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Dress up a salad in minutes with this easy tutorial on how to make cucumber flowers. Plus a recipe for the best cucumber salad ever!
I've been having fun making salads this spring with these pretty cucumbers. It's not a fancy technique, but they make a splashy statement in a salad. There's always lots of oohs and aahs when I serve a salad with these cheerful little cukes. I've learned a few tips in the process of figuring out how to make cucumber flowers, so thought I'd share them with you.
As a bonus, I'm also sharing a salad recipe that features these cucumber flowers. The salad has an Asian inspiration with a super simple ingredient list of rice vinegar, fresh ginger sugar and a pinch of salt. It's super fresh and delicious and I've been eating my weight in it. The good news? This salad is super low in calories, so I won't be adding any weight by indulging in it.
It's crazy that a salad with so few ingredients could have that much flavor. We've enjoyed it so much I decided it deserved a superlative name, so I'm calling it The Best Cucumber Salad.
How to make cucumber flowers
Making the cucumber flowers is simple, but you might want to buy one or two extra, just for practice. You will be making ¼-inch deep V-shaped ridges around the circumference of the cucumber. Here are a few simple tips with pictures to demonstrate the technique.
First of all, wash the cucumbers well and trim off both ends. Then, cut each cucumber in half, widthwise or into approximately 4-inch sections (if your cucumbers are very long).
Next, place one cucumber half on a work surface. Using a sharp, medium-length knife, make ¼-inch deep cut, the length of the cucumber at a 45˚angle. (I like to rest the back side of the knife on my fingers for stability.) Then make another cut, about ¼ inch from the first one. This cut will also be at 45˚ degrees, but it will be towards the first cut and will form a small V-shaped wedge that can be removed.
Continue making these V-shaped cuts, about ½-inch apart, all the way around the circumference of the cucumber. You should end up with 5 or 6 V-shaped slices, depending on the circumference of the cucumber. Don't worry if they're not perfectly spaced. Flowers in nature aren't perfect either.
Slice the cucumbers into thin or thick slices, whatever you prefer. For my Best Cucumber Salad, I cut them into approximately ⅛-inch slices.
Use these pretty cucumbers in any salad that you would add sliced cucumbers to, or let them star in a salad of their own, like this Best Cucumber Salad. Either way, these cucumber flowers will make everyone smile!
Café Tips on How to Make Cucumber Flowers
- It's best to use English or Persian cucumbers for these cucumber flowers. They're both seedless and have a firm texture, making them perfect for cucumber flowers. English cucumbers are the large, long cukes that you often find shrink-wrapped in plastic at the grocery store. Persian cucumbers are also seedless but are much smaller in size, and usually come in a bag or on a little tray covered with plastic wrap.
- Look for small to medium size English (seedless) cucumbers for pretty size cucumber flowers. If using the mini Persian cucumbers, look for larger ones as the really small, slender ones will be harder to cut.
- Don't make your cuts too deep or the flowers will fall apart when you slice the cucumbers. Around ¼ inch is perfect.
- It's much easier to make the cuts with smaller lengths of cucumbers rather than leaving them whole.
- Sometimes I save the little wedges that are removed to make the cucumber flowers, add a little dressing to them and enjoy them later in the day. It's like my own little julienne cucumber salad.
- Start practicing because you're going to want to have this technique mastered for a wonderful salad coming up:
Café Tips on making The Best Cucumber Salad
- This salad can be made early in the day or even a day in advance. The cucumbers will stay crunchy for several days.
- You can make a double or triple batch of the dressing and store it in a jar with a tight-fitting lid. When you're craving this Best Cucumber Salad, all you have to do is slice a few cucumbers and an onion.
- Sometimes I add finely chopped red bell pepper to this salad and some finely chopped cilantro - also very delicious and pretty!
If you make this Best Cucumber Salad, please share your results and leave a review below. I love it when a recipe has lots of reviews from readers. It really helps me determine whether I want to make it or not. If you make it and add your own touches, we'd love to hear about that too!
