This is a recipe for Czech cucumber salad, a simple and delicious side dish that brings back childhood memories.
About this Cucumber Salad
It's a salad with grated cucumber based on water dressing. The dressing's flavor is a sweet and sour combination of sugar, salt, and vinegar.
Czechs call their cucumber salad “okurkový salát”. It is most often served as a light side to main dishes such as řízek (breaded and fried Schnitzel), roast chicken, or holandský řízek.
Apart from the Czech Republic, this salad is also popular with our southern neighbors in Slovakia, known as "uhorkový šalát."
Ingredients
- English cucumber; or any seedless cucumber
- Granulated sugar
- Salt
- Water; cold
- Black pepper; ideally freshly ground
- Vinegar; the amount depends on the intensity of the vinegar taste
Instructions with Photos
Preparing this salad is nothing complicated. Simply add more sugar, vinegar, or salt to achieve the dressing's final satisfying taste.
STEP 1: Peel the cucumber and cut off its ends.
STEP 2: Grate it roughly, I used my hand grate box. The other but less common option for this kind of salad is to slice the cucumber into thin circles.
STEP 3: Make watery salad dressing: Place water, sugar, vinegar, salt, and ground pepper in a mixing bowl. Stir well until combined. Adjust the taste of the dressing to your liking.
STEP 4: Place grated cucumber into a bowl and pour over with the dressing.
Serving
Serve this Czech cucumber salad cold in a little bowl and put a small spoon to it.
It’s an ideal accompaniment to the main course dishes like řízek (Schnitzel), smažený sýr or sekaná.
Which Cucumber to Choose
The best cucumber for this salad is English cucumber with dark green skin. In Czech, we call it "hadovka," you could freely translate it to something like "a snake cucumber" because of its long thin shape.
This is a piece of advice my mom gave me: If you buy cucumbers in a store, prefer longer and thinner pieces over the shorter and plumper ones. Press the ends of cucumbers; they should be firm enough and not soft.
Cook's Tips
- Cucumbers freshly picked from the garden can be grated with the skin without peeling them in advance.
- The commonly used vinegar in Czech kitchens has a pretty pungent aroma. The amount of vinegar depends on its strength. The more pungent the vinegar taste, the less you will pour in the dressing. Moreover, it's also a matter of a personal preference in taste. Some people prefer a sharper flavor, others a milder one.
- A grated cucumber lets out a lot of water. It doesn't matter for this kind of watery dressings, so the cucumber does not have to be sweated out to get rid of any excess liquid.
🥗 More Czech salads
- Head lettuce with buttermilk dressing – kefírový salát
Czech Cucumber Salad – Okurkový salát
Ingredients
- 1 English cucumber
- 2 cups (480 ml) water (cold)
- 2 Tbsp granulated sugar
- ¾ Tbsp salt
- 1-2 Tbsp vinegar
- ½ tsp black pepper (ground)
Instructions
- Peel the cucumber and cut off its ends.
- Grate it roughly, I used my hand grate box. The other but less common option for this kind of salad is to slice the cucumber into thin circles.
- Make watery salad dressing: Place water, sugar, vinegar, salt, and ground pepper in a mixing bowl. Stir well until combined. Adjust the taste of the dressing to your liking.
- Place grated cucumber into a bowl and pour over with the dressing.
Notes
- Makes 2 portions.
- Serve this Czech cucumber salad cold in a little bowl and put a small spoon to it.
- It’s an ideal accompaniment to the main course dishes like řízek (Schnitzel), smažený sýr or sekaná.
- Cucumbers freshly picked from the garden can be grated with the skin without peeling them in advance.
- The commonly used vinegar in Czech kitchens has a pretty pungent aroma. The amount of vinegar depends on its strength. The more pungent vinegar taste, the less you will pour in the dressing. Moreover, it's also a matter of a personal preference in taste. Some people prefer a sharper flavor, others a milder one.
- A grated cucumber lets out a lot of water. It doesn't matter for this kind of watery dressings, so the cucumber does not have to be sweated out to get rid of any excess liquid.
DISCLAIMER: Because I come from Central Europe, my recipes are based on metric units such as grams or milliliters. Check out how I convert metric units to the U.S. system:
Conversion chart
A good balance of vinegar and sugar.. was wonderful on a hot day.
Thank you, Peter, for your kind words. And exactly, this cucumber salad tastes great on summer days or as a light side dish to heavier meals.