With the onset of Spring, I’ m just itching for fresh food and sunshine. It’s a little early for produce from my own garden but thanks to the marvels of our modern grocery stores, I can get all I need to whip up this salad in a jiff. This serves as a delicious side dish bursting with garden flavor and can be kept in the refrigerator for several days.
My mouth is watering just thinking about it.
When you see how quick and easy it is, this may very well end up being your favorite salad of the summer!
I’ve already got my garden started for this year and can’t wait to begin bringing in my own tomatoes to put up. I miss having neighbors that garden though. Back when we lived in the teeny tiny town of Rogersville, I’d often find baskets of vegetables left on my front porch by kind neighbors, who I swear grew a garden just so they’d have vegetables to give away! My grandparents have always done that, too. We just get such pleasure in giving to others and the gift of home grown veggies is a tradition long passed down. With that in mind, I’ve planted an OBSCENE amount of tomatoes this year! ~grins with excitement~
Are you ready for a taste of summer? Well here it is!
You’ll need: Tomatoes (I’m using Roma), a big old red onion (which is actually purple so I have no idea who decided to call it red), and two cucumbers.
You can use any raw veggie you like here really, just go with what you like. Be sure to wash them well before using them.
and this.
I LOVE me some Italian dressing. Original, Zesty, any way you look at it, its delicious. HOWEVER, my Mama called and told me I had to try this so I headed right on out to do just that. As an Olive Garden fan, I gotta tell ya, this stuff is dead on to what they serve in their restaurants (my opinion).
Oh and a note: Kraft didn’t sponsor this post or anything. They have no idea that I’m fantasizing about drinking a case of this stuff but if anyone from Kraft reads this and wants to feed my habit, knock yourself out
Chop or slice your cucumber.
I’m leaving my skin on but you can peel it if you prefer.
Place that in a large bowl.
Do the same with your tomato.
Toss that in there too..
If you want you can just use a can of diced tomatoes and drain them.
Chop up your onion..
noticing a pattern here, I bet…
Add that in.
Pour the whole bottle of dressing over it.
Ugh. I made this last week and ate every last bit of it. As soon as I press send on this post I’m heading to get the stuff to make it again!
Lawdy it’s good.
Stir
Cover with a lid and place in the refrigerator for several hours to marinate
If you have a sunshiney pyrex casserole dish like this one, all the better.
This dish makes me happy. The pattern is called Daisy but there are a few other Pyrex patterns often referred to as Daisy as well so this is sometimes called yellow daisy, orange daisy, or golden daisy. I just think of it as my sunshine pattern. I have this same casserole in three sizes as well as a set of Cinderella mixing bowls in this pattern.
Serve as the perfect side to BBQ, Grilled Burgers, whatever your heart desires!
I just plop it in a bowl and dig in all on it’s own!
Are you planting a garden this year?
What do you plan on growing?
I’m always looking for ideas and I’d love to hear from you!
You can visit my post from last year on Raised Bed Gardens in 30 Minutes by clicking here.
Fast Italian Cucumber Salad Ingredients- 3-4 Roma tomatoes (or your choice, about 1-1/2 Cups chopped)
- 1 large red onion, diced
- 2 cucumbers, chopped
- 1 bottle Italian Dressing (or your choice)
Instructions- Place all vegetables in large bowl. Pour entire bottle of dressing over, stir. Cover and refrigerate for several hours before serving. Can be kept in the refrigerator for several days.
- 3-4 Roma tomatoes (or your choice, about 1-1/2 Cups chopped)
- 1 large red onion, diced
- 2 cucumbers, chopped
- 1 bottle Italian Dressing (or your choice)
- Place all vegetables in large bowl. Pour entire bottle of dressing over, stir. Cover and refrigerate for several hours before serving. Can be kept in the refrigerator for several days.
I’m an angel and if someone breaks my wings
I continue to fly on a broomstick…I’m very flexible.
Submitted by Iplayoutside the box. Submit your quote here.
Yum 
I am in SC and my husband has planted Silver Queen corn, cucumbers, okra, green beens and of course tomatoes. I LOVE summer time when the veggies ripen. 🙂
ditto
Christy,
As usual right on target with this recipe! Spring has sprung!
I do this and use Greek vinagraette with mozzarella – also can add toasted homemade croutons for panzanella –
u rock! gotta go to the store – my topsy turvies are blooming but not producing yet! 🙂
Thanks for sharing – love your page & site!
OMG The added mozzarella sounds awesome to add to this salad!!!!!
I have no idea what a topsy-turvey is—please educate me.
Hi Elaine –
Topsy turvies are hanging tomato plant containers where the tomatos grow from the bottom being watered on the top – really works great for me – have 2 with 2 plants each and they grow here 6′ or so – lots of tomatos which we love! :)you can google them or get them here at home depot – even walgreens! This recipe is really gr8 stuff too! Love this site!
Have a gr8 day!
I have lettuce ready for picking right now. Carrots and cucumbers are coming up. One roma tomato. I have the worst time with tomatoes! I might try a squash plant, but every year the vine borers get mine. We made a raised bed last fall so that might thwart the ones in the soil, but I’m not going to bet on it!
