This Zesty Ingredient Takes Cucumber Salad From 'Meh' To Magnificent

If you're looking for a new side dish to step up your meal routine, look no further than cucumber salad. It's fresh, light, and easy to prepare — especially when you follow our super simple cucumber salad recipe. It has your usual suspects, including Persian cucumbers, salt, and pepper, but gets its unique flavor from a couple of funky ingredients. For one, a pureed avocado dressing adds creaminess, while pearl onions and their liquid, rather than the standard red or white onions, add acidity and an allium-y pop. 

Pearl onions are an ingredient that you should always keep in your freezer, as they can add a sweet, contrasting flavor to many recipes, including coq au vin. The jars of pearl onions that you'd find in the grocery store are much easier than chopping or preparing these tiny onions yourself. This pantry staple is often sold under the "cocktail onion" moniker and comes pickled, and it's partly that juice that makes them a compelling addition to our recipe. The brine balances the creaminess of the avocado and helps to make it pourable. Since the flavor of the pearl onions isn't as sharp as regular onions, you won't have to contend with stinky onion breath, nor the off-putting sharpness that many other types of onions bring to a nuanced recipe like this one. 

The cocktail onions don't make this recipe overly pungent, which means finding complementary ingredients for it is easy. If you prefer a bit more heat, try adding some chili crunch, chili oil, or red chili flakes to your salad; they will cut through the creaminess of the avocado and balance out the bite a bit more. You can also add fresh herbs, like dill, to uplift the bite even more. 

Cucumber salad is very light, so you'll want to avoid serving it with an especially heavy entree, such as a pot roast. Think summery dishes — like this grilled garlic picanha steak recipe or garlic and honey salmon kebabs. It's important to note that the cucumber salad doesn't stay very fresh for long — and you may have to contend with browned avocados — so this is one side dish that you'll want to make right before you need to eat it, and don't plan on leftovers.