Asian Cucumber Salad

Yesterday I gave you an amazing recipe for barbecue sauce; if you haven’t seen that post you can see it here. Today I’m going to give you a delicious, light, summery salad, that, while it is Asian and goes well with all kinds of Asian foods, it also pairs wonderfully with any type of barbecue. Barbecue sauce can be rich, making food a bit heavy. That food needs to be lightened up with a salad, and this is the one. This is easy to make, light, refreshing, and so delicious, even people who aren’t all that keen on cucumbers are going to enjoy it. This recipe can be doubled, tripled, quadrupled, whatever you need to do to make it for whatever size crowd you happen to be hosting, works. I think you’re going to find it to be quite addicting. This is going to be my “go to” salad of the summer.

Asian Cucumber Salad

2 large cucumbers, halved lengthwise, seeded,

and sliced into ¼” half rounds
1 t. salt
¼ cup rice vinegar
2 T. granulated sugar
1 T. sesame oil
1 scallion, white and green parts, minced
1 clove garlic, finely minced
½ T. ginger root, finely minced
1 T. minced Melissa’s Fire Roasted Red Bell Peppers
1/8 - ¼ t. dried pepper flakes

Place the cucumber slices into a colander, sprinkle with salt, and set aside to drain for at least 1 hour.

Whisk the vinegar and sugar together until dissolved, then whisk in the sesame oil, scallion, garlic, ginger, pepper flakes, and red bell pepper.

RINSE (I cannot emphasize this enough! If you don’t rinse these thoroughly, your salad is going to be too salty.) the salt off the cucumbers, place into a large bowl, drizzle the dressing over, and toss to coat. Refrigerate for one hour prior to serving.

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An equally delicious cucumber salad, but with less zing is this Sweet Corn and Cucumber Salad.

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