Recipes with cucumber

165 recipes. Page 4 of 7

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Korean Dongchimi Cold Naengmyeon

Naengmyeon noodles cook for well under a minute, get scrubbed in cold water, and are snipped a few times with scissors so the icy broth reaches every strand instead of a tangled knot. Draining them well after rinsing keeps the clear dongchimi broth from turning cloudy. The broth, seasoned with vinegar and sugar, is chilled until it is close to slushy, the point where the cool radish fragrance is most vivid. Boiled beef lays a lean, meaty base under the tang, pear and cucumber add sweet crunch, and half a boiled egg rounds out the bowl.

Prep 20min Cook 10min 2 servings

Salads Easy

Couscous Herb Salad

Couscous never boils for this salad: boiling water is poured over, the bowl is covered, and five minutes of standing does the cooking. Texture is decided afterward. Lifted apart with a fork, the grains stay light and separate; pressed or stirred, they clump into a sticky mass. Cucumber, cherry tomatoes and roughly chopped parsley add juice and freshness, and a lemon and olive oil dressing seasons it lightly. Let the steam escape completely first, or the vegetables soften. With parsley making up so much of the bowl, it eats more like tabbouleh than a heavy grain salad, and couscous that holds its texture at room temperature travels well in a lunch box or to a picnic.

⚡ 20-Minute Recipes 🥗 Lighter Meals

Prep 15min Cook 5min 2 servings

Rice Easy

Korean Flying Fish Roe Gimbap

The flying fish roe stays in the fridge until the moment of rolling; once it warms up, the skins slacken and the eggs stop popping. Inside there is only a thin line of mayonnaise and cucumber, and a little more roe goes on the cut faces.

⚡ 20-Minute Recipes

Prep 15min Cook 5min 2 servings

Noodles Easy

Korean Acorn Jelly Somyeon

Slippery acorn jelly and fine wheat somyeon sit together in cold, tangy dongchimi broth, the liquid from radish water kimchi. Every mouthful mixes two kinds of softness. At least 1 hour in the fridge sharpens the broth's sweet-tangy balance. The jelly holds thin strips best when it is cut straight from the fridge, and the boiled noodles turn springy only after a hands-on rub under cold water strips off their surface starch. Kimchi brings a spicy edge and cucumber a cool crunch, while sesame oil stays in the background, just enough to stop the noodles sticking without masking the broth's clean acidity. It suits hot summer days when appetite runs low.

Prep 20min Cook 10min 2 servings

Salads Easy

Dotori-Muk Vegetable Salad (Acorn Jelly Salad)

Thick slices of dotori-muk (a mild, faintly bitter acorn jelly) are folded into lettuce, perilla leaves and cucumber dressed with soy sauce and vinegar. Chilled before slicing, the jelly has a firmer bounce.

⚡ 20-Minute Recipes 🥗 Lighter Meals

Prep 15min 0 4 servings

Rice Medium

Nasi Kerabu (Malaysian Coconut Rice with Mackerel)

Nasi kerabu, a Malaysian rice dish, can be made with rice tinted by flowers; this one uses plain white rice cooked with coconut milk and lemongrass. Flaked grilled mackerel, cucumber, blanched bean sprouts and sambal are set around it separately and mixed in only at the table.

Prep 25min Cook 25min 2 servings

Noodles Easy

Korean Spicy Whelk Bibim Guksu

Chewy canned whelk, slippery somyeon and crisp cucumber and onion all meet in one spicy-sour gochujang dressing, a classic drinking snack in Korea. A spoonful of the canning liquid stirred into the sauce deepens its savory base, while a quick rinse of the whelk itself tames the salt. Ice-cold water right after boiling keeps the noodles firm and bouncy once the dressing goes on.

