Mediterranean Cucumber Tomato Salad

Take advantage of fresh summer produce with a Mediterranean Cucumber Tomato Salad. This healthy summer salad recipe contains diced cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, fresh herbs, thinly sliced onion, Kalamata olives and feta cheese. It's the perfect light, low calorie summer side dish!

When gardens are overflowing with cucumbers and tomatoes, you can never have too many cucumber and tomato salad recipes right? That's my motto! Especially since you can't freeze or can cucumber, and tomato canning takes a lot of time and expertise. This can make preserving those two vegetables a bit of a challenge.

Luckily, you can't go wrong with my recipe for Mediterranean Cucumber Tomato Salad. A crisp cucumber tomato salad is such a classic summer side dish that helps to cool you down on hot days. Cucumber salads are light, fresh, easy and so healthy!

If you love the flavors of Mediterranean cuisine, then you also need to try my White Bean and Feta Salad and my Mediterranean Style Creamy Chicken Salad!

Jump to:

• Why you'll love this recipe
• Ingredients
• Equipment needed
• Step-by-step instructions
• Variations
• Recipes you might also like
• Serving suggestions
• How to store
• 📖 Recipe
• Follow me

Why you'll love this recipe

• No cooking involved! This makes it perfect for a hot summer day.
• Stores well in the refrigerator.
• It's the best alternative side dish to all of the heavy, carb filled pasta salads and potato salads on constant rotation during the summer months.

Ingredients

• Cucumber - You can use any variety of fresh cucumbers for this recipe. English cucumber, Persian cucumbers, hothouse cucumbers or just any regular cucumbers you find at the grocery store! If the variety you choose has a thin, delicate skin, then peeling isn't necessary. However, if your cucumber has rough, thick skin, you'll want to peel it.
• Tomato - Fresh, juicy tomatoes are a must for this recipe! I prefer to use either cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes.
• Red onion - Since tomato and cucumber can be very delicate vegetables once they're sliced open, I prefer to use a very thinly sliced red onion.
• Feta cheese - What's a Mediterranean salad without feta cheese? You'll want full-fat, crumbly feta cheese.
• Fresh herbs - This simple salad recipe calls for fresh basil and fresh parsley - both of which are abundant during the summer months. I think fresh oregano would also be a delicious addition! I didn't include it in the recipe though because I find that fresh oregano can be hard to regularly source at the grocery store.
• Kalamata olives - No Mediterranean cucumber salad is complete without Kalamata olives! Make sure you purchased pitted Kalamata olives!
• Lemon juice, red wine vinegar & olive oil

*Detailed recipe instructions are found in the recipe card below.

Equipment needed

• Large mixing bowl
• Cutting board & chopping knife
• Measuring cups & measuring spoons

Step-by-step instructions

Step 1: Start by cutting up all of the cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and fresh herbs. Give the olives a rough chop as well. Add all of the produce and herbs to a large bowl, along with the Kalamata olives.

Pro tip: Do not leave out the Kalamata olives! They add so much delicious, briny flavor!

Step 2: Drizzle the olive oil, lemon juice and red wine vinegar over the salad mixture.

Step 3: Give the cucumber tomato salad a good stir and then top it with crumbled feta cheese.

Add salt and pepper to taste if desired. I actually skip the salt and pepper! The Kalamata olives and the feta cheese add plenty of salt flavor for me.

Variations

This is an easy salad recipe made using simple ingredients. This makes it easy to change something up based on your taste preferences.

You could use different fresh herbs like oregano or fresh mint. It could also be drizzled with a Greek salad dressing. If you want to add some protein to this recipe, you could mix in some garbanzo beans.

I really love the lemon juice and red wine vinegar, but I also think a reduced balsamic vinegar would be delicious. My recipe for Balsamic Roasted Asparagus and Brussels Sprouts includes directions for homemade reduced balsamic vinegar.

Recipes you might also like

Serving suggestions

This Mediterranean salad recipe is the best choice for a light lunch or dinner. It's also a delicious addition to any BBQ or backyard cookout.

You could serve this vegetable salad over mixed greens, for a spin on a traditional Greek salad recipe. It would also be so good served with fresh, homemade pita bread!

I would definitely make this Mediterranean Cucumber Tomato Salad recipe and serve it with BBQ Chicken Drumsticks, Chicken and Shrimp Kabobs or Grilled Hot Dogs.

How to store

Store salad leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. I think it's best stored in a glass container.

A tomato cucumber salad recipe can be made in advance and stored in the refrigerator. However, water from the cucumber and juices from the tomato will continue to seep out the longer it's stored. For this reason, I prefer to make this recipe right before I want to serve it and eat it at room temperature.

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📖 Recipe

This is a beautiful salad filled with fresh ingredients and delicious Mediterranean flavors! I hope you'll add it to your list of easy recipes and make it over and over again this summer!

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