This creamy horseradish cucumber salad is a delicious twist to the classic cucumber salad. Made with freshly sliced cucumbers, red onion, sour cream, seasoned rice vinegar, fresh dill, and spicy grated horseradish. It’s the perfect summer side salad!

creamy horseradish cucumber salad in a bowl with spoon.

Do you love cucumber salad? (THE best cucumber salad is my all-time favorite vinegar-based cucumber salad recipe!)

Do you love horseradish?

Well, I decided it was time to give the traditional creamy cucumber a facelift by throwing in a little grated hot horseradish to really bring in some big-time flavor.

I guess this is a good time to say I’m not a huge fan of horseradish but every. single. member. of my family seems to love the stuff.

Which, is totally fine and why I decided to give them a new creamy cucumber recipe that knocked their socks off! Dare I say I even love it? I KNOW the girl who doesn’t love horseradish loves this salad.

What can I say – I converted myself to a horseradish liker without even trying.

The cucumbers and red onion stay crispy and crunchy and are swimming in a creamy horseradish mixture made with sour cream, vinegar, grated horseradish, and fresh dill.

This salad screams summer is the perfect addition to the family bbq menu!

creamy horseradish cucumber salad in a ceramic bowl with a wooden spoon.

Table of Contents

What type of cucumbers should I use in cucumber salad?

There are a lot of different cucumbers found in stores. Typically I see the traditional slicing cucumbers along with English, Persian mini, Kirby pickling cucumbers, etc.

Yes, there really are that many different cucumbers!

Lucky for you I’m going to make this salad super simple!

I prefer to use the mini Persian cucumbers because they are thin-skinned, not overly seedy, and super crunchy. These are all good things when it comes to making an easy summer salad.

However, you can use English cucumbers pretty interchangeably with this cucumber salad recipe. They are equally as thinned skinned but grow to be much larger than mini cucumbers.

If you can only find traditional slicing cucumbers you might want to peel the cucumber as its skin is MUCH thicker and waxier than the English or Persian variety.

I would leave Kirby cucumbers to pickling. They are the traditional “pickle” type of cucumber and work really well for most pickling recipes. Including my dad’s pickle recipe!

creamy horseradish cucumber salad served in a bowl sitting on a napkin.

Can I use dried dill instead of fresh dill?

Of course! I typically enjoy using fresh herbs in my salads over dried herbs.

Although there can be times when finding fresh herbs is just not possible. That’s why this recipe is perfect because you can be super flexible with the ingredients and still get a delicious outcome.

If you want to use dried dill you’ll want to use less than the fresh amount. This is because dried herbs are more concentrated than fresh so you’ll want to use less so you don’t overwhelm the flavor of the salad.

I would add 1 teaspoon of dried dill in place of the 1 tablespoon fresh minced dill.

a jar of horseradish sauce sitting in front of a bowl of creamy horseradish cucumber salad.

What is horseradish?

Horseradish is a root vegetable that is part of the mustard and wasabi family.

You have very likely had it in simple dips like cocktail sauce or even served with prime rib.

It’s very fragrant/pungent and typically has a spicy flavor.

Where can I find grated horseradish?

You can find grated horseradish in most grocery stores.

You want to make sure you buy grated horseradish and NOT premade horseradish sauce. The sauce will be mixed with sour cream and other ingredients while the grated horseradish is just simply grated horseradish.

Sometimes you can find fresh horseradish (it looks like a root) in the fresh vegetable area of the grocery store BUT I actually prefer to buy the jarred stuff because you can be sure that it has a good spicy flavor.

Jarred grated horseradish can typically be found in the refrigerated section of the produce department or shelf-stable varieties can be found near condiments like mustard.

a serving of creamy horseradish cucumber salad.

Love this creamy horseradish cucumber salad?

Why not try a few of my other delicious summer salads?!