6/14/18

Cucumber & Tomato Salad with a Simple Summer Vinaigrette

A simple recipe for a perfect summer salad made with cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and an easy oil and vinegar dressing.

Mama always kept a little garden with cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, zucchini, peppers (hot, sweet, REALLY HOT, etc.) and strawberries in the summer. Between that and the field peas that grew wild at the edge of the field between our and Nanny’s house, we could always get something fresh for supper.

As a kid, I never got too excited about the squash, zucchini or peppers (though I sure would now) but I always looked forward to field peas and rice, strawberry ANYTHING and fresh sliced cucumbers and tomatoes.

I’m pretty sure there weren’t too many summertime suppers at my house that didn’t have a bowl of cucumbers and/or tomatoes sliced up ready to eat.

Cucumber & Tomato Salad with a Simple Summer Vinaigrette | A simple recipe for a perfect summer salad made with cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and an easy oil and vinegar dressing.

Most times we just ate them plain but sometimes we’d have the cucumbers with a splash of white vinegar on them or the tomatoes with a little Italian dressing.

These days my favorite way to make them is to whip up this easy vinaigrette and make a simple salad of cucumbers, tomatoes and onions.

This dressing is very mild and doesn’t overpower the taste of the fresh veggies. I love to make a big batch of it and keep it on-hand for salads and to have as a quick marinade for chicken.

Cucumber & Tomato Salad with a Simple Summer Vinaigrette | A simple recipe for a perfect summer salad made with cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and an easy oil and vinegar dressing.

You can toss some chicken pieces in a bowl with the dressing, let it marinate for a few hours then grill it up for a super-quick, easy and DELICIOUS weeknight meal (seriously so perfect in the summer!). 

Since I make the dressing without any herbs or spices (other than salt, pepper and sugar) I often add garlic and rosemary to it when I’m marinating chicken.

You can really dress this vinaigrette up with whichever herbs and spices you prefer. It’s just a great, simple, basic dressing that you can make your own. Sometimes I use plain vegetable oil (usually canola oil at my house), sometimes I use olive oil and sometimes I use a combination of the two. Olive oil certainly has a stronger flavor than other oils so take that into consideration when you’re making yours.

Simple Summer Vinaigrette | A simple recipe for a perfect summer salad or marinade

Serve Cucumber & Tomato Salad with Southern classics like these:

Cucumber & Tomato Salad with a Simple Summer Vinaigrette | A simple recipe for a perfect summer salad made with cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and an easy oil and vinegar dressing.

Serve Cucumber & Tomato Salad with Italian favorites classics like these:

Cucumber & Tomato Salad with a Simple Summer Vinaigrette | A simple recipe for a perfect summer salad made with cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and an easy oil and vinegar dressing.
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Simple Summer Vinaigrette | A simple recipe for a perfect summer salad or marinade


3 comments:

  1. Yum! Thanks for sharing the dressing recipe!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love this combo in the summer!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Barbara Logan11/23/19, 9:55 AM

    I had been craving a Tomato/Cucumber salad for weeks ànd came across this recipe yesterday. Made it last night and it was delicious! Unfortunately, we have no leftovers. Thanks so much for sharing.

    ReplyDelete

Hi there! While I’m not able to respond to every comment, I try hard to answer any questions that haven’t been addressed in the post, recipe or in other comments.

I can tell you now 1) I have no idea if you can substitute Minute Rice or brown rice in my recipes because I’ve never used them and 2) If I know how to convert a recipe to a Crock Pot version, I will make a note about it (otherwise, I don’t know).

And though I may not respond to them all, I do read each and every comment and I LOVE to hear from you guys! Thanks, y’all! - Mandy