This recipe for cucumber vinegar salad is quite simple, resulting in a perfect side dish that is ideal for hot summer days. The classic cucumber salad has a special place in the hearts of Czechs thanks to its refreshing taste and versatile use as a side for many favorite family recipes.
➜ About this cucumber salad
It's a vegetable salad with grated cucumber in a distinctive water-based dressing. The tangy vinegar dressing involves a sweet and sour combination of sugar, salt, and vinegar and is very easy to make. To be clear, it does not contain sour cream, onions, fresh dill, or any other herbs!
Czechs call their cucumber salad “okurkový salát”. It is most often served as a light side to main dishes such as rizek (breaded and fried pork schnitzel), roast chicken, or holandsky rizek.
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. When buying cucumbers, look for firm ones without blemishes or soft spots.
- Granulated sugar
- Salt
- Water; cold
- Black pepper; ideally freshly ground
- Vinegar; the exact amount depends on the intensity of the vinegar taste. Either use distilled white vinegar or apple cider vinegar with 5% acidity.
✅ You’ll find the exact amount of ingredients below in the recipe card, which you can also print out.
➜ 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 outer skins of the cucumber and cut off its ends.
STEP 2: Shred it roughly. I used my hand grate box with large holes. The other, less common option for this kind of salad is to grate thin cucumber slices.
STEP 3: Make watery salad dressing: Place water, sugar, vinegar, salt, and ground pepper in a mixing bowl. Stir well to combine. Adjust the taste of the dressing to your liking.
MY TIP: If you like, add a tablespoon of sunflower or olive oil to the salad dressing.
STEP 4: Place grated cucumber into a bowl and pour the dressing mixture over it.
➜ Serving
Czech cucumber salad is a perfect and quick summer side dish. Serve it cold in a small to medium bowl and put a small spoon to it.
It’s an ideal accompaniment to the main course dishes like řízek (Schnitzel), fried cheese, or sekana meatloaf.
If you have leftover cucumber salad, transfer it to an airtight container and store it in the fridge, where it will be kept for 3-4 days.
MY TIP: This salad is perfect for garden parties, summer get-togethers, or family gatherings!
➜ Which Cucumber to Choose
The best cucumbers for this salad are English cucumbers with dark green and firm skins and no soft spots. In Czech, we call that kind "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, not soft.
➜ Useful Tips
- Fresh cucumbers picked from the garden can be grated with the skin on, without peeling them in advance.
- The final flavor of the salad dressing is wholly personal. Some people prefer a sharper taste, while others like a milder one. Play around with gradually adding vinegar, sugar, and possibly salt to make the salad taste how you want it to!
- A grated cucumber lets out a lot of water. It doesn't matter for this kind of watery dressing, so the cucumber does not have to be sweated out to get rid of excess liquid.
More Czech salads:
Tried this recipe?
Leave a review down in the comments! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Follow me on Facebook and Pinterest. Subscribe to my newsletter. Send me any question about Czech cuisine to my e-mail. I love hearing your feedback!
Czech Cucumber Salad – Okurkový salát
Ingredients
- 1 English cucumber
- 1 and ¾ cups water (420 ml) cold
- 2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
- ½ Tablespoon salt
- ¼ cup vinegar 5% acidity, I used apple cider vinegar
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper ground
Instructions
- Peel the cucumber and cut off its ends.
- Grate it roughly, I used my hand grate box with large holes. 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.
- Transfer grated cucumber into a bowl and pour over with the dressing.
Notes
- Makes two 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 on 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–I used apple cider vinegar with 5% acidity in this recipe. The more pungent vinegar tastes, the less you pour in the dressing. Moreover, it's also a matter of 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 dressing, 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
Peter Sustr
A good balance of vinegar and sugar.. was wonderful on a hot day.
Petra Kupská
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.
