Put the cucumbers, sugar and lime juice in the jar of your blender and process with 3 cups cold water. Blend on high until smooth. Then pour them mixture through a sieve into a large bowl. Taste and season with sugar or lime juice if needed. If you’re serving the agua fresca over ice, maybe use a little less water. This will keep about 3 days although it never lasts that long here.
Adapted from the New York Times.
The note from Ali Slagle that accompanied the recipe: “With cucumbers, tomatoes, browned tofu and a punchy dressing, this recipe’s combination of hot, cold, juicy and snappy makes for a refreshing lunch or light dinner. Inspired by Chinese smashed cucumber salads, many of which include dried chiles or chile oil, this recipe’s piquant and spicy dressing uses chile crisp as well as lemon juice, raw garlic and soy sauce. The only cooking that’s required is searing the tofu, which helps it drink up more of the dressing. Eat it over rice or salad greens, and feel free to embellish with thinly sliced snap peas or celery, cilantro and sesame oil, seeds or paste.”
One of my favorite cucumber salads, courtesy of Peach Dish, the beloved and now-gone homegrown Georgia meal kit company. They paired this recipe with Spiced Lemon Chicken and Carolina Gold Rice for an easy delicious supper.
From Kismet: Bright, Fresh, Vegetable-Loving Recipes from Sara Kramer and Sarah Kymanson
From “Champneys The Cookbook: Food For Wellness”
From Garnish & Gather
Probably you have a salad like this already in your repertoire, but it’s never bad to be reminded of a delicious combination. If you’ve got a lemon on your counter and some mint growing in your garden or a pot, you’re golden.
Adapted from Dorie Greenspan
And for the cucumbers and sweet peppers and tomatoes and radishes, I’m going to make them into a big salad and dress them with this Apple Cider Vinaigrette recipe from Emily Nunn and the Department of Salad. I’ll make a bigger batch and keep it in a jar in the refrigerator to anoint salads for the next week or two. AND I’m going to slice an apple or two into the salad. Love adding fruit to salads. That little bit of sweet crunch is always a welcome surprise.
If you’d prefer to go savory, here’s a Sichuan Cucumber recipe from a restaurant in Charleston. I have black vinegar in my pantry from recipe testing for the AJC. If you don’t, and don’t want to buy a bottle, you could skip it and up the rice vinegar. Definitely not balsamic (which some people think they can substitute just because it’s black)!