🍺 Bar Snacks

Prep 18min Cook 7min 2 servings

Salads Easy

Tofu Salad (Pan-Seared Tofu on Fresh Greens)

Pressed for 20 minutes and seared until golden on each side, the tofu goes onto the salad still warm, a crisp-edged contrast to cool baby greens, cucumber and cherry tomatoes. The soy sauce, lemon and sesame oil dressing brings enough salt and acidity that the tofu itself needs no separate seasoning. Only the vegetables get dressed, with the tofu sitting on top so its browned surface stays dry until the first bite.

🥗 Lighter Meals

Prep 15min Cook 8min 2 servings

Rice Medium

Nasi Lemak (Malaysian Coconut Pandan Rice with Anchovy Sambal)

Rice cooked in coconut milk with pandan leaves makes a rich, fragrant base for the fiery sambal served beside it. Around it go crisp dried anchovies, roasted peanuts, boiled egg and cucumber, and each bite can be salty, crunchy, cooling or hot.

Prep 20min Cook 30min 4 servings

Noodles Medium

Cold Ramen Salad

Ice-chilled ramen noodles topped with neat stripes of egg crepe, ham, cucumber and tomato get a tangy soy-vinegar dressing poured over instead of a broth. Because the sauce is a drizzle, not a soup, each topping keeps its own flavor and color. Cutting the egg, ham and cucumber to the same thin width makes the plate look tidy and lets every bite pick up a bit of everything, and the dressing goes on only at the table so the noodles stay springy.

Prep 20min Cook 10min 2 servings

Salads Easy

Edamame Avocado Salad

Plump, springy edamame and soft, creamy avocado make the main contrast in the bowl. A dressing of soy sauce, lime juice and sesame oil gives it a light, salty-tart Asian profile, and cucumber and cherry tomatoes add crunch and juice. The only cooking is a few minutes of blanching the beans. Cool them completely before mixing; warm beans turn the avocado mushy. The avocado gets a little lime juice the moment it is cut to slow browning, and the finished salad has a better texture served cold.

⚡ 20-Minute Recipes 🥗 Lighter Meals

Prep 12min Cook 5min 2 servings

Rice Easy

Korean Shrimp Gimbap (Plump Shrimp and Vegetable Seaweed Roll)

Large shrimp are split lengthwise before rolling, which packs the middle of every slice with pink shrimp. Egg strips, sauteed carrot and cucumber go in too, but nothing strongly seasoned, and it eats lighter than most gimbap.

Prep 20min Cook 10min 2 servings

Noodles Medium

Korean Raw Fish Cold Noodles

Thin slices of cold white fish sashimi tangle with chewy naengmyeon noodles in a sweet, sour and spicy gochujang dressing. The noodles cook in only 30 to 40 seconds, so they come out the moment the strands loosen; any longer and the chew is gone.

Prep 20min Cook 5min 2 servings

Salads Medium

Falafel Salad Bowl

Cooked chickpeas, onion and parsley are pulsed into a coarse mixture, shaped into small balls and baked or pan-fried into falafel that sit over romaine, tomato and cucumber under a tahini sauce. Done well, the falafel are deep golden and crisp outside but still moist within, a clear contrast to the raw vegetables. Lemon juice cuts the richness of the sesame-based tahini. No deep fryer is involved: the oven or a lightly oiled pan does the job.

🥗 Lighter Meals

Prep 20min Cook 15min 2 servings

Rice Medium

Salmon Poke Bowl

Five minutes in soy and sesame oil is all the salmon gets: long enough to turn the surface glossy, short enough that the inside still eats like sashimi. The fish comes out of the marinade as soon as a light soy tint appears, before the soy takes over its flavor.

Prep 20min Cook 15min 2 servings

Noodles Easy

Korean Spicy Platter Noodles

A big platter piled with somyeon, shredded cabbage, cucumber, carrot and torn lettuce arrives tossed in a spicy-tangy gochujang dressing. Each vegetable brings its own kind of crunch against the soft noodles, and the dressing of gochujang, vinegar, sugar and soy hits sweet, sour and hot in quick succession. Sesame oil and toasted seeds round off the sharpness without dulling it.

