Tomato Cucumber Salad

A cool, crisp Tomato and Cucumber Salad that comes together in minutes - the perfect refreshing bite for these sweltering Deep South days.

Sometimes the simplest things really are the best, especially when the heat is on - and brother, has it ever been on in the Deep South.

I am slap wore out, y’all. This heat has me so foggy and drained that I completely forgot to “style” a pretty picture with the original post so I had to come back. When I did that, I only had mini cucumbers (my favorite) and grape tomatoes, so the photo above won't exactly agree with the step by step below. 

What can I say?

Bottom of the Mayo Jar Cucumber Salad

A nostalgic Southern cucumber salad inspired by the old “mayo jar” method - crisp cucumbers, red onion, and a creamy, tangy dressing you shake right in the jar.

If you grew up in the South, you may remember seeing that one jar in the fridge - the mayonnaise jar that never quite got thrown out because Mama kept topping it off with sliced cucumbers, onions, and a splash of vinegar.

It hung out on one of the shelves in the fridge all summer long, getting refreshed every few days, and somehow always tasted better the longer it sat. It's already been a regular in my refrigerator this summer!

New York Deli-Style Creamy Cucumber Salad

A cool, creamy deli‑style cucumber salad with sour cream, dill, sweet‑tangy dressing, and thin‑sliced red onion. Easy, refreshing, and best made ahead.

The Creamy Version of New York Deli-Style Cucumber Salad

If you’ve ever stood at a New York deli counter eyeing those creamy, tangy cucumber salads piled high in the case, this is that salad, in its creamy version - cool, crisp, and just sweet enough. It’s the perfect make‑ahead side for summer plates, potlucks, sandwiches, or anything coming off the grill. Simple ingredients, big flavor, and it only gets better as it chills.

Sip and Feast is one of those food posts that passes on my desktop launch page pretty regularly. It's what prompted me to try that New York Deli Style Cucumber Salad and now, this creamy version.

I've had plenty of creamy cucumber salads over the years, but I really enjoyed this version. What primarily sets it apart from the ones I know and love, is the preparation of the cucumbers, leaving them super crunchy and with a great texture. Who knew?

Crispy thin cucumber and onion slices in a more sweet than tangy vinegar and sugar dressing.

New York Deli Style Cucumber Salad

I'm gonna be honest here. I've never been a big traveler, so there's a lot I've never experienced.

I don't like flying commercial. I hate being in a car for very long.

Day trips locally? I'm all for that if I can go and get back home that same day.

Long story short. I've never stepped foot in New York, much less New York City. The only time I've traveled even close to there was to air my cookbook (#ad) on QVC!

A tomato and cucumber salad with red onion, olives and feta tossed in a Greek-style dressing.

(Almost Greek-Style) Tomato, Cucumber and Olive Salad

I'm always up for making different kinds of salads using tomatoes, cucumbers, or both!

I saw this Horiatiki Salata aka Hearty Greek Salad on the America's Test Kitchen channel on Roku one day recently and thought it looked so good I needed to make it right away!

Only thing is, I didn't have everything on hand that it called for though, so I had to make some adjustments, which is why I say this is an "almost" Greek-style salad.

A classic tomato salad with sweet onion and cucumber and a nicely balanced vinegar based dressing.

Cucumber Tomato and Onion Salad

I love cucumber, tomato and onion salad combinations and I eat them constantly over these hot summers, so I am always playing around with them.

It's pretty amazing how subtle changes in the same basic ingredients can completely alter the texture and taste in them and the dressing on this one is a great balance between tart and sweet to me.

Cucumbers and sweet onions, marinated in a slightly sweetened white wine and rice vinegar dressing with mustard seeds and tossed with fresh tomatoes.

Marinated Cucumber and Tomato Salad

Seeing as it's summer as I write this, that it's hotter than hot right now, and I'm certainly getting my fill of all the cooling foods I can right now, here's yet another cucumber and tomato salad to add to the collection!

