A delicious, healthy Thai cucumber salad with veggies, garlic dressing, and topped with crushed roasted peanuts. An easy, light, and refreshing salad packed with nutritious ingredients.
Are you in the mood for an easy, light, and refreshing salad full of flavor? This simple and healthy cucumber Thai salad recipe is the perfect light lunch, dinner, or appetizer. It’s great to have when you want something fresh and delicious.
It’s such an easy and incredibly healthy dish to prepare – you just need a few minutes to chop the ingredients. And all that’s needed is cucumber, cabbage, carrot, cilantro, peanuts, and a few ingredients to make the dressing! If you enjoyed my Red Cabbage Salad, you’re going to love this fresh Thai-style salad.
What’s in This Thai Cucumber Salad Recipe
- Cucumber, cabbage, carrot, chili pepper, and spring onions. These fresh veggies are packed with vitamins and flavor, making this easy Thai-style cucumber salad taste even better. For the cucumber, it’s best to use a low-seed variety like English cucumber or Persian.
- Peanuts: Thai cucumber salad with peanuts is so filling. The roasted peanuts give this salad something extra, from their crunchy texture to their slightly salty taste.
- Cilantro: Enhance the flavor of this salad even more. The bold taste of fresh cilantro pairs perfectly with the other ingredients.
- For the dressing: Garlic, lime juice, soy sauce, coconut sugar, toasted sesame oil. Preparing a dressing from scratch is better than buying one. This dressing is great for the Thai cucumber salad. It has a bold, slightly zesty taste that goes great with everything else.
Optional Add-ins and Variations
- Corn: You can add a slight touch of natural sweetness using some yellow corn.
- Tofu: Tofu is a great way to add extra protein to your diet. You can buy it pre-marinated or season it yourself to create a variety of different flavors.
- Noodles: to keep you fuller for longer, you can add some dried rice noodles. Choose from Thai rice noodles, vermicelli rice noodles, ribbon noodles, soba noodles, brown rice noodles, etc.
- Extra condiments: You can add fish sauce, rice vinegar, or white vinegar to add extra flavor.
- For spice: If you like to add extra spice, sprinkle some red pepper flakes over the salad.
How to Make Thai Cucumber Salad?
Prepare the veggies – shred or thinly cut the cabbage, carrot, and chili pepper. Chop the green onions and roughly cut the cilantro. Add the cut ingredients into a large bowl.
How to Cut Cucumber for Thai Cucumber Salad?
Slice the cucumber in two, lengthwise. Core/remove the seeds. Use a corer to make this process easier. Then cut into thin slices.
If you don’t have one, you can use a round spoon. It will help you remove the seeds of the cucumbers from the flesh.
Thai Cucumber Salad Dressing
Mince the garlic. Then whisk the dressing ingredients in a small bowl. Alternatively, you can emulsify it in a blender/food processor to save yourself some time.
Finally, assemble the cucumber Thai salad. If you already have the cut veggies in a large mixing bowl, you can pour the dressing on top. Use two forks to combine everything, making sure the dressing covers every inch of all the other ingredients. Sprinkle the roughly chopped peanuts on top.
How to Serve?
Serve this salad fresh in a bowl as an appetizer, lunch, or dinner. You can enjoy this as a salad before your meal, especially if you are enjoying other Thai food. Or you can make a large enough portion to eat this as your meal.
How to Make Ahead and Store?
To make ahead: You can prep your veggies in advance. Then combine them in a bowl or mason jar. Place the bowl in the fridge to keep it fresh for up to 4 days.
You can also prepare the salad dressing in advance. You will need to keep it separated in a different bowl or jar. That way the cabbage and the other ingredients won’t get soggy while sitting in the fridge.
To store: Store this salad in the fridge to keep it fresh and flavorful.
FAQs
Pat your cucumbers dry to remove excess water. Sprinkle a bit of salt over the cucumbers and then set them on top of a bag full of ice water. They’ll get crisp in no time.
If you don’t want the Thai salad to get watery, you’ll need to remove the excess water from your cucumbers. Do this when you cut the cucumber.
Recipe Tips and Notes
- Feel free to substitute ingredients in this cucumber salad Thai-style if there are any that you don’t like.
- You can adjust the flavor of the dish by adding more lemon juice if you think it needs more zest.
- If you don’t have coconut sugar, you can use white sugar, brown sugar, or even Stevia. Adjust the amount to taste.
You May Also Like
- Green Papaya Salad (Som Tam Thai)
- Easy Honey Roasted Carrots
- The Best Quinoa Salad
- Red Cabbage Salad
- Crunchy Asian Salad Without Noodles
If you try this Thai cucumber salad recipe, I’d love to hear your thoughts and questions below. Also, I’d appreciate a recipe card rating below, and feel free to tag me in your recipe recreations on Instagram @Alphafoodie!
Thai Cucumber Salad
Ingredients
- 15.2 oz cucumber 1 large; use low seed variety like English or Persian
- 2.6 oz cabbage
- 1 oz carrot 1/2 medium-sized
- 0.7 oz red chili pepper 1 small, like birds eye chili
- 0.8 oz spring onions 3 stalks
- 0.4 oz cilantro 1 handful
- 1/2 cup peanuts roasted
For the Salad Dressing
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 lime 2 tablespoon juice
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon coconut sugar
- 2 tablespoon sesame oil
Suggested Equipment
- Vegetable Corer optional, you can use a spoon instead
Instructions
- Prepare the veggies – shred or thinly cut the cabbage, carrot, and chili pepper. Chop the green onions and roughly cut the cilantro. Add your cut ingredients into a large bowl.
- To prepare the cucumbers – first, slice in two lengthwise. Core/remove the seeds. Use a corer to make this process easier or scrape with a spoon (refer to the images on the blog post). Then cut into slices.
- Prepare the dressing – mince the garlic. Then whisk the dressing ingredients in a small bowl. Alternatively, you can emulsify it in a blender/food processor.
- Assemble the cucumber Thai salad. As the veggies are in a large mixing bowl, you can pour the dressing on top. Then using two forks, combine everything together, making sure the dressing covers every inch of all the other ingredients. Sprinkle the roughly chopped peanuts on top.
Notes
- Corn: You can add a slight touch of natural sweetness using some yellow corn.
- Tofu: if you’d like extra protein, you can add Thai-marinated tofu from the store, puffed tofu, or you can even season it yourself.
- Noodles: to keep you fuller for longer, you can add some dried rice noodles. Choose from Thai rice noodles, vermicelli rice noodles, ribbon noodles, soba noodles, brown rice noodles, etc.
- Extra condiments: You can add fish sauce, rice vinegar, or white vinegar to add extra flavor.
- For spice: If you like to add extra spice, sprinkle some red pepper flakes over the salad.
Alisha
How did you prepare the tofu in advance for this recipe?
what type of tofu did you use?
Alpha Foodie
Hi Alisha,
I usually just follow the instructions on the tofu packaging and prepare it before I assemble the salad.