Cucumber Salad with Peanut Sauce

Cucumber Salad with Peanut Sauce is an easy make ahead dish to keep in the refrigerator and assemble quickly for fresh, fast meals.

It doesn’t take a lot of time to get creative in the kitchen.

 One recipe = endless combinations for your next make ahead appetizer, salad or main dish.

Assemble ingredients: Soy sauce, peanut or any nut butter, hot sauce, cayenne, ginger, any kind of nut, lime juice, mint and cucumbers. Not pictured: honey or a dash of your favorite sweetener.

Use the tines of your fork to scrape lines down the sides of an English cucumber all the way around to create a pretty edge. You could also use 2 regular cucumbers, peeled to create stripes or unpeeled.

Cut the cucumbers in half, lengthwise, then slice thinly. Cucumber slices will last, covered in the fridge, for about 5 days. This salad makes 6-8 servings, so you can reserve some of the cucumbers and sauce in the fridge to make multiple meals. Vegetable tray idea: slice cucumbers into sticks the size of baby carrots. Make a plate of cucumber sticks and other raw vegetables like bell peppers and carrots and serve with the peanut sauce as a dip. Add a little extra peanut butter to the sauce to make the dip thicker.

Line your measuring cup with plastic wrap before measuring 1/4 cup peanut butter for easy clean up. If you don’t like spicy, skip the hot sauce and cayenne.  Peel and grate fresh ginger with a zester or substitute 1/2 teaspoon dry ground ginger powder. After mixing your sauce, taste it and add a teaspoon or two of honey or sugar substitute if you like.

Stack 10 -12 mint leaves together at a time, roll up tightly and thinly slice into ribbons. Save a few smaller whole leaves for garnish.

Toss cucumbers with the peanut sauce, add peanuts and mint ribbons and serve.

Chopsticks optional.

See variations below for magical combinations and new meal planning ideas! 

[tasty-recipe id=”7591″]