you use English, Persian or Japanese cucumbers you don’t need to remove the seeds as they tend to be smaller and softer than a standard cucumber.
- After you slice your cucumbers, feel free to let the cucumber slices drain on paper towels or in a colander for 5 minutes to make your salad less watery.
- To get thin slices of onion you can use a sharp knife or cut thin slices on a mandoline.
- You can make this salad a few hours in advance. However, be aware that the cucumbers will release liquid as they sit in the fridge, so your dressing might be a little thinner in consistency when you serve your salad.
Quick Tip
For a nice presentation, I run a vegetable peeler around each cucumber to make a striped pattern. It looks pretty and removes some of the waxy skin.
Recipe FAQs
Asian cucumber salad contains cucumber slices, thin red onion slices and chopped red bell pepper. These veggies are coated in a tangy soy sauce and sesame oil based salad dressing.
No, you do not need to soak cucumbers in salt water. If you want to reduce the water in your cucumbers, simply place your cucumber slices on a paper towel or in a colander for five minutes and let them drain.
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Flavor Variations
This Asian cucumber salad is delicious and refreshing as is; however, you can modify the recipe to suit your own taste.
- Toppings: You can sprinkle on your favorite toppings like more sesame seeds and sliced scallions. You could add a little crunch with furikake, crispy fried onion pieces or wonton strips.
- Spicy: To bring the heat, mix a teaspoon of red pepper flakes into your dressing. If you want more heat, you could add a dash of sriracha sauce or chili oil.
- Dressing: You could change the flavor of the dressing my mixing in minced ginger, minced garlic, hoisin sauce or oyster sauce.
- Veggies: Feel free to add your favorite vegetables like edamame, shredded carrots, snap peas or snow peas.
This salad is so easy and delicious, I make it for dinner all the time. I also love to serve it at parties and potlucks. The only problem with it is how quickly it disappears!
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Asian Cucumber Salad Video
Love This Recipe?
Please leave a 5-star 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 rating in the recipe card below & a review in the comments section further down the page.
Asian Cucumber Salad
Ingredients
- 3 cups cucumbers peeled, seeded and sliced
- 1/4 cup red onion thinly sliced
- 1/2 cup red bell pepper chopped
For the dressing:
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
- 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
- 2 teaspoons honey
- 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro or sliced green onion
- 1 tablespoon sesame seeds
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Place the cucumbers, red onion and red bell pepper in a large bowl.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, honey, cilantro and sesame seeds. Taste and add salt and pepper if desired.
- Pour the dressing over the vegetables and toss to coat. Serve immediately or store in the refrigerator for up to 8 hours.
Notes
- Feel free to choose standard cucumbers, the long plastic wrapped English cucumbers, cute little Persian cucumbers or Japanese cucumbers. They all work for this salad.
- If you use standard cucumbers, remove the seeds before you slice them. If you use English, Persian or Japanese cucumbers you don’t need to remove the seeds as they tend to be smaller and softer than a traditional cucumber.
- For a nice presentation, I run a vegetable peeler around each cucumber to make a striped pattern. It looks pretty and removes some of the waxy skin.
It looks good! I love eating salads during the warmer days of the year and this recipe is perfect for Spring and Summer. Time to make use of all the fresh produce that we can get in the market. The flavors are lovely as well!
Cucumber salad is my absolute FAVORITE side dish, but I have never tried it with an Asian flare. I can't wait to test out your recipe this summer.
This cucumber salad sounds delicious.I love that you added some Asian flavors in here. This would be great with some grilled meats.
This looks so good. I love cucumbers, as do my kids. I will be making this salad soon.
Cucumbers are actually a veggie staple in our family's grocery list - we seem to always buy it! Safe to say this salad would go over really well with everyone in our household!
This salad looks so refreshing and perfect for spring. I wish I had everything on hand to make it right now. Can't wait to give it a try!
My husband said that his mom would like something like this when he was a kid. He always loved it. I should make it for me again and just surprise him.
It's so funny because even though I'm a huge veggie lover, I've never been a fan of cucumbers. But recently I've found myself loving cucumber salads! This Asian cucumber salad looks super yummy.
I love a cuke salad and this one looks fabulous. I can't wait to make this with barbecue!
I'm crazy about cucumbers, especially when they are fresh out of the garden. Your salad is so fresh and colorful and the dressing sounds amazing.
I do love cucumber salad. I think I'll really enjoy the Asian twist. I'll have to prepare this soon. Maybe this weekend!
Looks like a good salad to start a meal off with. We usually just slice our cucumbers and leave the seeds in so your picture was interesting to me. The dressing sounds delicious and fresh.
That sounds like a light, refreshing salad. I love salads for lunch on the weekends, so I am looking forward to making this.
OMG, I just tried this and it is soooo good! I added a little chili paste to mine just for a little added kick but this is wonderful. It tastes bright and refreshing and it looks beautiful to serve.
My new go to salad, minus the cilantro. Did you know over seventyfive percent of White people taste Cilantro a Soap? I always thought it was just me until A DNA web page gave that information!
That salad would be perfect with a P.F. Chang's dinner. I like that P.F. Chang's has family size options.
Oh my gosh, LOVE this! It will be so nice to have something light and fresh to go with orange chicken or beef and broccoli dinners. Great recipe!
We eat a lot of Asian food. I like the idea of keeping some in the freezer.
We are PF Chang fans so this looks like a quick meal to keep on hand. We don't always have time to eat out so this is a great option!
My family would love these yummy dishes!