Cucumber Tomato Salad is a classic salad, light, cooling, and oh-so refreshing. This easy salad is made with sliced cucumbers & juicy tomatoes and enhanced with slivers of red onion and a tangy vinaigrette dressing.
Serve cucumber tomato onion salad next to grilled or roasted meats or fish, such as marinated beef or chicken kabobs, grilled salmon, or pork tenderloin.
How to Make Cucumber Tomato Salad
When the farmer’s markets start overflowing with juicy garden fresh veggies, I take my cue to make a big bowl of cucumber tomato salad.
- Combine all dressing ingredients (per recipe below).
- Slice all vegetables and toss with the dressing.
I love using a combination of fresh or dried oregano and basil in this salad to bring out its Mediterranean essence. Chopped fresh dill and-or parsley deliver equally excellent herbal notes.
English cucumber is ideal for this recipe. The peels are tender enough that there’s no need to remove them, and the seeds are virtually nonexistent. If you only have regular salad cukes on hand, those are perfectly suitable as well. Just peel them, and, if the seeds seem tough, scoop them out and then slice.
Dressing for Cucumber Tomato Salad
Honestly, this salad really doesn’t need much, a simple dressing allows the flavor of the veggies to shine and keeps the salad light and fresh.
A splash of vinegar and a bit of olive oil with salt & pepper. I most often use red wine vinegar but you can use your favorite (infused oils and vinegars are great here too).
Can I Make it Ahead?
This salad tastes great served cold and can be made ahead. Of course it’s best made the day you’re serving it but you can keep it for a couple of days and drain any juices. Whenever I’m planning this dish and need to get a jump on dinner, I partially prep the tomato-cucumber salad.
- In the same bowl you plan to make the salad, whisk together the wine vinegar, olive oil, herbs, salt and pepper.
- Peel and cut the onion into slivers and toss in the vinaigrette.
- Cover and refrigerate for up to a day in advance.
The onions will stay crunchy while helping the dressing mellow and develop flavor. To assemble the salad, all you have to do is slice the cucumbers and tomatoes, toss with the onion and vinaigrette mixture, and briefly refrigerate before serving.
More Fun Additions
You can have a lot of fun with this recipe, by treating it as a foundation. Go ahead and layer in other fresh and tasty ingredients like crumbled feta, mozzarella balls, avocado chunks or chopped fennel bulb. Got stale bread? Even better, turn this into a Panzanella Salad to make it a meal!
The options are limited only by your own creativity!
Salads with a Cucumber Crunch
- Creamy Cucumber Salad – summertime staple!
- Cucumber Onion Salad – light & refreshing
- Cucumber Avocado Salad – simple 3 ingredient dressing!
- Cucumber Dill Salad – made with a lemon vinaigrette
- Creamy Cucumber Pasta Salad – potluck favorite!
Ingredients
- 1 English cucumber sliced
- 2 to 3 large ripe tomatoes diced
- ½ medium red onion thinly sliced
- 1 tablespoon fresh herbs any combination of parsley, basil and/or dill, optional
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
- salt and black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in a bowl and toss well.
- Refrigerate at least 20 minutes before serving.
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Salad
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So! Awesome
Looks so refreshing.
I’m so excited to try this!
All these recipes are fantastic!’
Thank you Karen!
I’m always looking for budget friendly ways to make meals that everyone will like.
You’re in the right place Lisa; welcome! To receive emails with new recipes, you can click here to sign up to receive emails. Look forward to sending you recipes!
Could I use balsamic vinaigrette? Would that change the flavor? thanks
You could use balsamic vinegar. I’d start with about half as much and give it a taste. Some balsamic vinegars can be very strong. It’ll taste different, but delicious! Enjoy the salad!
So easy AND good! Lovely and refreshing addition to almost any Summer meal! Thank you!
You are so welcome Lauriej!
I made this recipe but with apple cider vinegar instead of red wine vinegar, after 2 days in the fridge it seemed to kind of separate. Did I do something wrong?
Apple Cider Vinegar should be fine in this recipe. I’m not sure what separated but the veggies will definitely soften and lose some water after sitting in the fridge for a couple of days.
Tried this recipe was great.
I love this salad, so light and refreshing…and just took me about 10 minutes to make! I really like a lot of your recipes Holly, keep up the good work. I just got your Weekly Meal Planner and am looking forward to being more organized about planning meals and shopping. Thank you!
Thank you so much Di! You made my day!
Easy to follow & delicious!
All your food looks delicious and simple enough for me :) Looking forward to trying some recipes! Your cucumber salad brought me to your page.
Thank you!
Marie
Can I use a vidalia onion instead? Or will that change the taste drastically?
That would work perfectly.
Beautiful colorful salad and so easy to make.
Please sign me up for daily emails.
Hi Bently, thanks for visiting the site! To receive our newsletters, you can sign up here or scroll down to the bottom of the post and you will see a signup box.
Getting ready to make this now with my abundance of tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden. How long will it stay good in the refrigerator?
I keep this 2-3 days. The tomatoes do soften a bit but still taste great.
Do you use a tablespoon of each of the herbs listed or a tablespoon in total of herbs?
1 tablespoon total.
Love this one! So refreshing during the summer. I’ve made it a few times in the past couple weeks. Feta is a great addition. Another time I added some sundried tomatoes also with some fregola pasta (or you could use pearl couscous). Thanks!
Your additions sound so good, Dru! Glad you love this recipe!
I made this tonight to go with our porch chops for tomorrow. We went to the farmers market and got quite a haul. I got some nice sweet yellow onions, so I slice half of one. I didn’t ahve any fresh herbs, so I used some Cavender’s Greek seasoning. I’m looking forward to seeing how it looks tomorrow. I didn’t ahve an Englsih cucumber, but we found some medium-sized cucumbers that are really good, so I sliced about 1 1/2 (the baby ate the other half, yes they were that good!)
Can’t wait to try it tomorrow!
I would like the recipe for overnight oaks. And also do they have to be in sealed jars?
You’ll find the overnight oats here Isabel! No need for sealed jars. Any container will work!
Will try it tonight !