Recipe

Looking for the perfect healthy side when you crave something refreshing and crunchy? Make this simple cucumber salad with a delicious cilantro lime dressing.

This cucumber salad pairs great with any protein, with a side of tacos, and packs great as an adult lunch for the office.

Cilantro Lime Cucumber Salad

Laura fuentes holding a skillet of food standing in front of a blue door

This cucumber cilantro salad is the answer when looking at your favorite protein while cooking, and all you can think is, "What do I serve with this???". It's simple, refreshing, and ridiculously easy to make.

I love serving this salad with my epic Cilantro Lime Avocado Chicken: the flavors and textures go amazingly well together, and I have a complete meal that takes only 30 minutes from start to finish!

Ingredients

The MVP of this salad is cucumber: use Persian cucumbers, English cucumbers (seedless), or traditional salad ones. You’ll add flavor with cilantro, and a quick dressing made with lime juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper. The salt not only adds flavor, but it also prevents the cucumber from getting too soggy.

Do You Need to Peel Cucumbers for Salad

You don’t need to peel cucumbers to make this salad, but you can if you prefer. Keep in mind that some cucumbers may have thicker, bitter skin, so peeling will also depend on the variety you are using.

How to Make Cucumber Salad with Cilantro

As you’ll see in the recipe video below, this salad comes together in no time:

Make the dressing.
Place the dressing ingredients in a large bowl and mix to combine.
Slice the cucumbers.
Slice them as thick or thin as you prefer. I like mine pretty thin, but enough to still have a crunch texture.
Combine.
Toss the cucumber with chopped cilantro and the dressing. Depending on the size of the cucumbers and how much lime juice your limes yield, you may want to add a little more salt.
Serve or refrigerate.
You can enjoy the salad immediately or refrigerate it for 30 minutes to let it absorb the zestiness from the dressing.

How to Keep Cucumber Salad from Getting Soggy

Cucumber is 95% water, so salads with it can get soggy quicker than others. To avoid this, you can do two things:

Do not overdress the salad. Follow the measurements below so the dressing will make the cucumber taste delicious without creating a watery mess.
Sprinkle salt over the cucumbers before assembling the salad if you’re slicing them ahead of time; it will help them release some of their water content.

What to Serve with Cucumber Cilantro Salad

Summer barbecue season asks for simple salads like this one that pair great with classic grilled kabobs, baked lemon chicken breasts, and baked salmon. To keep it meatless, try it with cilantro lime rice or this Spanish cauliflower rice recipe.

Always See My Recipes In Google

Cucumber Salad with Cilantro and Lime

Servings: 4

Prep Time: 5

Total Time: 5

Looking for the perfect healthy side when you crave something refreshing and crunchy? Make this simple cucumber salad with a delicious cilantro lime dressing.

5 from 36 votes

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Watch how it’s made:

Ingredients

⅓ cup lime juice, about 3 limes*
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
2 cucumbers, sliced
¼ bunch cilantro, chopped

Instructions

Make the dressing:

In a large bowl, combine the lime juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Mix to combine the dressing.

Make the salad:

Slice the cucumbers as thick or thin as you prefer, and place them in the large bowl with the cilantro lime dressing. I like mine pretty thin, but enough to still have a crunch texture.
Add the chopped cilantro on top and toss to combine, and coat all the cucumber slices with the dressing.
Taste for seasoning and add a little more salt if needed. This also depends on the size of the cucumbers and how much lime juice your limes yield.

Serve:

Serve immediately, or refrigerate the cucumber salad for 30 minutes to absorb the zestiness from the lime dressing.

Notes

Each lime yields approximately 2 tablespoons of juice. I like to make the acid-to-oil ratio 3:1 for this, so I recommend 6 tablespoons (⅓ cup) of lime juice in total.