I love this stuff! Especially when garden tomatoes and cucumbers come in! After eating the veggies, turn the bowl up and drink the leftover dressing! That’s bad, I know, but oh so good!
Christy,
This is also a familiar salad in Greece, Albania and Macedonia, I guess it coould be considered a Mediterranean salad. They put a diced white cheese in theirs which is somewhere between mozarella and feta. I think they get their vegetables to market faster than us, so everything tastes so much fresher there than what we can buy here. Thanks for the post. I live in town and do not garden.
That looks like a taste of spring. A bit too early here in Ohio for gardens. The only thing I might add is some bell peppe but I know your family won’t do peppers. I am not going to have a real garden , but I shall set out a half dozen tomato plants and probably a couple bell pepper plants and a zucchini or two. My two sisters and I each purchase a different variety of tomato plant in a six pack and then we split them so each gets two plants of three varieties, I wish the greenhouse did that. There is nothing better than a homegrown tomato. I pick them sun warmed, rub them off, and eat it on the spot. My neighbor laughs at me and says a dog might have peed on it , but I have been doing it all my 63 years and “I ain’t dead yet!” Just as a sidenote-I take the same veggie mix as you have listed and stir it into a carton of cottage cheese and my family loves that as a warm weather dish. Add some cold chicken and a roll and lunch is served in ten minutes.
We have this salad almost every nite in the summer. Nothing better than fresh tomatoes, fresh cukes and onions (I actually prefer the sweet onions such as Vidalia but never met an onion I didn’t like). I make my own vinagrette though…But this is a hit all summer long. We never tire of it! Goes great with whatever we grill..we grill almost every nite in the summer. We are planting our garden right now..and also including an obscene amount of tomatoes 😉 Our grandsons love to help Pa’Paw pick the garden every afternoon. Oh and I am so totally making this tonite for supper now! Thanks for the idea.
I know the red/purple onion makes it look pretty but I love the sweet Vidalia onions best. They will start coming in next month.
I love sweet onions with EVERYTHING. Does that make me an onion head??? I sautee them and put them in cooked mixed greens , add a little cornbread . yum yum.
Every year I tell my self that I am going to have a garden. We have the perfect spot out in the back of the house that is enclosed with a fence. Finally this year I got one started in my house.
Here in KY I was always told growing up not to put anything out till after derby. I got cucumbers and green peppers already started, my poor tomatoes are a very sad looking, their stems are so thin they can’t eve be held up with a toothpick. I think I might go out and buy some and plant those.
I also have some silver queen sweet corn, pumpkins (I always have wanted to try to grown pumpkins), watermelon, sunflowers and some strawberrys. I am waiting till the end of May to get those out.
My husband and I can live off this salad in the summer.
When you transplant the tomatoes, bury most of the stem. Just cut the leaves off, they will get stronger.
I used to make this for our deli case at the grocery store I previously worked for. It was so simple to make and we sold quite a bit of it .. I probably shouldn’t have but, I’d tell my customers how easy it was to make and they said they’d rather have us do all the work for them. We sold it for $3.99/lb. Can you believe it?
And, I’d always use the $1 bottled Italian on it and people loooooved it! Crazy .. XD
LOVE this salad and LOVE kraft Tuscan Italian dressing. It is SO yummy. When I make this salad I often scrape some of the seeds out of cucumbers or use cukes (seedless cumcumbers). I have a sensitive stomach for seeds so it helps alot. Also: instead of italian dressing I just load it up with some EVOO & Lemon Juice. The lemon juice keeps the color in the cucumbers as well. For an extra treat -throw in some FETA! OMG my mouth is watering. I’m going to have to make it tonight!
Yum!!! Except I’d have to leave out the red onion…still not a big fan of raw onion, but I’ve come a long way! Anyways, I found your raised bed “technique” a few weeks ago and went out and bought me a baby pool combined with the one I have from last year so now we’re ready to go. In fact, I just got back from Walmart and Lowe’s with the peat moss, compost and pepper plants, eggplants. I’m so excited!!!
I was sitting here a couple of weeks ago thinking about digging up my back yard to plant a little garden. I am on dialysis and don’t have a big store of energy so I just thought about it. Well, thank you so much for your garden tips. I am going to do just what you did. My husband will help because it doesn’t include digging and upheaval. Thank you again for all your tips, I think you are wonderful and wish you were my sister!!!
I will be planting jalapeno peppers in half of one of the tubs. I use them to make a sauce for omelets. I chop up 3 big onions, 3 big green peppers, and about twelve jalapeno peppers and then saute them in butter until tender. I add about a gallon of tomato puree and simmer this all together till the flavors blend together. This is wonderful over 3 egg omelets. Have a lot of napkins to wipe the sweat off your forhead, but the taste is great. Serve with buttered toast.
Also, just a thought for the dressing for the Italian Cucumber Salad. I use Good Seasoning dry italian dressing and make it as specified on the package, except I use Balsamic vinegar. This makes a great Balsamic Vinegrette.
