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This Asian cucumber salad is a simple side dish that packs big, bold flavor! Made with sliced cucumber, garlic, and a savory, tangy, sweet, and spicy Asian inspired dressing!
We’re in our Asian food era and couldn’t be happier about it.
My Current Hyperfixation Meal
My daughter has had this obsession with frozen potstickers for years now and I’ve always more or less ignored them.
Then, one night I made our bacon fried rice and this Asian cucumber salad for dinner and she made us potstickers to go with it.
I have made this meal at least once a week for dinner for months now. It’ quick, easy, and bursting with big flavors.
When it’s just me at home, I make the potstickers in the air fryer and a small batch of this Asian cucumber salad for myself. It’s my favorite dinner and I want to eat it every day.
This cucumber salad is light and refreshing while still packing big flavor. The dressing is made with sesame oil, soy sauce, chili crisp (omg), and plenty of ginger and garlic. There’s a little touch of sugar to add some sweetness and the flavors here just explode in your mouth.
This one is happy dance worthy.
If you love cucumber salads you’ll want to check out my creamy cucumber salad, or this Greek cucumber salad!
Ingredient Notes:
Mini Cucumbers – We like to use Persian cucumbers in this recipe, which are often simply labelled as mini seedless cucumbers. If you don’t have or can’t find mini cucumbers you could use 2 English cucumbers instead of the 8 mini cucumbers.
Garlic – We’re adding a couple cloves of minced garlic to this Asian cucumber salad. It’ll add savory flavor and will pair well with the ingredients in the dressing.
Dressing – This Asian inspired dressing is made with a mixture of soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame seeds, sugar, sesame oil, chili crisp, and salt. You can use more or less of the chili crisp and salt to taste.
You can find chili crisp in the Asian section of most grocery stores. It’s a flavorful mixture of crunchy dried chiles in oil. It does add some spicy heat so use more or less to taste. It doesn’t take a lot to add lots of flavor!
See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.
What We Love About This CUCUMBER SALAD Recipe:
- Flavor: Crisp, refreshing cucumbers soak up the sweet, tangy, salty, spicy flavors of the dressing and make this salad a total flavor bomb.
- Simple: This recipe takes very little time to prepare and is great for a last minute side dish.
- Make Ahead: You can serve this immediately after stirring it altogether or you can make it in advance and let the flavors meld. It’s delicious either way and will last for about 3 days in the fridge.
How to Make Asian Cucumber Salad:
Whisk together the soy sauce, vinegar, chili crisp, sesame seeds, sesame oil, sugar, and salt to combine.
Thinly slice the cucumbers and add them to the dressing. Stir well to coat and then dig in!
Serving Suggestions:
This Asian cucumber salad is perfect for a summer meal when cucumbers are in abundance. The cool, crisp cucumbers make a refreshing side dish!
We like to serve this with:
Recipe FAQs:
This is a very popular Asian ingredient which is spicy, savory, and crunchy! It usually consists of dried chili peppers, garlic, and onion in oil. A little bit goes a long way too! You can use it to enhance all kinds of dishes and dressings. Try it on these air fryer red potatoes or stirred into our pork lo mein!
We prefer Persian cucumbers, or mini seedless cucumbers. You can use a couple of larger English cucumbers if that’s all you can find.
You can store this cold cucumber salad in the refrigerator for about 2 to 3 days. The cucumbers do lose some of their crispness after sitting in the fridge, but this is still delicious and we never let any leftovers go to waste.
Asian Cucumber Salad
Ingredients
- 8 mini cucumbers see notes
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 2 teaspoons chili crisp more or less to taste
- 2 teaspoons sesame seeds
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- Slice the cucumbers into thin rounds. Mince the garlic.
- Add the soy sauce, vinegar, chili crunch, sesame seeds, sugar, and sesame oil to a mixing bowl and whisk to combine.
- Add the cucumbers and garlic to the bowl. Stir to coat. Taste and season with salt as needed.
- Enjoy immediately or store in the fridge, covered, until ready to eat.
Elena says
So good! Can’t stop eating this 🙂
Appreciate your awesome recipes, Karly!
Diana says
??????easy and DELICIOUS
sorry ? forgot to rate the recipe. Thank you for sharing ??
Diana says
DELICIOUS ?!!!!!
Karly Campbell says
I’m so glad you enjoyed the recipe!
Henny Hall says
I made this to have as a side with Supper tonight. Well, that will have to wait as I have eaten the entire bowl !! Deliciously spicy, tart, tangy and a tiny bit of sweet ! I used the Siracha in my first recipe but have ordered the Chili Crisp.
Karly Campbell says
Haha, I can relate to this. So easy to munch on it while dinner cooks. I’m so glad you like the recipe! <3
Bob Theroux says
Haven’t tried it yet but will soon. First I need to purchase chili crisps. Any recommendation?
Karly Campbell says
We love this one! https://amzn.to/46lZrri
If you don’t want to wait, just give it a squirt of sriracha or a sprinkle of red pepper for some heat. 🙂
Tammy says
I bought the same chili crisp at Kroger.