Sesame Cucumber Noodle Salad
This cold cucumber salad is a twist on the Chinese-style cucumber salad. It’s light, refreshing and easy to put together.
Since I’ve been obsessed lately with spiralizing vegetables, I decided to make a sesame cucumber noodle salad. The cucumbers are spiralized into long strands which are so fun to eat. I then seasoned the raw salad with flavors similar to my Smashed Chinese cucumber salad recipe, though I did change it up a bit to really emphasize that sesame flavor.
As mentioned in my One Pot Zucchini Noodles post, I am just now jumping on the vegetable noodle trend and I really enjoy it. Especially with the summer heat, I prefer eating vegetables over heavy carbs and spiralizing vegetables to make long noodle strands is really easy.
We recently got a new pet addition to our home. Okay, it’s not a real pet. It’s actually a very small lizard that suddenly appeared one day and is living under one of our rose bushes. We see it everyday around 6PM, but once it hears us it quickly dashes back into hiding. One of these days I’ll have my camera ready. It’s been on our property for a few weeks now and we are treating it almost like a pet. I’m tempted to make it a pet, but I know that I can’t. It’s a lesson I learned the hard way in my youth when I tried to make every living thing I caught into a pet. It never ended well.
We do sort of treat it like a pet though. We are always watching out for it when we pull our car into the driveway to make sure we don’t run it over and we’re careful not to trim the rosebush so the little guy doesn’t lose his shelter. Hopefully, he’ll stick around.
For these noodles, I purchased the iperfect kitchen hand-held vegetable spiralizer* on Amazon last month and it is working great. I can usually spiralize an entire zucchini or cucumber without the noodles breaking. And it’s also really easy to clean. It comes with a little brush which you can then use to gently scrub anything stuck on the blades.
I really love how the long strands stay intact. I don’t know why, but it seems to make the eating experience even better.
Special Tools:
iperfect kitchen hand-held vegetable spiralizer*
*Some of the links contained in this post are affiliate links. Much like referral codes, this means I earn a small commission if you purchase a product I referred (at no extra charge to you).
Sesame Cucumber Noodle Salad
Ingredients
- 3 Persian cucumbers, you can use other types, but you will have to adjust sauce ingredients if your cucumbers are bigger or smaller
- 1/2 -1 tbsp sesame oil
- 1 tbsp light soy sauce, if you use regular soy sauce make sure you use less and stay away from the very dark black soy sauce as it will make your cucumber noodles brown
- 1 tsp white sesame seeds
- 1/2 tsp minced garlic
- 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes or 1/2 tsp sriracha sauce
- salt, as needed
Instructions
- Spiralize your cucumbers and place into a bowl. Sprinkle a little salt on the surface of the cucumber noodles and let sit in about 15-20 minutes. You will notice your cucumbers are now much more watery. Drain water from bowl.
- Add sesame oil. soy sauce, garlic and pepper flakes/sriracha. Toss to completely mix into cucumbers. Taste and adjust as needed. If you find it needs more salt, add salt here rather than adding more soy sauce, otherwise your cucumbers will get really dark. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Eat right away or you can also store in the fridge and serve cold later.
This recipe inspired me to purchase the spiralizer! No regrets!! This is hands down a fresh and so delicious salad! So different and so yummy! I could NOT get enough! Thanks! Keep spiralizing! ;0)
yay! so glad you are enjoying your spiralizer. I definitely have more ideas coming up!
Awwwww, a lizard friend.
I need to get that vegetable spiralizer!
it’s so much fun! I think I’ll do carrots next
which spiralizer do you have? I was reading about the few on the market and think i want to buy the Mueller. it’s supposedly basic in a good way ~ easier to clean too (one online reviewer said)
Hi Lorri, I purchased the hand held iperfect one. I actually have a link to it in the post too for reference. I really love it. It’s basic and easy to clean
You will need to name the lizard ; – )
hehe, i agree!