Cucumber Salad with Sesame and Soy Sauce
An everyday cucumber salad with a soy dressing. This simple little salad falls into the super-fast, easy-to-make category. Thanks to the soy sauce, you could call it Asian, so you can eat it not just with a fork but with chopsticks too.
Cooking method
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Step 1:
How do you make a salad with sesame, cucumber, and soy sauce? Gather the ingredients you'll need. Choose firm, crisp cucumbers. If the cucumbers have soft spots, it's better not to buy them. Limp vegetables aren't worth putting in a salad either. You can use plain white sesame, black sesame, or a mix. If you like, you can add green onion, onion, and/or garlic to the salad.
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Step 2:
Wash the cucumbers and cut them into thin rounds. It's of course more convenient and faster to slice cucumbers with a special grater. But if you don't have one, a regular knife works. If the cucumbers have very tough skin, it's better to peel it. The same goes for the seeds: in large, overripe cucumbers the seeds can be tough, so it's better to remove them too.
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Step 3:
Gather the ingredients you'll need for the dressing. You can replace the balsamic vinegar with apple cider or wine vinegar (red or white - it doesn't matter). If you prefer a more Asian flavor, use rice vinegar.
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Step 4:
In a separate bowl, mix the soy sauce, vegetable oil, balsamic vinegar, and sugar. Stir everything together and let the dressing sit for 5 minutes so all the sugar dissolves. You can replace the soy sauce with teriyaki. You don't need to add sugar to that - it's already sweet.
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Step 5:
Pour the dressing over the cucumbers and mix so all the cucumbers are coated with sauce. Put the salad in the fridge for 15-20 minutes to soak. During that time, mix the cucumbers with the sauce again.
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Step 6:
Sprinkle the salad with sesame seeds before serving. Enjoy!
- You can cut the cucumbers into rounds, medium cubes, or even large sticks. The cut hardly matters here. For heat, you can add a pinch of ground chili pepper to the salad, or finely chop a small piece of fresh chili pepper. This recipe is a base, so you can add any other vegetables you like: bell pepper, carrots, tomatoes, onion, and garlic.
Caloric content of the products possible in the composition of the dish
- Fresh cucumbers - 15 kcal/100g
- Soy sauce - 51 kcal/100g
- Granulated sugar - 398 kcal/100g
- Sugar - 398 kcal/100g
- Vegetable oil - 873 kcal/100g
- Dried whole sesame seeds - 563 kcal/100g
- Hulled sesame seeds - 582 kcal/100g
- Balsamic vinegar - 88 kcal/100g