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The Best Cucumber Salad
Ingredients
- ¼ cup unseasoned rice vinegar
- 4 teaspoons sugar
- ½ teaspoon finely grated fresh ginger
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 medium English, seedless cucumbers, or 6-8 medium-size Persian cucumbers
- ¼ medium red onion, sliced thinly
Instructions
- Combine the rice vinegar, sugar, fresh ginger and salt in a medium-size bowl. Stir until sugar is dissolved.
- Sliced cucumbers into ⅛-inch thick slices or use technique above in the post to cut cucumbers into flower-shaped slices.
- Combine the dressing with cucumbers and sliced onions. Stir gently. Refrigerate for at least one hour or longer. Can be made a day in advance. Keeps well in the refrigerator for 3-4 days.
Nutrition
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It was terrific !! Carolyn
Thanks, Carolyn!
Hi, I just made this and boy, was I skeptical. Cucumbers and GINGER? Two ingredients I never would have put together. But Chris, what a winner!! Ginger is subtle, yet comes through. I invited paper thin slices of carrot to the party because you know how carrots love ginger. Used honey instead of sugar and cut that to about 1 tablespoon. Absolutely delicious. Thanks, Chris!!
This was a delicious addition to our dinner tonight. Very light and refreshing. I added tomberries, which I had never seen before, but found at the grocery store today. They are tiny (about the size of blueberries) red and yellow tomatoes. Thanks for a great recipe!
Thanks for letting us know Vivian! And for telling us about tomberries, how cool! I will be looking for them, for sure!
So pretty and what a perfect addition to spring salads!
The cucumber flowers are so pretty, I am going to practice making them, to go into your Strawberry Spinach Salad with the Basil Poppy Seed Dressing, sure it ill be delicious.
Years ago a friend showed me a way to make cucumbers look pretty , peel the cucumber then take a fork and and run it down the cucumber and do it all around the whole cucumber. It is easy and fast, does not look as pretty as your cucumber flowers but it does dress them up a little.
Thanks
I eat cucumbers almost every day. Love em". This creation is interesting and cute. Wouldn't these flowers look cute floating in cucumber water, or some of those cucumber cocktails? I have to admit, I went rogue and tried to make the flowers using a channel knife. A channel knife is used to make a bartender\s citrus twist! It seemed like a genius idea at the time. Unfortunately the channel knife does not make deep enough channels to make the final creation resemble a flower. For this reason, manually cutting the cuke is best.
Thanks so much for your comment. Yes, I tried lots of easier ways to do this but none of them came out as pretty.They would be great in cucumber water or a cucumber cocktail, great idea!
I love cucumber salads,so fresh and crunchy! Your little flowers are adorable. My mom used to make flowers by running the tines of a fork down the cucumber (tip to tip) all the way around the cucumber before slicing. As kids we always swore that her cucumber flowers tasted better than plain cucumber! 🙂
Thanks, Wendy!
These little cuties make eating salad fun!
This would be perfect for a ladies' luncheon! I've only used the peeler method to get a pretty pattern on the cucumber skin but can't wait to try this, Chris 😉
I'm so trying this next time I serve cucumbers Chris! So pretty and so worth the extra effort! Thanks so much for sharing!
Does the salad you show with spinach and strawberries have poppy seeds in the dressing? Love the cucumber flowers! Can't wait to make some.
So easy but so pretty! Such a great way to dress up a salad 🙂
Looks great! Will try it! Thanks!
Enjoy!
So much prettier than serving just sliced cucumber!
It is!
So pretty, Chris! This looks like something my mom would do, so I must try your technique!! And I do love a cucumber salad----especially on a hot day.
Hi Chris. What a pretty way to serve cucumbers - I'll be practicing your technique this week! One question regarding the salad dressing - do you use seasoned or unseasoned rice vinegar? I'm never certain...
Thanks!!
Hi Kelly, good question. I use unseasoned rice vinegar. I will add that to the recipe, thanks for asking
So beautful! And the red onion slices look really lovely with them.
We eat cucumbers almost everyday - so this is a great way to change it up and add something pretty to our dishes 🙂 Lovely and creative - thanks!
So adorable Chris and sounds divine!
This is DARLING Chris ~ I can't wait to try it. I always have little cukes on hand, so I can make these today ~ pinning and sharing <3
Pretty! I did the same with carrots too. Gotta make some cucumber salad for the lunch tomorrow too. Thanks for sharing, Chris.