Recipe for Creamy Cucumbers?

Hi Mj, I went to Foodnetwork.com and typed in Creamy Cucumber Salad, many recipes came up. Sounds delicious! And a lot of ideas how to use those trillion cukes you get from the garden this time of year.

There are lots of different recipes. The one I like best is 8 oz sour cream,1 large clove garlic minced, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste. Blend it together, pour it over 4 peeled diced cucumbers, chill for an hour, stir and serve. Some like to add a little dill to this, but I like the fresh garlic flavor.

Here's my grandma's recipe:

1) Thinly slice 1 cucumber; sprinkle with 1 teaspoon salt; let stand 30
minutes. Drain. (This helps eliminate the excess water in the cucumber, so you won't have a sloppy mess.)

2) Combine 1/2 cup sour cream, 1 tablespoon vinegar, 1 to 2 drops Tabasco sauce, 2 tablespoons chopped chives, 1 teaspoon dill seed, and dash pepper. If needed, you can add 1/2 tablespoon sugar.

3) Pour mixture over cucumbers. Chill about 30 minutes.

My father in law makes this dish and we love it. Although there is no "recipe" in our family, it has maybe a 1/2 cup of mayo, a dollop of sour cream, a tiny bit of cider vinegar and sugar. Just keep adding and tasting to your liking.

The recipes already given seem to be for a Greek dipping sauce called tzatziki. If this is what you are looking for, you can find many recipes by Googling the word tzatziki. The important thing about making it is to trim out the juicy part (seedy part) of the cucumber, to salt the cucumbers and allow them to dry after seeding them, and to drain excess fluids from the yogurt so that the sauce is thick enough for dipping. One way to drain the yogurt is to put a paper coffee filter in a strainer, set the strainer over a bowl, put the yogurt into the coffee-filter-lined strainer, place a damp cloth over it all and set it in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. If you start with Greek style yogurt, you may be able to skip the draining. I think it comes drained. Although you can Google many recipes, this one seems to be a good one: http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com/2007/07/worlds-best-tza.... However, tzatziki is a dipping sauce and cucumber is an ingredient. It is traditionally served with pita bread for dipping. It is not a dressing that is used over cucumbers.

If Grandma wasn't Greek, she may have been using what sounds like the recipe for the dressing used in broccoli salad. If you Google 'broccoli salad' you will find several versions of this recipe. I feel they almost always call for twice as much sugar as they should, and I have a pretty strong sweet-tooth. I always cut way back on the sugar in these recipes and folks seem to love it, even my son and husband who do not like to eat broccoli any other way.

Traditionally, the broccoli salad recipe calls for chopped broccoli, raisins, bacon, sunflower seeds, and red onion. The dressing is nothing more than mayo, sugar, salt, and vinegar. It may be good over cucumbers as well, but the real secret to the great flavor of the broccoli salad is the sweetness of the dressing mixed with the strong flavors of the bacon and onion. In my estimation, once you have the bacon, onion and dressing you can toss in just about any vegetable you want and it will work.

Myself, I like to make the broccoli salad with turkey bacon, use dried blueberries & cranberries instead of raisins, and replace the sunflower seeds with chopped pecans.

my mom always did just the vinegar and sour cream. YUM

I learned this recipe from my mom...we both dont use exact measurements however...we go by taste. It also depends on how many cucumbers you are making. Our ingredients are exactly what you mentioned...Cucumbers, mayo, vinegar and sugar, with the exception of a little salt too.

Slice the blossom end off of the cucumber and use the part cut off and rub against the rest of the cucumber in circular motion....this draws out a white paste and removes some of the bitterness (= less burps :) ). Discard blossom end and slice one slice off end with the white paste and discard that slice also.
Peel cucumbers in stripes and slice about 1/8" thick. As you place slices in strainer over bowl, salt the cucumbers. Let the cucumbers sit as you make the sauce. For sauce, put mayo in bowl (maybe 1-2 cups for 3-4 cucumbers?), add sugar to the mayo, tasting as you go till reach your desired sweetness (we use approx 1/2 to 3/4 cup?). Add vinegar a tablespoon at a time, again tasting (it doesn't take much vinegar, maybe 2-3 tablespoons). Pour sauce over cucumbers in a big enough bowl with room for mixing and stir together. Chill. Sauce thins over time as some juices come out of cucumbers...this is normal.

We use the same sauce recipe for cole slaw...just chop cabbage up and pour same sauce mixture over....can add carrot slivers if you wish also. Very yummy.

Hope this helps. :) If you aren't sure on what I meant ..or the portions...feel free to write back and ask. ;)

I JUST put a batch of creamy cucumbers in the fridge! I use non-fat greek yogurt (my recipe actually calls for sour cream if you're not interested in cutting the fat back). Anyway, for one cucumber I use:

1 cucumber thinly sliced (I use the food processor to get it really thin)
1 small onion or 1/2 large onion thinly sliced
about 1/2 cup nonfat plain greek yogurt
1/4 cup vinegar
1 or 2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon celery seeds
1/4 teaspoon dill

I slice the cucumber and onion and toss them together in a large bowl.
Then mix all the dressing ingredients in a small bowl with a fork.
Pour dressing over the cucumbers and onions. Cover and put in the fridge for a few hours to one day.

I've made a version with mayo, but I like this for picnics and it lasts longer out of the fridge this way.

The measurements on everything are approximate, I just eyeball it and it depends on the size of the cucumber (we grow them in our garden so we get quite a range of sizes).

Hope this helps,
T.