Prep 18min Cook 10min 2 servings

Salads Easy

Fattoush Salad (Crispy Pita & Sumac Veggie Salad)

Oven-crisped pita chips anchor a Levantine vegetable salad, and sumac, a tart red spice, tints the tomato, cucumber, radish and romaine with color and sourness. Layering sumac with lemon, whose sourness is of a different kind, gives the dressing a fuller acidity. The chips are added just before eating, since they soften fast in the dressing, and each bite then has crisp centers and slightly soaked edges.

🥗 Lighter Meals

Prep 15min Cook 8min 2 servings

Rice Easy

Korean Maekom Mayo Yubu Pocket (Spicy Mayo Tofu Pockets)

Tuna, rice, chopped pickled radish and cucumber are bound with gochujang mayonnaise and packed tight into seasoned tofu pouches, the kind used for inari sushi. More gochujang makes it hotter; more mayonnaise makes the filling softer.

Prep 18min Cook 8min 4 servings

Noodles Medium

Korean Pine Nut Cold Noodles

Blended with cold water, pine nuts release their fat into a milky, dairy-free broth with a quiet sweetness. Salt is the only seasoning, leaving the nuttiness uncovered, while cucumber and thin slices of Korean pear bring crunch and fruit against the richness. A smooth blend and a pass through a strainer before chilling prevent the oily film and gritty feel of under-blended broth.

Prep 20min Cook 5min 2 servings

Salads Medium

Freekeh Herb Salad (Smoky Roasted Wheat & Fresh Herbs)

Freekeh starts as young green wheat that is fire-roasted on the stalk, then threshed and dried, which leaves a faint smoky note in every grain. Boiled, it stays chewy and keeps its shape among the vegetables. Parsley and cilantro, chopped down to their tender stems, lift the smoke with fresh green aroma, and lemon juice with olive oil forms the only dressing. Herbs stirred into hot grain lose their scent, so the freekeh is spread out to cool until just lukewarm first. An hour's rest after mixing lets the dressing soak into the grains.

🥗 Lighter Meals

Prep 14min Cook 20min 2 servings

Rice Easy

Korean Young Radish Barley Bibimbap

To match the sourness of yeolmu kimchi (young radish greens), the gochujang sauce is first loosened with vinegar and maesil, a green plum syrup. Barley rice is topped in sections with the kimchi, cucumber and lettuce plus halved boiled eggs, and the sauce goes in only right before eating, half of it first.

Prep 18min Cook 22min 2 servings

Noodles Hard

Jinju-style Cold Noodles

Jinju's version of cold noodles mixes anchovy-kelp stock with beef brisket stock, two parts to one, giving the broth both seafood savor and meaty weight. The signature topping is a heap of pan-fried beef jeon cut into strips, cooled first so it does not warm the broth, then piled over cucumber and Asian pear.

Prep 20min Cook 40min 2 servings

Salads Easy

Korean Potato Salad (Creamy Mashed Potato Ham Cucumber)

Korean potato salad leaves small lumps in the mash on purpose, putting soft potato and floury bits in the same bite. A little sugar in the mayonnaise gives it the sweet, creamy profile that separates it from Western potato salad, though it shares roots with Japanese potato salad. Diced ham is browned to render some fat, and salted, squeezed cucumber keeps the bowl from turning watery after chilling. An hour in the fridge lets the seasoning settle evenly. It goes on the table as a banchan side dish or between slices of bread as a sandwich filling.

🥗 Lighter Meals

Prep 20min Cook 15min 4 servings

Rice Easy

Korean Seasoned Tofu Pouch Sushi (Yubu Chobap)

Small enough to eat by hand in one bite, these pouches turn up in lunchboxes, at picnics and as snacks. Inside the sweet-savory braised fried tofu, the vinegared rice is mixed with finely chopped carrot, cucumber and sesame seeds, so there is a little crunch under the soft tofu. Imitation crab or burdock root can go into the filling as well.

🍱 Lunchbox

Prep 20min Cook 15min 4 servings