Mary Ray
Hello!! My friend and I celebrated our birthdays at a restaurant called Cafe Prague in Morrison Colorado USA. We had the most delicious cucumber salad and my friend googled to find a recipe for it and found your blog! The photos look just like it, and the recipe sounds like what we tasted. Im so happy to try to make it at home! I see that you included a link to the popular vinegar brand in Czech. My question is.... which type of vinegar do you use for this recipe, and do you know which type that would be in America?? Is it cider vinegar? White wine vinegar? Or something different?? Thank you again for posting this recipe. Now I will look at your other recipes! My mother is from Bavaria... just across the border from you. I think the cuisine is very similar.
Petra Kupská
Ahoj Mary, thank you for reaching out to me! If you had a meal at a restaurant called Cafe Prague, I believe the cucumber salad was indeed this Czech one, with a sweet and sour dressing (Prague is the capital of the Czech Republic). About the vinegar: Czech vinegar is very intense, I would replace it with white wine vinegar, I think it should be easily available in the US. Mixing the right flavor of dressing for cucumber salad is sometimes real alchemy 🙂 Add the vinegar a teaspoon at a time, stir and taste to see if the final flavor is good. If the taste is too intense, add a little water. Fingers crossed and I'd love to hear how the salad went!
P. S. Bavaria - Bavorsko in Czech are really our neighbors across the border! Their cuisine is fabulous, they are famous for their beer festivals, Bratwurst and so on. I like it!
Mary Ray
I made it this evening as you said. I started with 1 Tbsp of vinegar (I only had apple cider vinegar) but ended up adding another Tbsp. (I think next time 1 1/2 will be just to my liking). I also started with less salt.... but you were correct! It needed more! It was SO delicious!! Just like at the restaurant! I am so pleased and so grateful that we found your blog! This will be one of my "go-to" recipes!!
Petra Kupská
Ahoj Mary, thank you for your kind and supportive words! They made me very happy and most of all I'm glad that your cucumber salad was a success! Apple cider vinegar definitely works in the recipe, too; and I have one more tip: sometimes, you can substitute lemon juice for the vinegar. It's a matter of trying what tastes best 🙂
Mary
Still one of my favorite recipes!! Its so fresh and delicious! Thank you again for sharing it! I like to look at all your recipes and plan to try more!
Petra Kupská
Oh, thanks a lot for so nice words! 🙂 I am happy you liked the recipe; this salad counts among our favorite recipes at our house, especially in summer when fresh cucumbers are plentiful!
Jana
I think that 2 cups of water is excessive. I use 1/4 cup.
For those wondering about what vinegar to use in the US, it is Distilled White Vinegar available in any grocery store for about two bucks for half a gallon. You don’t need any fancy vinegars. White vinegar is the one we’d use in the CZ.
Petra Kupská
Ahoj Jana, thanks for your comment! I have associated cucumber salad with my childhood; back then, we usually made a salad of 1 long cucumber for 4 people as a light side dish for the main course. Hence the two cups of water, the dressing for cucumber salad used to be really watery in our house (we always drank the rest of the dressing from the bowl ;). But of course, it depends on preference; I believe the salad can be prepared slightly differently in every family. Anyway, thank you very much for clarifying the classic vinegar that can be found in the US. I will be happy to incorporate this information into my future recipes. If I use vinegar, I will list it as Distilled White Vinegar.
Carole
My mother made this with thinly sliced cucumbers. I loved it!
Petra Kupská
Thank you, Carole, for your lovely comment! My dad also sometimes used to slice cucumber into salad rounds, but then somehow he found that simply grating it is an easier task for men, so he stayed with this method 🙂 And I took over shredding the cucumbers!
Sandy
You brought back memories of my parents. My dad grew cucumbers every summer, mostly for making pickles, but my mom would make this salad weekly. She didn’t shred her cukes, but sliced them very thin. Everything else was the same. My dad would also drink the leftover juice from the salad. I’m going to have to make this in their memory. Thanks!
Petra Kupská
Thank you so much for your comment, now you're the one who brought back memories of my childhood! In our family, the cucumbers were usually grated, and while we kids would use a fork to eat the greens out of the salad, the adults would fight over who got to drink the juice from the salad! 😄