DIY Home Garden

contact

Zesty Cucumber Basil Salad

Zesty Cucumber Basil Salad is a salad I came up with on the fly.  So I found myself bombarded with cucumbers.  Now, I don’t waste food and needed to come up with something to do with five large cucumbers, quick!

Sadly, I didn’t have enough to bother pulling out the pickling supplies.

While I love plain cucumbers, I have eaten a ton of them lately.  Although I skipped growing cucumbers this year, my neighbors did not.  This means that they have graciously split their bounty with me.  So…about once a day my neighbor brings up 3 to 5 cucumbers to share.

RELATED POST: Grow Super Salad Fixings in Your Fall Garden

In addition, my container garden of sweet basil was looking decidedly tall and shrub-like.  So…I decided to make a cucumber-basil salad.  This is a quick, easy, and interestingly bold cucumber salad.

On a funny side note…I always check my sweet basil for bugs as I harvest it so that I don’t bring any spiders or bugs into the house.   I checked it over well but somehow missed…a frog.  Imagine my surprise when I dropped my basil into the sink and a small little frog hopped up at me!   Well, I was able to catch and release him.  No frogs were harmed in the making of this salad.

Enjoy!

 

Zesty Cucumber-Basil Salad:

  •  5-6 large cucumbers, peeled
  • 8 cherry tomatoes, garden fresh is best!
  • 2 cloves of fresh garlic
  • 4 tbl. extra virgin olive oil
  • 4 large handfuls of fresh sweet basil – wash well
  • 1 tbl. balsamic vinegar (I used modena but whatever you have on hand)
  • fresh ground black pepper to taste
  • 2 tbl. white sugar

 1.  Peel cucumbers, slice in half the long way down the middle, and cut into slices to desired thickness.  Put in large bowl and set aside.

 2.  In a food processor, all remaining ingredients – yes, the tomato is part of the acidic part of the dressing and it gives it a distinct tang as well as adding visual appeal to this dressing.  Puree these ingredients and you will have a medium thickness salad dressing.

 3.  Pour dressing over the cucumbers and chill.

Finally, please note that I didn’t use salt in this recipe.  I love and adore salt.  However, I’m on a no added salt diet due to hypertension.  Therefore, I try to add zesty flavors like the garlic found in this recipe.   If you are able to salt your cucumber salad, go for it!

 Happy eating!cucumber salad pin.jpg

Deborah
Scroll to Top