Recipe: Asian Cucumber Salad

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I love, love, love this salad! Cucumbers are wonderfully cooling and even with that touch of spice, this salad is still a welcome snack during the summer heat. I went on a bit of a hiatus eating this salad, I grew up with my dad eating something very similar a lot in the summers. When I was little, cucumbers were not my thing. Recently, I came back to it, wanting to try it again, and found a new love for it. I introduced it to my husband this year and he loves it so much that he said he wants to grow some cucumbers just so I can make it.

What are Pāi huángguā (拍黄瓜) and Oi Muchim (오이무침)?

Both are spicy cucumber salads that feature unique dressings with slightly different flavors. Both use a method to remove excess liquid by having them tossed in salt, then sitting in a strainer in a bowl to allow the liquid to drip out.

Pāi huángguā (拍黄瓜), in rough translation, means pat (or smash) cucumber. It is a spicy cucumber salad that features smashed and cut cucumbers, tossed in a spicy dressing of oil, and vinegar. Traditionally it will have Sichuan peppers and hot chili peppers in it.

Oi muchim (오이무침) is a spicy cucumber salad. Oi means cucumber, and muchim means mixed with seasonings. This salad features sliced cucumbers, a slightly thicker “sauce” or dressing, and usually has fish sauce, along with Korean red pepper flakes (No smashing or squeezing).

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Fun Cucumber Facts…

• According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, the cucumber cleanses and detoxifies, and can help reduce high blood pressure. With its “cooling” element, it can also ease the body’s internal heat (I am NOT a doctor or food scientist, so please don’t hold these facts as 100% truth that will 100% work for everyone).
• There are nearly 100 varieties of cucumbers grown in most countries in the world. Wow! That’s a lot!

Notes Before We Get Started.

Some Tips for Success

• Use English/Chinese/Korean Cucumbers not American (unless you want to peel the cucumber and have way more seeds. the skin is too tough and there are a lot more seeds in an American Cucumber, thankfully every American grocery store offers English cucumbers).
• Let your salad rest. You can eat it right away, but it’s much better if you wait. I promise.
• Rice Vinegar and Rice Wine Vinegar are the same (unless you buy Matured – which is dark), they’re just labeled differently. It is important that you use Rice Wine Vinegar, not distilled white vinegar. It’s a different flavor, that I haven’t found any substitute for. Most stores offer it, including Walmart. Otherwise… there’s always Amazon.

How to Store Your Salad

Refrigerate any leftover cucumber salad in an airtight container and use it within 2 days for the best results. After the 3rd day, the cucumber becomes saturated with the salad dressing and tends to be too mushy to enjoy, especially since we’ve also squeezed them.

How to Make This Asian Cucumber Salad

You’ll love how this recipe comes together. Find the full recipe below. Here’s the gist:

Before you get started, you might want to check out the (see tips for success).

Step 1: Let’s Get Started

Slice the cumbers thinly. You can achieve this by using a mandoline, I actually prefer this Stainless Steel Box Grater by Rachel Ray which has a slicer that works amazing! It even comes with a hand guard (which I like to use towards the end, but I really recommend if you’ve never used anything like this, you use the slicer the entire time). You could also cut the cucumber with a knife.

I will say… one absolutely great thing about this box grater is that it has a 4-cup “bucket” that fits right inside the grater. So it’ll catch everything you’re slicing/shredding right into the bucket!!

Next…

In a mesh colander set over a bowl, toss the cucumbers with 1½ teaspoon salt.

Step 2: Hurry up and wait.

Let stand for 20-30 minutes, tossing once or twice to encourage the liquid to drain on its own

Step 3: Dressing Time!

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, stir together garlic, green onion, rice (or rice wine) vinegar, soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar, sesame oil, & chili garlic sauce

Step 4: The Fun Part…

Using your hands, firmly squeeze/smash the cucumbers to remove as much water as possible (yes, this does “bruise” the cucumber, but one; this is the similarity to the Chinese Smashed Salad vs the Korean one, and two this won’t last longer than 2 days in your fridge anyway, because you’re going to eat it all). After squeezing the cucumbers drop them into the bowl of dressing. Discard the cucumber liquid once you’re done.

Step 5: Bring it all together

Toss/mix around. Taste and season with salt and pepper if needed.

Step 6: More waiting…

Let sit for about 30 min to an hour in the fridge

Step 7: Toppings and enjoy

Top with freshly chopped cilantro and sesame seeds (this is an optional topping, but I highly recommend them).

I Love To Put These On Top of My Pork Wonton Burgers!

Did you try it, have questions?

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