Tomato, Onion, and Cucumber Salad
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A Southern staple at barbecues, family gatherings, and reunions, we love the juicy and refreshing experience of eating this fresh tomato, onion, and cucumber salad!
If I had to describe the flavor of this salad in one word, I’d say refreshing. This is the embodiment of everything a body craves on a hot summer’s day. Well, everything a body craves that doesn’t come with a little paper umbrella in the glass! This simple and easy tomato, onion, and cucumber salad recipe features juicy chunks, slices, and tossed in a delicious vinegar and sugar dressing.
I recommend making this colorfully crisp and tangy summer salad in advance to let it fully marinate in the dressing. Then serve it at your next summer gathering and prepare to win over your friends and family! You can also have fun with this salad and add some interesting additions, which I mention in the Recipe Notes section below.
Recipe Ingredients
- Two freshly ripe tomatoes (can be whatever you have on hand – heirloom tomatoes, grape tomatoes…)
- Two cucumber
- One purple or red onion (or , the choice is yours)
- Sugar
- Water, and…
- White vinegar. Go for the cheap kind here, make me proud!
Cut up your tomatoes.
You can cut the in chunks, slices, or dice them. I’m doing chunks because it’s pretty that way.
Peel and cut your . However, if you prefer you can also skip peeling your .
Cut up your onion.
I slice mine and then cut the slices in half, still leaving pretty big pieces.
This way, those of you who don’t care for the raw onions can pick them out easily enough.
Dump all of that into a bowl. You can also opt to sprinkle these vegetables with and right now before adding the dressing.
Now we have to make our dressing.
For this, all we are going to do is combine equal parts water, vinegar, and sugar and stir it up.
I start with 1/2 cup of each but you can do more if you like. I wouldn’t do any less though.
This is me adding my sugar to the vinegar and water mixture.
Stir that up good.
Recipe Tip
Don’t worry if your sugar isn’t dissolved all of the way because we’re going to let all of this marinate in the fridge for a spell before we eat.
Pour this over your veggies and stir.
Cover and place in the refrigerator for a few hours before serving.
It will make more juice but I like to go give it a good stir after an hour or so.
Save some for me!
Storage
Store this tomato, onion, and cucumber salad in an airtight container in the fridge for up to five days.
Recipe Notes
- If you like, add some fresh herbs to your salad. Dried or and oregano will give this salad recipe a Mediterranean feel, while I also like sprinkling fresh dill or parsley on top.
- Other fun additions to make to this salad include crumbled feta cheese, chunks of avocado, bell pepper chunks, and mozzarella balls.
- Instead of white vinegar, you could also use either red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar. If you’re going for a Mediterranean-inspired , you can opt for too.
- Another option is using halves instead of chunks.
Recipe FAQs
What do you serve with tomato, onion, and cucumber salad?
Serve this refreshing salad with any grilled or barbecued meat and a side of crusty bread. My suggestions include grilled chicken tenderloins, pork chops, or slow-roasted beef brisket.
Can you make this salad ahead of time?
Yes, I recommend refrigerating the salad for a few hours before serving to let the vinegar sink into the vegetables. So you could definitely make this in advance the night before.
You may also like these other sensational salad recipes:
Cucumber Salad Creamy and Delicious
Fresh Fruit Salad with Lemon Honey Dressing
Low Carb Broccoli Cauliflower Salad
Ingredients
- 2 tomatoes
- 2 cucumbers
- 1 purple or red onion
- water
- white vinegar
- sugar
Instructions
- Peel and slice cucumbers, and chop tomatoes and red onion. Combine all in a large bowl.2 tomatoes, 2 cucumbers, 1 purple or red onion
- Mix up a dressing of equal parts vinegar, water, and sugar. I start with 1/2 cup each of my dressing ingredients.water, white vinegar, sugar
- Pour the vinegar dressing over the vegetables and refrigerate (ideally overnight).
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I love your anecdotes of your family!!! They really make of think of remembrances from my family and youth! My grandmother made this same salad but it had a sour cream base instead of water (her mother came over from Germany) and it was really delish!!!!
Thanks for all your great recipes!!
Hey Christy,
My grandmother would make this also but she added salt and pepper to the vineagar and sugar and water. She called this her Kentucky Goullash….
I have also made it and used Zesty Italian Dressing instead of the sugar and water, I left a bit of the vineagar. I have tried Red wine vineagar Roasted Garlic. The vineagar gives it the little kick it needs. I have some in the fridge can’t wait to get home!!!!
We used to have a similar salad when we were growing up. It was just cukes and vinegar. mmmmm was it ever tasty. Can you believe that none of my kids or my husband like cukes OR vinegar???!!! I should make me some just for myself. I’ll have to try it with the onions since I’ve never had it like that before…but you can keep the maters 😉 Thanks Christy for reminding me how much I love my adaptation of Fire and Ice Salad.
Alright ya’ll, noooow I have something in common with Mama Janice…..I “prefer” (like the lady that my mama taught me to be) not to eat that onion …..raw ….buuuuuut iffens it is Vidalia, ya might jes twist my arm. Of course, when I am “company,” I will politely eat it all after a long hard day at the Space center ;} Sooooooo bring on those delish cukes, really red ripe tomatoes and pour on a gob (my scientific term) of vinegar etc and watch me haul my fanny back into the kitchen for more. Does anyone in the South (Sharon?) have ripened tomatoes yet…….I just planted mine as we had low 30 temps/frost not more than a week ago here in the northeast. I wannna be in the South nowwwww……..wahhh.
Christy I love this salad. I use Italian dressing on mine but I am so glad to see the dressing you make because that is the one my grandma use to make and now I can do it that way…yummy!
This is good, we have also used italian dressing on ours, yummy!
Thanks for the recipe. I love all those ingredients. Right now I am getting tons of tomatoes. Just waiting on some cukes.:) And My red onions didn’t make it.:( I will have to try this when dh is home for R&R. I think this would go good with a nice piece of steak.:) Whatcha think?
Sharon:)
I think my mouth is watering and I’m looking for my place setting at your table as we speak!!!!!