Cucumber Tomato Summer Salad

If you’re lucky like my friend Shar, your garden is bursting with more cucumbers than you can handle. If you’re unlucky like me, your cucumber plants are dead, but you can still get them at the store (or from Shar).

This cucumber tomato salad is one of my favorite parts of summer, and I can’t believe I haven’t already shared it with you.

First of all, you don’t have to peel your cucumbers if they’re from someone you trust, but mine were from the grocery store and they put that nasty waxy stuff on the outsides and I wanted it gone.

So… wash and de-seed your cucumbers, and then slice them into little moony shapes.

Unless they’re tiny cute cucumbers from your garden, in which case you can just slice those and throw them in (after washing them of course).

Then cut up some tomatoes – about one per cucumber (or two if they’re small tomatoes). I also take out the seedy slimy part because I think it’s gross.

Toss everything with a couple tablespoons of EVOO.

Make sure everything is nicely coated.

And sprinkle in some sea salt. This will help the veggies to “juice” as they marinate. It’ll help everything get more delicious than if you didn’t use salt. Kosher salt is good for this too. Just don’t oversalt.

Here’s where you have an important choice. Which vinegar will you use? Balsamic is generally my go-to for this salad, but rice vinegar gives it a cleaner, lighter flavor. You can also use red wine vinegar, cider vinegar, or any other vinegar you’d like.

Stir everything up and let it marinate in the fridge for at least 4 hours.

Then enjoy! Fresh basil makes a perfect flavor accompaniment.