Zesty Cucumber Salad

An easy side dish or dip made with crispy cucumbers, sweet onions, peppy ranch flavors, and tangy rice vinegar. Jazz it up with a jalapeño!

We’ll keep it short and sweet here today because, let’s face it, Thanksgiving is *gasp* tomorrow and there are things to be done, potatoes to be peeled, cranberries to be macerated, and stuffing to be prepped. And maybe there’s a turkey involved, but if you’re not the one in charge of that, there is plentyyyy to be done otherwise.

Also, all the cookies. We’ve got 3 on the menu plus cake!

This salad actually isn’t on our menu, but don’t let that fool you… We’ve made and/or eaten this salad/dip 3 times in the last month. Seriously. And let me tell you why.

Guys, this is one of those things that I had one bite of and then legitimately couldn’t stop taking bites of. At all. I was a monster. A coworker of mine brought it to pumpkin carving with a bag of tortilla chips and I think I probably ate 75% of it.

Granted, I am pregnant, so that could have a thing or two to do with that (seriously, give me ALL OF THE salty/savory/tangy things + carbs), but it is so good. After every bite, I swear I said “this is so good. I need to stop.”

And I just didn’t.

I made it at home just for us and we blew through it in a few days, and then when we made it for friends who came over for lunch one day, I’m pretty sure we didn’t have any left when the meal was over. And there were only 4 of us eating it.

This salad/dip is aaaaamazing.

So there’s one thing you’ll see is in the recipe that isn’t in my pictures, and that’s a jalapeño pepper. While the first time I had this dish it included a jalapeño, I do not have good luck with those bad boys.

One time a few years ago, I had an incident where I wound up with spicy jalapeño juice in a cut and it was an awful 4 hours before I figured out what would make the terrible burning go away. I had my finger in milk, yogurt, wrapped in ice… Nothing worked until I tried vodka.

Yep. VODKA.

It worked like a charm and I was so upset that I wasted so much dairy over my 4 hour saga.

So yeah, go ahead with your bad self with the jalapeño if you aren’t afraid of it. Like I said, I’ve had this both ways, and it’s just the bomb. That’s right, I said it. The bomb. 

There you have it, folks. That’s all I’m going to throw at you this day-before-the-best-holiday ever because you now have time to run to the store to buy the ingredients for this salad/dip because I guarantee you no one will be fighting over cucumbers, rice vinegar, or ranch packets in the Thanksgiving scramble.

You may need to drop some ‘bows for the onion, but I’m thinking you might be safe if you’re headed for the sweet ones!

Dip it, chip it, fork it, spread it… This zesty cucumber salad will have you looking for anything and everything to eat it with. So versatile and a fun little side to any dish that could use a little jazzing up. Even that oh-so-lovely turkey with his usual suspect sidekicks!

Print Recipe

Zesty Cucumber Salad

An easy side dish or dip made with crispy cucumbers, sweet onions, peppy ranch flavors, and tangy rice vinegar. Jazz it up with a jalapeño!

Prep Time5 mins

Total Time5 mins

Servings: 2 cups

Ingredients

• 3 large cucumbers peeled then sliced and quartered*
• 1/2 of a sweet onion finely chopped
• 1 packet dry ranch dressing
• 1/2 cup rice vinegar
• optional: 1 small jalapeño pepper seeded and finely chopped

Instructions

• Place cucumbers and onion (and jalapeño, if using) into a medium size bowl. Stir together to combine.
• Sprinkle ranch packet over cucumber and onion mixture, then drizzle with rice vinegar. Stir gently until everything is fully coated. Serve as a side dish or as a dip for crackers, chips, or bread.
• Cover salad and chill at least 1 hour before serving. Leftovers stay fresh covered tightly in the refrigerator up to 4 days.

Notes

*If you prefer to make this more of a dip/salsa, chop or dice cucumbers.