cucumber salad

Cucumber kimchi is a Korean spicy cucumber salad

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Korean spicy cucumber salad is an amazing side dish! It’s crunchy, light and flavorful. Cucumber salad is convenient to make for a quick dinner side, and is bold in flavor! I’ve been making this a lot lately. We’ve become quite obsessed with it actually. If you have a few pantry ingredients on hand and fresh cucumbers, This salad is easy to whip up!

Cucumber kimchi is good with even just simple steamed rice, but it also goes wonderfully well with grilled meat. Hope you make it soon! This spicy cucumber salad is typically served as a side dish or appetizer.

This has become one of my favorite banchan dishes whenever I eat Korean food!

“Banchan” is the name for small side dishes served with cooked rice. This recipe takes 10 minutes to make and goes well with rice and Asian flavored meats, especially teriyaki flavors.

Love spicy food?

Don’t mind me, as I go through this long phase of loving spicy foods! Especially my husband, he adores spicy food. Learn how to make quick cucumber kimchi with me! If you also love spicy food, check out my other recipe for Adjika

This recipe comes from a very popular dish called Kimchi.

What Is Kimchi?

Kimchi is a traditional Korean dish, every recipe can vary but it usually includes some combination of vegetables, garlic, ginger, chili peppers, salt, and fish sauce. This is then mixed and pickled to ferment. Which was originally a way to preserve the vegetables for the winter months. Cabbage is the most common vegetable used to make kimchi although carrots, radish, cucumber, and green onions are also frequently used, too. There are hundreds of kimchi recipes that change depending on the region and season in which they are produced. And it’s very easy to make it a vegan dish by keeping all the ingredients plant-based. Read more about kimchi here

Cucumber kimchi

Is made from the idea of kimchi, you can make this a long fermented recipe by letting it ferment in the fridge over night, if you’d like the gut health benefits of a ferment. Or you can have it within 30 minutes of making it as well! Both are equally delicious!

How to make spicy cucumber salad:

First wash and clean the cucumbers. It is best to use small garden cucumbers. Even though I used English cucumbers for this, and it still turns out wonderful!

Cut the edges off on both sides. Then chop the cucumbers into thick slices. You don’t want to cut them thin. When you cut them thicker, it helps to keep them crunchy. Add to a clean mixing bowl.

Must have to make Cucumber Kimchi

There are a few ingredient’s that you will need to make this recipe, they are pantry stable. So its something that you can have for a long time and if you have these ingredient’s on hand, you can always make this quick recipe!

• Gochujang hot pepper paste
• Gochugaru Chili powder for kimchi
• Sesame oil
• Sesame seeds
• Rice vinegar

Ready? Let’s go!

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds small cucumber’s
• 1 small onion
• 3 green onions
• 2 small carrots
• 3 table spoons sesame seeds
• 1/3 cup sesame oil
• 1/4 cup rice vinegar
• 2 table spoons Gochugaru chili powder for kimchi
• 2 table spoons Gochujang Hot pepper paste
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 1/2 tsp salt

Step by step

First start by washing and cleaning the cucumbers. Then cut the ends off of each side. Next chop the cucumbers into thick slices. Cutting them thicker will help the cucumbers stat crunchy longer. Season with salt and let them stand for 10 minutes so they can release the juices. Then drain the liquid.

Chop the green onion, carrots, and onion into thin matchsticks. Add to a mixing bowl with the cucumbers.

To the bowl with the veggies add the rest of ingredients.

Using a glove mix it all together (or a wooden spoon) Let it stand for at least for 30 minutes or over night.

How to store cucumber salad

Store leftover cucumber kimchi in the fridge, in a sealed air-tight container for up to 2-3 days. However, the cucumbers will get softer the longer it sits. 

For best results

Use small garden cucumbers that are fresh, make sure they are not soft. This recipe is SPICY, if you are sensitive to spice, you can adjust the chili powder and paste to taste.

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