Contemporary cucumber salad is a trademark of summer season picnics and yard barbecues for many people. Simply-picked, thinly sliced cukes marinated with onions in a vinegar dressing sounds as scrumptious as it’s nutritious! With heat climate and sunshine season upon us, cucumber recipes are a low-cal, refreshing and surprisingly wholesome solution to get in your every day veggie servings.
Powerhouses of Vitamins, Electrolytes, and Hydration
Do you know that cucumbers are about 96 p.c water? In fact, with all that water they’re undoubtedly hydrating! Maintaining your fluid consumption is crucial for well being and weight reduction, significantly throughout the warmth of the summer season. Water additionally retains your joints lubricated and provides you vitality.
Nonetheless, cucumbers are extra than simply crunchy water. With cukes, you additionally get vitamins like magnesium, potassium and nutritional vitamins C and Okay. When you don’t peel and seed them, you additionally get fiber and beta-carotene. In accordance with one research, cucumber seeds are loaded with calcium.
Bonus: Cukes include two plant chemical compounds, lignans and cucurbitacins, that will guard towards sure cancers.
Stunning Enjoyable Truth: Cucumbers, like tomatoes, are literally a fruit!
Simple Cucumber Recipes For Contemporary Summer season Meals
Time so as to add some extra cucumber recipes to your repertoire, significantly when you’ve got a surplus out of your yard backyard! Listed below are 20 straightforward cucumber recipes you’re going to take pleasure in guilt-free all summer season lengthy.
Entire wheat orzo—a rice-shaped pasta—makes the proper base for wholesome pasta salad recipes when paired with contemporary summer season veggies like cucumber. On this model, we add cucumbers, tomatoes and onions for a completely refreshing summer season salad that can make you cross up mayonnaise-y potato salad each time. It’s dressed with a piquant lemon dressing fabricated from lemon juice, zest, olive oil and black pepper. The longest step of this recipe is ready for the orzo to cook dinner. One serving is 276 energy and counts as one Good Carb, half of a PowerFuel, one Additional and one Vegetable serving.
Get the Greek Orzo Summer season Salad recipe.
Cucumbers shine within the creamy avocado salsa that tops this gentle, flaky fish dinner. Tilapia is coated in a dry-rub seasoning comprised of paprika, cayenne, thyme, oregano, garlic, onion powder and black pepper. Sautéed in gentle butter, it’s capped with the refreshing salsa that mixes chopped cucumber, purple onions, avocado and lime juice. The recipe makes 4 servings at 210 energy every. One serving counts as one PowerFuel and two Extras.
Get the Blackened Tilapia with Cucumber Avocado Topping recipe.
Cucumber takes the place of bread so you’ll be able to have two complete deli sandwiches for lunch! Unfold with a wedge of cheese and topped with deli meat, it’s a low-carb and low-calorie lunch that you just’ll need to make day by day. One serving is just 108 energy and counts as one PowerFuel, one Additional and one Vegetable. You too can be at liberty to get inventive with this one and make several types of cucumber sandwich recipes with totally different toppings.
Get the Deli Cucumber Sandwich recipe.
Restaurant and store-bought sushi can cover a great deal of energy. Making your personal retains it gentle and wholesome. This inventive tackle sushi turns it right into a tower with your entire favourite substances. Tower development is straightforward: Begin with a candy and savory mango-cuke combination, adopted by chopped sushi-grade tuna, avocado and spicy brown rice. Refrigerate for half-hour earlier than flipping it over and serving with a sprinkling of black sesame seeds. This dish for classy palates will be served over veggie noodles, a salad or eaten as is for less than 295 energy. On Nutrisystem it counts as one SmartCarb, one PowerFuel and two Extras.
Get the Sushi Tuna Tower recipe.
Did we now have you at “3-Ingredient?” This can be one of many best cucumber snack recipes for weight reduction! Partially peel a cucumber, slice it into sticks and dirt every one with chili lime seasoning and Pink Himalayan salt. Eat. It’s that straightforward and delish! One serving is just 40 energy and counts as one limitless Vegetable on Nutrisystem.
Get the Spicy Cucumber Snack Sticks recipe.
Spend money on a low-cost spiralizer—you gained’t be sorry! It makes veggie pasta swaps which might be nice should you’re attempting to chop carbs or energy. Strive making cucumber noodle recipes made with English cucumbers (no seeds). We did and mixed them with purple bell peppers and purple onions for this straightforward salad. Prime these veggies with a home made dressing comprised of sesame oil, rice vinegar, decreased sodium soy sauce, purple chili flakes and a few drops of stevia. A sprinkle of sesame seeds adorns this 49-calorie aspect dish that counts as one Vegetable and one Additional on Nutrisystem.
Get the Sesame Soy Cucumber Salad recipe.
This cool-as-a-cucumber salad makes 4 servings. Nonetheless, at 34 energy per serving, you may eat all 4 with out sabotaging your weight reduction! Plus, it’s really easy to make: toss collectively this mélange of sliced cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, purple onions and mint. Topped with a tasty home made lemon dressing, one serving counts as one Vegetable on the Nutrisystem plan. It’s among the best cucumber salad recipes!
Get the Mediterranean Salad recipe.
When you’ve by no means had it, farro is a nutty, chewy type of wheat that’s tremendous versatile. Mixed with deshelled cooked edamame, coleslaw combine, shredded purple cabbage, chopped inexperienced onion and cucumbers, it’s the proper summer season aspect dish. Costume it up with a mix of soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, olive oil and garlic powder, then sprinkle with some cashews and black sesame seeds. It counts as one SmartCarb, one PowerFuel, one Vegetable and one Additional.
Get the Asian Cashew and Farro Salad recipe.
