This Classic '70s Salad Is The Cookout Side Everyone's Craving Again

It's fresh and zingy — and it's finally regaining popularity after experiencing a brief vogue as a side paired with dinner items everyone ate in the 1970s. Cucumber and onion salad has gone viral on TikTok, where its seasoning and ingredients have gained it new admirers. The creamy texture and the herbaceous, tangy flavor of the dill and the creamy dressing the salad is usually bathed in clash wonderfully with the sharp but sweet flavor of the red onions and the mild, slightly saline flavor of the cucumbers.

The recipe is simple enough; it combines the aforementioned vegetables with a handmade dressing, usually crafted out of mayonnaise, fresh dill, vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper. Some versions eschew mayonnaise for a simple vinegar dressing and add other vegetables like peppers, or they use sour cream instead. You can even add zesty ingredients to your cucumber salad like cocktail onions. The choice is up to the maker as to what the dish should taste like in the end – whether it should be creamy or if it should be zesty with a sharp bite. Chilling it, naturally, will bring out the best of its flavors. Its simplicity makes it a wonderful potluck, picnic, or cookout dish — if you're careful to keep it cold to avoid the dressing from spoiling.

While the salad's popularity peaked alongside disco and Nehru jackets, versions of recipes for cucumber onion salad as we know it have existed for a very long time. The Harvard Historical Society dates the version they have on file back to the 1800s, though it's been around since the 18th or 19th century. In Germany, it's called gurkensalat, and it's thought to have originated in central Europe after cucumbers were widely cultivated in the region sometime in the 18th century. Cucumbers were originally grown as a food source in India, then they spread to Egypt, Rome, and all points eastward through trade and cultural changes brought on by wars and annexation.

In modern times, the salad has been losing favor with the populace, fading out of vogue in the 1980s and 1990s as taste changed and convenience became more of a factor for cooks. Though it hasn't been talked about much for a good four decades, its return to center stage in the digital era definitely hints that people are looking for something new to try. This old-school salad that no one eats anymore has become the belle of the ball once more — all because of a newfound yen for a tastebud teaser from the past.