Meet your new favorite summer salad. This spicy, sweet, crunchy, and refreshing cucumber salad has the best flavor and texture combination. If you love a spicy yet cooling side dish, you are going to love this sun spicy cucumber salad. Bring this to your next summer BBQ cookout and I promise you’ll surprise your friends and family with this flavorful, savory side dish.

If you have ever been to Din Tai Fung, you know about their famous cucumber salad. It’s a beautifully curated cucumber salad with subtle heat and a blast of chili flavor. However, if you don’t live near a Din Tai Fung, or you’re like me and want to make recipes fresh at home, this is the place to start!

This is such a versatile recipe to be paired with hot or cold dishes, meat, seafood, tofu or enjoy it on its own. You can customize to daily up the spicy level or tone it down to your preference.

This spicy cucumber salad is packed with flavors and textures. It is sweet, tart, spicy and refreshing while providing a cool and crisp texture.

With only a handful of ingredients, this ultimate summer cucumber salad will not disappoint!

Ingredients For Spicy Cucumber Salad

Ingredients for spicy cucumber salad

Cucumbers are the star of the show. There is no need to peel the cucumbers unless the skin is tough and rough.

You can use any cucumbers your like here! I love Persian cucumbers, or English Cucumbers. Either one works and is super easy to find at most grocery stores.

Chili oil: The most common one is “Lao Gan Ma 老干妈” which is a traditional Chinese chili crisp. I am pretty sure my parents and I both grew up eating it. And now my favorite is the Momofuku Truffle Chili oil. It is absolutely delicious.

Rice vinegar is the base to the dressing. It provides the tartness and brings out the brightness of this dish.

Coconut Aminos is an alternative to soy sauce. You can use soy sauce here.

Sesame oil adds a great flavor to this dish, and a little goes a long way!

Salt and Sugar are both very important components to this dish. We want both savory and sweet when it comes to this dish, it’s all about balance people!

Garlic gives it a potent and nutty flavor. It creates an incredible depth of flavor when mixed with vineagr and soy sauce. My dad loves adding a clove of fresh garlic to almost everything. And this spicy cucumber salad is no exception.

How to Make Your Spicy Cucumber Salad

Wash and cut the ends off your cucumbers.
Insert your wooden skewer directly through your cucumbers long ways.
Make sure your wooden skewer is completely inserted into your cucumber before cutting.
Start slicing your cucumber down to the skewer. You will spin the skewer as you continue to cut it.
Go all the way down until you get to the end of the cucumber.
Your cucumber will be evenly cut and ready to season.

Now Ready to add salt and then add the spicy dressing:

Remove skewer and viola! Your cucumbers are perfectly spiraled.
Add in the salt and gently toss it to incorporate. Let it sit for 15 – 20 minutes to draw out the water.
Rinse off the water and salt a couple times and then pat dry.
Add in the rest of the sauce.

How To Serve This Spicy Cucumber Salad

The best way to serve this Spicy Cucumber Salad is chilled straight out of the fridge! You get a lovely cooling crunch accompanied by the bursting flavors and spice of the sauce that coats your cucumbers.

Topping your Spicy Cucumber Salad with some toasted sesame seeds or chili flakes is another fun way to add some extra flair to your dish.

You can also serve this Spicy Cucumber Salad alongside any of my Asian Dishes for a fresh crunch! You can serve this salad alongside my Sticky Asian Meatballs which as soy free and so delicious for a weeknight dinner!

My Mongolian Beef Stir Fry is sweet, savory and so juicy and this Spicy Cucumber Salad would go so well with this stir fry because it is a bright, spicy side dish. I highly recommend making this for a dinner party the next time you get together with friends or family. You will go back for more when you taste how addictive the spice and subtle sweetness is in this recipe.

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Get the recipe:Spicy Cucumber Salad

This spicy, sweet, crunchy, and refreshing cucumber salad has the best flavor and texture combination.
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Ingredients

  • 2 long cucumber
  • 1/2 tbsp salt
  • 2 tbsp chili oil
  • 1.5 tbsp rice vinegar
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • 2 tsp sesame oil
  • 1 tsp sugar

Instructions 

  • Wash cucumbers and cut the ends off of them. Then insert skewer through the cucumber, lengthwise.
  • Begin cutting even diagonal slices of the cucumber, you will continue by turning the cucumber or skewer, so that you achieve the spiral effect (See images in blog post).
  • Continue to cut until you reach the end. You may then remove your skewer, and you will see a perfectly spiraled cucumber.
  • Add cucumber to a bowl, add salt, and gently toss to make sure coated. Then let sit for 15-20 minutes to allow any excess water to come out.
  • While that is sitting, assemble the sauce by mixing together the chili oil, rice vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, and sugar, then set aside.
  • Then- rinse off salt and water a few times, and then pat dry.
  • Now- mix together the cucumbers with the sauce, then enjoy!

The Nutrition Facts above are specific to the ingredients I chose to use for this recipe, which may vary.

Author: Shuang Shuang Liang