When you like tabbouleh—the Center Jap grain salad with cukes, lemon, parsley and mint—you’ll love this take that substitutes quinoa for the basic bulgur. Salad substances embrace diced cucumber, chilled cooked quinoa, purple onion, mint and roughly chopped contemporary parsley. It’s dressed frivolously with a mix of olive oil, apple cider vinegar, lime juice and black pepper. One serving is 262 energy and counts as one SmartCarb, one and a half Greens and two and a half Extras on Nutrisystem.
Get the Quinoa Cucumber Salad recipe.
This lunch recipe turns deli meat and different savory substances into easy skewers that are far more enjoyable to eat than a plain outdated sandwich. You possibly can select your favourite low-salt deli meats (rooster, turkey, ham or roast beef) and alter a couple of substances—add pickles should you don’t like black olives, for instance—to fit your style. The recipe begins with 4 slices of deli meat, which you thread on a skewer with cheese cubes, thick slices of romaine lettuce, cherry tomatoes, black olives, cucumber slices and items of complete wheat pita bread. Your lunch (two skewers!) clocks in at solely 253 energy and counts as one SmartCarb, two PowerFuels and one Additional.
Get the Deli Meat and Cheese Kabobs recipe.
This new tackle the outdated picnic customary will change into one among your go-tos. It’s really easy to make! A chopped seedless cucumber marinates for 4 hours in a dressing of white vinegar, contemporary parsley, chopped contemporary fill, minced garlic and salt. You’ll style that zesty dressing in each chunk. Minimal energy for one tasty Vegetable serving.
Get the Zesty Cucumber and Dill Salad recipe.
If this reminds you of Greek tzatziki sauce, that’s as a result of it has the identical substances: plain Greek yogurt, chopped cucumber, dill, garlic and lemon juice. It makes a beautiful low-cal (73.5 energy per serving) dip for crackers or crudité, an expansion for sandwiches or perhaps a topping that turns a plain broiled rooster breast into one thing extra scrumptious. One serving counts as half of a PowerFuel.
Get the Cucumber Dill Dip recipe.
Begin your morning off proper with this tasty sandwich chockfull of veggies. It’s made with a Nutrisystem Honey Wheat Bagel topped with fat-free cream cheese, sliced cucumbers and uncooked bell peppers. It has the correct quantity of chew, creaminess and crunch to fulfill each savory breakfast lover. One is just 184 energy and counts as one Nutrisystem Breakfast, half of a Vegetable serving and one Additional.
Get the Veggie Delight Bagel Breakfast Sandwich recipe.
Giving nachos the Greek therapy is perfection! You’ll make some pita chips from three items of complete wheat pita bread, which you’ll high with shredded cooked rooster and feta cheese. Simply bake it to soften the cheese somewhat. Lastly, high these tasty nachos with cherry tomatoes, diced cucumber, chopped purple onion, contemporary parsley, tzatziki dip and sliced black olives. The recipe makes six servings, every clocking in at 175 energy. It counts as one SmartCarb, on PowerFuel and one Additional.
Get the Greek Shredded Rooster Nachos recipe.
Use the seafood of your selection on this recipe (which requires imitation crabmeat) however stick to the various crunchy veggies: This wholesome dinner bowl comprises Persian cucumbers, avocados, carrots, edamame and scallion over riced cauliflower. Wearing a combo of sunshine mayonnaise and sriracha, plus a sprinkling of sesame seeds, that is one satisfying meal which clocks in at 317 energy and counts as two PowerFuels, two Extras and two Greens.
Get the Cauliflower Rice Sushi Bowl recipe.
World’s best brunch—for you and a good friend or companion—or simply an additional particular breakfast, this tackle avocado toast begins with two slices of complete wheat bread. In fact, you add a schmear of creamy avocado, however you then high with skinny slices of cucumber, halved cherry tomatoes, chopped Kalamata olives, decreased fats feta cheese, dried oregano and a pinch of crushed purple pepper flakes if you would like somewhat extra chunk to your breakfast. One slice is 205 energy and counts as one SmartCarb one PowerFuel and two Extras.
Get the Mediterranean Avocado Toast recipe.
Cucumber serves because the vessel for a scrumptious crab salad comprised of crab (in fact!) combined with lemon juice, gentle mayonnaise, minced cilantro and diced purple onion. Place combination into the scooped out heart of one-inch cucumber slices. It comprises 150 energy per serving, plus 17 grams of satisfying protein. This tasty lunch, dinner or occasion appetizer counts as one PowerFuel, two Greens and one Additional.
Get the Crab Stuffed Cucumber Cups recipe.
Try these different scrumptious cucumber cup recipe concepts:
This heat climate appetizer is cute, colourful and artistic. Simple Melon Prosciutto Skewers are easy to make and have a novel candy and salty taste combo. Contemporary melon cubes and slices of prosciutto are stacked onto toothpicks with cucumber slices, contemporary basil and mozzarella balls for a straightforward no-bake appetizer.
Get the Melon Prosciutto Skewers recipe.
Cucumbers are a staple for summer season salad recipes, together with this diet-friendly Panzanella Salad that packs within the vitamin and taste. Along with crunchy cukes, it additionally has artichoke hearts and shredded rotisserie rooster for loads of fiber and protein. The home made French dressing will certainly change into a go-to staple for your entire aspect salads.
Get the Mediterranean Panzanella Salad recipe.
Summer season meal prep is made straightforward and scrumptious with this good, refreshing and wholesome lunch thought. That includes crisp veggies like cucumbers, cherry tomatoes and onions, plus Greek salad staples like olives, chickpeas and feta cheese, this Mason Jar Greek Salad is made for grabbing and happening the way in which out the door.
Get the Mason Jar Greek Salad recipe.
