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.

With green beans available year round, this green bean vegetable salad with potatoes makes for a great side dish any time of the year.

Green Bean and Potato Salad

Green beans and potatoes go together like hand and glove, and we sure do love that hot dish served in the south.

But... have you ever considered combining this classic southern mix up with a vinaigrette and serving it cold? It's actually a great combination as a cold vegetable salad, though it's also good slightly warm or at room temperature too!

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
• 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!

Small Batch Fresh Tomato Relish

This easy to make fresh tomato relish adds a great punch of bright flavor to so many dishes, you'll want to have some in your refrigerator all summer long!

Fresh Tomato Relish

With summer tomatoes heading in soon, I thought it would be a great time to introduce this fresh tomato relish. Of course, it's good even with hot house tomatoes throughout the year, but you just really can't beat the superior flavor that comes from backyard or otherwise locally grown fresh tomatoes.

What exactly is a fresh tomato relish?

It's a little like a pico, minus the lime and cilantro, but made with a dressing that is much like the well-loved tomato salads we consume here in the south all summer long - a little sour, a little sweet.

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 fresh, garden tomatoes and sweet, summer Vidalia onions, mixed with a salt and pepper mayonnaise dressing and finished with broken saltine crackers, right before serving. It's reminiscent in flavor, of a tomato sandwich!

Old-Fashioned Tomato and Saltine Cracker Salad

Okay, okay... I know that if you've never heard of this before, you're thinking that just doesn't sound right! I get it.

Crackers? Mixed with tomatoes and mayonnaise? It does sound a little odd, and I know, you're thinking mushy, soggy, wet crackers right? Truth is, it's a salad that has been around, at least in the south, for a long time, and, it's actually very, very good.

A great summer salad made with garden fresh tomatoes, veggies and bacon, tossed in a flavorful mayonnaise dressing and macaroni.

Bacon and Tomato Macaroni Salad

This year, I only planted tomatoes, and although there are a few stragglers out there, they've all just about played out. I've had a few small baskets of them going at any given time this summer though, and I sure have been enjoying them, in every form possible!

This macaroni salad is among the definite summer favorites of mine and one that's been sharing space in my fridge throughout this heat wave.

 

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.

Fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped and marinated in a herb vinaigrette. Serve as is, spoon over a mixed garden salad, use as a garnish with grilled meats, or spoon over individual plates of plain shredded lettuce.

Marinated Tomatoes

With the big move to our new home, I planted a little late this year, and just picked the first of my homegrown tomatoes off the vine in my backyard. They will soon be part of my annual summer ritual.

This year, I was short on time to dig a garden or set up raised beds like before, so I just did a few containers of tomatoes in 5 gallon buckets and planted some herbs, beans and cucumbers right outside the patio door.

A cold spaghetti salad, made with angel hair, vermicelli or thin spaghetti, Italian dressing, fresh tomatoes and a variety of add-ins.

Cold Vermicelli Spaghetti Salad

Many of my blogging colleagues are all abuzz about fall recipes right now - every form of apple and pumpkin and oatmeal, caramel and maple syrup, soups and stews and chili, casseroles, butternut and acorn squash recipes are all already starting to appear.

I've been blogging since 2008, and it begins every year right about mid-August, but... as I write this, it is 105 degrees on the heat index down here in mid-afternoon and, well, I just ain't ready for that yet y'all!

Garden fresh corn, sweet bell peppers, tomatoes and some red onion, combine with a sweet and sour vinegar and oil dressing for a wonderful summer salad!

Marinated Corn Salad with Tomatoes

As far as fresh veggies go, I've sure been enjoying my garden tomatoes This is the first year that I've not had an abundance of fresh green beans and fresh peppers though.

The peppers are way behind thanks to those pesky aphids, and while a couple of them do have some blossoms, the heat is pretty rough on them here lately. Maybe now that July is here we'll start getting some more regular rain to help with that. I guess the tradeoff is that this year, unlike last year, I have had a lot of tomatoes and cucumbers, so I'm happy about that! Right now, is the perfect time of the year to find some great super sweet corn at the farmer's market, or at the very least, in the grocery store, so by all means, although canned works great, use fresh if you've got it!

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.

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 startin' 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.