This easy Marinated Cucumber Salad with red onions is made with eight simple ingredients and takes under ten minutes to prepare. It is the perfect summer dish for grilled chicken, fish, and ribs.
Celebrate the season by whipping up a batch of these marinated cucumbers to accompany your grilled burgers or brats. They are amazingly easy and lip-smacking good! I love to serve them with grilled pork tenderloin, baked cod, and grilled turkey burgers.
What’s In This Post
Ingredients Needed
- Vinegar: apple cider is a good choice, but you can also use red wine vinegar, rice vinegar, white wine vinegar, or champagne vinegar.
- Olive oil: extra virgin olive oil
- Granulated sugar
- Salt
- Black pepper: freshly ground is best
- Celery seed: celery seed is a delicious addition to this salad but optional. Use it if it is in your pantry and you like celery.
- English cucumbers: or use American slicing cucumbers or Persian cucumbers
- Red onion
How to make Marinated Cucumber Salad
Start by slicing the cucumbers and red onions thinly with a sharp knife. Add the cider vinegar, olive oil, sugar, water, salt, black pepper, and celery seed in a large, wide-mouthed mason jar and shake to combine.
Add the sliced cucumbers and red onions to the vinegar mixture. You can also add the cucumbers and red onions to a large bowl. Then, pour the vinegar mixture over them and toss to coat. Refrigerate for one hour up to overnight.
Preparations Tips
- Use English cucumbers for tender skins that don’t need peeling. If using regular cucumbers, peel them to remove the thick skins.
- This cucumber salad is best eaten within the first 24 hours while the cucumbers and onions are still a little crisp. Use a mandoline slicer for uniform-size cucumbers.
- Other vegetables to add include cherry tomatoes, green bell peppers, red bell peppers, or jalapenos.
- Add herbs like dill, basil, cilantro, or thyme.
Storage
Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. The cucumbers and onions will not remain as crisp, but the salad will still be delicious.
Frequently Asked Questions
If using English cucumbers, do not peel them as they have thin skins. Regular cucumbers, also known as American slicing or Persian cucumbers, have thick skins that need to be peeled or at least partially peeled, so alternate peeled and unpeeled stripes.
I love apple cider vinegar with these cucumbers, but you can also use red wine vinegar, rice vinegar, white wine vinegar, and champagne vinegar. Each one will yield a slightly different flavor, but the marinated cucumber salad will still be delicious.
Marinated Cucumber Salad Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup cool water
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
- ½ teaspoon celery seed optional
- 2 English cucumbers thinly sliced see notes
- ½ red onion thinly sliced
Instructions
- Add the cider vinegar, olive oil, sugar, water, salt, black pepper, and celery seed in a large, wide-mouthed mason jar, and shake to combine.
- Add the cucumbers and red onions to the jar. Refrigerate for one hour up to overnight.
Notes
- Use English cucumbers for tender skins that don’t need peeling. If using regular cucumbers, peel them to remove the thick skins.
- This cucumber salad is best eaten within the first 24 hours while the cucumbers and onions are still a little crisp. Use a mandoline slicer for uniform-size cucumbers.
Nutrition
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Lavanda of Appetizers & Entrees
I love cucumbers and red onions, It looks delicious and I can’t wait to give it a try.
Lisa
Yum!My mouth was watering while reading the recipe ha ha, wanna try this!!
Robert Gatesh
Ditch the olive oil and add a few red pepper flakes. It cuts the calories, adds a little kick and lasts for weeks in the refrigerator – if you don’t eat it all the first few days.
Donna Zelias
How long is it recommended to refrigerate before they are ready ? I see the one comment it only is good for 3 days so are they ready in 24hrs ?
Beth Pierce
Marinate for about one hour. They are good for longer than 3 days they just will not be as crisp.
Esther
Add bay leaves… The crispiness will be maintained. I had them in the fridge for 4 weeks and they were still crispy
Cheryl Greninger
I wonder about the olive oil being refrigerated. Doesn’t it just solidify?
Beth Pierce
No it does not.
Brian
There’s only 1 tbsp of oil – it’s diluted far too much to solidify.
Nadine
I made this recipe today. it looks so yummy. I can’t wait to try them!
Beth Pierce
Thanks Nadine! I sure hope you enjoy them!!
Teodora Grujic
Very nice! This is on my list to make next weekend! Thank you for sharing!
Anjali
This simple side turned out to be so good! We served it alongside a bigger spread for dinner last night and it complemented the main dishes perfectly!
Alejandra
What an easy, simple but tasty recipe! These really would taste so good on a freshly grilled burger, can’t wait to try them!
Tara
Oh yum! These sound fantastic! Definitely the perfect addition to hot dogs and burgers. Love those flavors.
Emily Flint
Marinated veggies are my guy’s favorite and I know he is going to love these. This is also a great way to use up all of those cucumbers in the garden!
Elizabeth
Made 4 jars for family members! Hope they like them….
Roxanne
When the jar is empty can I just add more cucumbers and onions to the same liquid?
Joanne
A way to omit the sugar and it still taste good? Diabetic alternatives?
Beth Pierce
Let’s see if the readers have any suggestions.
Vicky
I’ve used a sugar substitute in other recipes similar to this.
Rita
Monk sugar is a great substitute and it taste just like sugar!!
Joni
I just made it using Monkfruit sweetener instead of sugar. Should be just as good!
Esther
If you use raw Apple Cider vinegar which has the mother, the sugar will be fermented away in a few days. Add bay leaves to maintain crispiness and enjoy it for weeks. It’ll become more sour as the sugar gets used up, but it’ll still be delicious.
Dorthell McAlpine
These are INCREDIBLE! A friend gave me a lot of red onions, I used English cucumbers. My husband loves them too
Beth Pierce
Thanks so much! So glad that hubby liked them!
Mary M
Really want to make this but need to ask before I do = about the 1 cup of vinegar and 1 tbsp olive oil ratio – is this correct? How long can leftovers be refrigerated? Thank you for a great side dish.
Beth Pierce
Yes it is! They are delicious just like that but if you want you can add a little more olive oil. You can store leftovers up to 3 days.
Lynn
Why only 3 days in refrigerator, isn’t it the same as pickles ?
Beth Pierce
They last longer than that but they start to soften and do not have that crispness to them. Pickles are usually sliced thicker and generally speaking they go through the canning process that preserves them.