Asian Inspired Cucumber Salad

We are a family of salad lovers. I know I've said it before, but I'm truly blessed with children who are not picky and always willing to give something new a try. They also adore their "greens" and a meal at our house would not be complete without a salad or vegetable along with dinner. Sure they all have their favorites, but even some of the less liked vegetables get eaten. They are all in agreement though when it comes to cucumbers; every single one of my kids loves them. They enjoy them when tucked into their lunchboxes with a little bit of light ranch dressing, but also love cucumbers with abundance when included in any kind of salad. 

My husband brought home two gorgeous looking English cucumbers a couple of days ago and after snacking on one, I still had one leftover to make a salad. I was looking for an Asian inspired recipe since I was preparing a Thai meal that evening. Checking the inventory of my fridge I also found carrots, radishes and red onion and figured all of them would fit perfectly into a salad. I found a basic recipe on Savory Sweet Life and decided to give it a go. This salad comes together quickly, it's the cutting of the carrots and radishes into matchsticks which will take you the longest. Once all the vegetables are cut, they are combined with the dressing. The vinaigrette is a simple mixture of rice vinegar, sugar (which I reduced from the original), chili garlic sauce and salt. The dressing is added to the vegetables and then everything is refrigerated for a couple of hours. I added two teaspoons of the chili garlic sauce and found it a sufficient heat level, but feel free to add more or less to taste.

This salad turned out great. The kids and us adults really enjoyed this great mix of sweet and sour along with the crunch of the vegetables. This is definitely a keeper and lends itself to so many different meals. I especially loved this salad since it is very light and with no oil in the vinaigrette it is also not too shabby on your waistline and boy, don't we all know that the bathing suit season is approaching!

Asian Inspired Cucumber Salad

(Printable Recipe)

Ingredients:

1 English cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced (a mandolin works great)

1 large carrot, peeled and matchstick-julienned

4 radishes, matchstick-julienned

1/4 red onion, thinly sliced

1/2 cup rice vinegar

2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons chili garlic sauce

1/2 teaspoon salt

Preparation:

In a microwavable bowl add rice vinegar, sugar, chili garlic sauce, and salt. Heat the bowl in the microwave for 45 seconds. Stir the vinaigrette until the sugar is completely dissolved. In a medium size bowl add the sliced cucumbers, carrots, radishes, and red onion. Pour vinaigrette over the cucumber mixture and toss. Cool in the refrigerator for 1 hour before serving.

Slightly adapted from: Savory Sweet Life