Thai Cucumber Salad Horizontal

Our New and Improved Thai Cucumber Salad

Early summer means cucumbers, and our Happy Kitchen team has a delicious cucumber side dish or snack to share. Thai Cucumber Salad is tried and true Happy Kitchen recipe, but like our White Bean and Kale Soup, we wanted to review it for the next edition of our cookbook.

The biggest change we needed to make was reducing the sugar. A little bit of sugar can go a long way in bringing out the other flavors in a dish, but the previous version had one tablespoon (three teaspoons) of sugar.

The American Heart Association recommends no more than six teaspoons of added sugars per day for most adult women, so for the women our team, one serving of this recipe contained one-sixth of our added sugar for the day!

We reduced the sugar to one teaspoon, so it still adds great flavor and highlights the other ingredients, without overdoing it. If you’re already used to a low-sugar diet, you could probably cut it back even more. Be sure to check out the many different varieties of cucumbers at our SFC Farmers’ Markets, too!

We hope you enjoy our new & improved recipe!

Thai Cucumber Salad

Serves 3

Cost per serving $0.52

Ingredients:

  • 1 large cucumber, sliced
  • ½ cup white or yellow onion, thinly sliced
  • ¼ cup chopped mint
  • 1 teaspoon chili garlic sauce*
  • 1 tablespoon lime juice
  • 2 teaspoons rice vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • ½ cup chopped, roasted and unsalted almonds or peanuts
  • Salt (optional)

Directions:

Thinly slice cucumbers, onion, and mint and set aside in a bowl.

In a small bowl combine chili garlic sauce, lime juice, rice vinegar, sugar and salt (if desired) and whisk until combined.

Pour liquid over cucumber mix and garnish with roasted nuts.

For best flavor, allow to sit at room temperature for approx. 30 minutes before serving. Do not add nuts until serving as they soak up moisture and become mushy.

*Chili garlic sauce can be found in the Asian food section of most grocery stores. One common name is Sambal Oelek.