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Need the perfect summer salad? Look no further than this cucumber tomato salad! Packed full of summer tomatoes, crunchy cucumbers, red onion, and a light red wine vinegar dressing.

Do you love cucumber salad as much as I do?

Seriously, it’s my favorite summer salad. In fact, I’m making my “The Best Cucumber Salad” tomorrow for a dinner party.

But, recently I was craving one of the summer salads my grandma used to make – cucumber tomato salad!

This salad is the perfect balance of crunchy cucumbers, flavorful red onions, and the fruitiness of heirloom tomatoes.

Throwing this salad together is a BREEZE and perfect for summer dinner parties, BBQs, and days when cooking just seems too hard.

Ingredients for cucumber tomato salad

• Mini cucumbers – I really like to use mini Persian cucumbers as they are easy to cut, thinned skin, and hold up really well for salads.
• Red onion – I love the addition of red onion because it gives you that light onion flavor without being too overpowering.
• Heirloom tomatoes – I like heirloom tomatoes because of their ultimate tomato flavor but you can use whatever tomatoes you have on hand including cherry tomatoes.
• Fresh dill – Use more or less depending on your love of dill.
• Fresh parsley – Just a little to bring in some light and fresh flavor.
• Olive oil – This is the base for the dressing and it brings delicious flavor so try to use a good extra virgin olive oil.
• Red wine vinegar – Just a little bit for a vinegar bite. If you don’t have red wine vinegar on hand apple cider vinegar or white wine vinegar is also a great choice.

The best type of cucumber to use

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 or my Easy Refrigerator Pickles. 

Storage and leftovers

This salad lasts perfectly in the fridge for up to 3 days.

Even on day 2 or 3, this salad remains crunchy and fresh.

More cucumber salad recipes

• Need an easy creamy salad? Try my Creamy Cucumber Salad.
• Love classic old-fashioned recipes? Try my The Best Cucumber Salad.
• Want a little zest to your salad? Try my Creamy Horseradish Cucumber Salad.
• Craving a fun twist to cucumber salad? Try my Greek Yogurt Ranch Cucumber Salad.