This version was inspired by one that I ran across in Paula Deen's At the Southern Table cookbook. It was a little bit different from the typical cucumber and tomato salad and interesting enough that it had me curious, so I thought I'd give it a try... with my own adaptations, of course!

Thick slices of cucumber pair up with red onion and a tart vinegar dressing. Add the ends of some fresh tomatoes that you need to use up if you like!

Everyday Cucumbers

I'm constantly playing around with cucumber salads and while they may all look very similar, it's a bit surprising how minor changes in ratios, ingredient additions - such as with herbs - and even textures from different cut sizes, can actually make a big difference in taste.

The inspiration for this one came from Vivian Howard's mom's everyday summer salad featured in her book Deep Run Roots. This cucumber salad made a daily appearance at the table when she was growing up and while sometimes it was just cucumbers, other times it had red onion or included the leftover ends of tomatoes.

Fresh, juicy tomatoes and garden cucumbers, paired with purple onion and dressed with a local honey and mustard vinaigrette, finished with torn basil, fresh from the garden.

Tomato and Cucumber Salad with Honey Mustard Vinaigrette

Y'all know that I love me some fresh summer cucumbers and juicy, seasonal tomatoes and as salads go, I mostly just toss them with a mix of vinegar and sugar and call it a day. I do love that whole sweet and sour thing and that's the way I combine them most often.

Sometimes it's just simply cucumbers with onions, mostly sweet Vidalias, because it is the season for them too after all, but sometimes a sharp, purple onion is in order instead.

A salad of cucumber and sweet onion, dressed with a creamy, sour cream, mayo and buttermilk herb dressing. Add a little purple onion for color.

Cucumber Salad with Creamy Buttermilk Herb Dressing

Well, as I write this post, here it is September, and the last weekend before fall, and as happens every, single, year with the blogging community, you're probably seeing all sorts of apple and pumpkin posts as those of us who write about and share recipes on this internet world get anxious to switch over to the aromas of fall.

Unfortunately for many of us here in the South, most especially the Deep South, it doesn't matter what the calendar says, the weather betrays it! Although we got a slight break this weekend, it's still hotter than hot in my part of the world and I'm not ready for that pumpkin spice latte y'all. So... I'll still be plugging along with those cooling summer foods, like cucumber salads, for a bit yet.

A tomato and cucumber salad, dressed lightly with a seasoned, mayonnaise-based dressing and lots of crumbled bacon!

Bacon, Cucumber and Tomato Salad

I didn't have nearly as many tomatoes or cucumbers this year. Early on, in the spring, they did great, but then by June we had constant, heavy rainstorms - which, by the way haven't stopped - intertwined with heat indexes in the triple digits - that haven't stopped either - and the tomatoes really suffered.

Guess I'm either going to have to start from seed so I can plant earlier, or else just forget about it and hit the fresh market weekly for my tomato fix!

My early tomatoes - Deep South Dish on Instagram

Ways to Use Those Garden Cucumbers

When the garden cucumbers start flowing, here's a collection of recipes for salads and more, to enjoy them!

This year, for the first time since we moved, I planted a small square foot style, raised bed garden right outside my backdoor patio. In that, I planted an heirloom tomato, some herbs, two pepper plants and two cucumber plants that just exploded, so I've been picking two to three cucumbers a day for several weeks now. The only thing I did was to feed it Jobe's organic fertilizer for vegetables. The cucumber salads have certainly been flowing here lately, and I just love having different variations to make.

 

Thick cut slices of cucumber, with sweet onion and fresh tomatoes, mixed with a mayonnaise, sour cream and fresh herb dressing for a creamy cucumber salad.

Creamy Cucumber and Tomato Salad

When the weather is warm around here, there are two things you will almost always find in my fridge - watermelon and some kind of cucumber salad - and that hasn't slowed down.

There's a dysfunction in my hypothalamus (which I'm sure is way more than you probably ever wanted to know about me), so I get overheated super easy in the summer, and those are two cooling foods that I know will help to keep my body thermostat in check.

