When you have a large crop of cucumbers from the garden or farmstand, you don't have time to casually include them in complicated recipes or to frantically figure out how to use them up before they go bad without getting sick of them. You want to make the most of your harvest and to actually enjoy it.
Here at Plant to Plate, we like to keep things simple! Here are some of my favorite ways to use or preserve cucumbers:
- Make a Simple Salad. A few ideas for Simple Salad pairings with cucumbers are as follows:
- Dill and feta
- Peppermint and feta
- Tomatoes and feta
- Tomatoes and mozzarella
- Fennel and mandarins or clementines
- Fennel and cheese, especially cheddar, feta, or provolone
- Strawberries, peppermint, and feta
- Use them as a Frame in an Interesting Salad. (Wondering why I capitalized those letters? Read more about Interesting Salads here!)
- Make a cucumber sandwich, closed or open-face, with cream cheese or a cream cheese substitute on bread, toast, crostini, or crackers.
- Add them to infused water, alone or with strawberry and/or peppermint.
- Make tzatziki. This amazing, classic Greek dip primarily consists of cucumbers along with Greek yogurt, dill, garlic, and lemon juice. Cucumbers and yogurt are the featured ingredients here, so it's a great way to quickly and deliciously use up a large quantity of them.
- Add the leaves, stems, and blossoms to stirfry, sautés, soups, and salads. The leaves, stems, and blossoms of the cucumber plant are edible. Cooking the leaves first is recommended, especially for individuals who are sensitive to or otherwise concerned about oxalates.
- Freeze them. Cucumbers can be diced and frozen for later use.
- Pickle them. Cucumbers make perhaps the best-known pickles! Smaller varieties are most commonly used for convenience, but just about any cucumber can be pickled. Dill is a traditional cucumber-pickling companion for good reason, but you may want to experiment with other additions like carrots, garlic, oregano, basil, mints, and others as well. They work well with both traditional and quick-pickling methods.
Further Reading
Growing cucumbers? Check out these quick facts like its best growing conditions, companion plants, and expected yields.
Cucumbers are also featured in these articles:
- Quick Facts: Growing Cucumbers
- How to Preserve Your Harvest: Canning
- Quick-pickling: How to Quick-pickle Your Produce
- The Interesting Salad Protocol: How to Build an Interesting Salad