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.
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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!