So... in the midst of these summer-like temps, and before soup, stew, chili and gumbo weather arrives in the fall, I'm gonna slide in another one of my favorite cucumber salads that I've been munching on for the past few weeks.

Cucumbers and onions, layered in a bowl, topped with a vinaigrette and topped with crushed ice and refrigerated overnight to marinate before serving.

Iced Refrigerator Cucumber Salad

As of this writing, I'm not quite ready to let go of the summer and start up with fall recipes.

Oh, I'm definitely ready to bid summer goodbye alright.

To walk outside and feel that fresh, crisp fall air, the kind that sends a quick chill down your spine and requires at least a light sweater. I'm ready to turn off the air conditioner and get some relief from those high summer cooling bills. Maybe even open the windows and let fresh air flow through the house and put on a pot of hearty soup or chili.

That's sure to be awhile yet here in The Deep South.

A cucumber and sweet Vidalia onion salad, dressed with a sweet and sour vinegar dressing.

Cucumber and Onion Salad

I shared the sour cream and onion cucumber salad and had so many requests for the plain vinegar variation, that I figured instead of pointing everybody to the variation at the bottom of the recipe, that I would plant it here right beside that version, to include it among all of the other summertime cucumber salads I enjoy.

A cucumber and sweet Vidalia onion salad, dressed with a vinegar and sour cream dill dressing.

Sour Cream Cucumber and Onion Salad

The cucumber consumption has begun!! I think that I have been through at least a dozen cucumbers in the past week, because when it starts getting hot here, and believe me, that comes fast in the Deep South, I eat a lot of cucumber salads.

Cucumbers are something like 95% water and they really do have a cooling effect on the body, so the phrase "cool as a cucumber" truly does have some meaning to it. They are surprisingly full of antioxidant vitamins also, help to rid the body of toxins and have many other health benefits.

 

An old-fashioned southern salad of thinly sliced cucumbers and sweet Vidalia onions, dressed in a sweet and sour mayonnaise dressing.

Creamed Cucumbers and Onion

I've been eating my share of cucumbers here lately that's for sure.

First, I was gifted with a bag of them.

Then, finally after replanting seeds multiple times because the heat was literally melting my poor plants, the last four that I planted finally started producing for me.

The Cajun doesn't eat cucumbers at all, but I love garden cucumbers, so that's just all the more for me. I've made cucumber cream cheese sandwiches and every single cucumber salad I have here on the site more than a few times the last few months and realized I hadn't posted this creamed version yet.

One of my favorite southern salads for the summer, this spicy, sweet and sour Fire and Ice salad, gets it's name from the contrast between the red onion, green bell pepper, horseradish and jalapenos, and the cool crunchy cucumber and sweet tomatoes.

Fire and Ice Summer Salad

A great use for that summer harvest of garden fresh tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and jalapenos, this is another southern favorite and certainly a personal favorite of my own. I can make a meal out of this salad alone on a hot summer day.

A simple, but tasty southern favorite, this cucumber salad is made of very thinly sliced fresh cucumbers and is dressed with a boiled sweet and sour vinegar dressing.

Spicy, Sweet and Sour Cucumber Salad

Just as the name says, this is a spicy cucumber salad with a boiled sweet and sour dressing made with vinegar and sugar. If you prefer not to have the heat, just eliminate the red pepper flakes, and, if you like things more on the sweet side, just use equal parts vinegar and sugar, or adjust the sugar up according to your taste.

Simple Summer Cucumber, Onion and Tomato Salad

A favorite simple salad in the summer, featuring garden fresh cucumbers and tomatoes, red or sweet onion, and dressed in a simple homemade vinegar and olive oil Italian dressing.

Simple Italian Cucumber, Onion and Tomato Salad

There is seriously nothing to this salad really, but with fresh tomatoes and cukes starting to come in, it is definitely worth a quick mention.

In fact, with this heat here lately salads are perfect for lunch, or even a light dinner when it's just too hot to think about food, but I get bored with just plain old garden salads. So, I've posted some of my favorite salads that utilize some of those fresh tomatoes and cucumbers that you'll be harvesting soon.