Yumm, that salad looks fresh and tasty!! 😀
My garden this year is a medium size Mulberry tree……can’t wait for it to grow bigger…I already have about seven berries…OK, well, it’s a start!
I make that salad but with Hellmann’s Mayo…shall have to try the Kraft recipe.
Christy,
We have a ‘garden’ but we’ve scaled down from last year. We were gardening in a bed in the backyard that was right agains the west-facing wall of our bedroom. It was really too hot there; the only thing that would grow well were jalapenos. This year, we’ve planted a few tomatoes, an orange bell pepper and a couple of jalapenos in the side of our front yard. They seem to be doing well so far; one of the tomatoes has a few babies already – I call them my tomato babies. I go out and talk to them pretty much every day…you know, just to encourage them. Hubbie thinks it’s a little cuckoo, but I do it anyway!
Love the blog! Looking forward to the cookbook!!
I love this salad. My momma always made this with yellow bell peppers too. We would also boil some frozen cheese tortellini, rinse with cold water and add that in too. Yummy! It’s a meal in itself
This salad looks great! We started planting a square foot garden in January and it’s doing very well. So far we’ve gotten 3 radishes and enough swiss chard for 2 very small servings. I can’t wait till I can make a whole salad out of it! Or can some!
Love this salad! My cousin’s wife makes this exact salad and we all love it. I have to remind myself to start making it b/c it is so easy! We will plant tomatoes in our topsy turvy very soon to enjoy this summer!
Can’t wait to make this salad. I had a garden last year thanks to my wonderful father-n-law. We had a bumper crop of yellow squash, a few watermelons but our tomato plants and bellpeppers did not make. Later in the summer I had a good bit of okra, a few cucumbers, but the long hot and very dry summer made it hard to keep everything watered enough. I am going to attempt your raised bed garden this year since my in-laws are getting older and have a few health issues that will keep them from managing more than their own garden. I love reading southern plate. I love your “old southern” style way of talking – it brings back so many wonderful memories of my grandparents and great aunts and uncles. What a blessing being raised in the south!
We have decided to try raised beds this year. Hubby made some out of pine. We did one 4X12 in strawberries. The rest are 4X4’s onions, carrots and spinach, in one, trying yukon gold potatoes in two and pole limasin another. We have a small garden that we plant squash, tomatoes, peppers,okra and greenbeans in. I took out an old flower bed that was more trouble than it was worth and planted a couple of grape vines and zuchini and peppers. All is quite an experiment and only time will tell.
Christy- I made this to go with Grilled Chicken and Jambalaya rice tonight!!
I didn’t have onions, so I subbed a couple sliced button mushrooms instead. I also used Balsamic vinaigrette instead of Italian vinaigrette.
It was the perfect cool accompaniment to the smoky chicken and the spicy jambalaya.
I’ll be eating this a LOT this summer, for sure!!!!!!
I live up north and we have had our 1st 70 degree day just the other day and we are still in the 50’s and so the garden will be planted in another week or 2. It is going to consist of heirloom tomatoes with about 3 other types of tomatoes also there will be beans both pole and bush, okra of course, peppers, cucumbers~~I plant lemon cucumbers because they are so good. We have a spot behind our shed that is about 8×8 and I plant as much as I can in this little spot. Mom says people will not believe how much I can get in that small space. What I can’t get in it I buy or get from my friends and I can what we don’t eat.
BLACK-EYED PEAS!!!! I found out last summer…in my teeny little garden spot in the back year that BE peas will grow north of the Mason-Dixon line! )(I’m a displaced Texas living in zone 5 Illinois) It’s been a long time since I was home to get fresh ones so I thought to myself…why not grow some experimentally. Turns out, the yield was pretty good. So black eyed peas, okra, squash, sweet potatoes, green beans, a few peppers and tomatoes, of course… will be in my garden this year. It is amazing to me how much food can come out of a 20 x 20 plot of ground..
Oooo,, this is one of my favorite “straight from the garden” salads! Yummm. I’m from Ohio so I have to settle for the store bought ones. Not nearly as tasty.
By the way, I wanted to tell you thanks so much for your awesome website! You make eating fun and allow us to eat foods without dissecting every ingredient! When I get bummed I just come to your site and it’s instant smile!!! Thanks again!!!
Cindy
We currently have tomoatoes, peas, mixed lettuces, spinach, broccoli, asperagus, cabbage, squash, red cabbage, potatoes, strawberries, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, garlic chives, garlic, & onions. We still have more tomato plants to go in and we have okra, melon, squash, carrot, and radish (I think) seeds still to be planted. All in our little yard in the back of our (city) house!
I have a few things planted in raised bed.. my back won’t do the real gardening anymore.. but I have to have fresh tomatoes and green peppers, and I did plant some asparagus this year even though it will be several years before we can acutually pick it.. thought it was a good idea anyway…
Will probably pick up some squash plants when I see them , when I pick up some flowers for my big pots… wish my back would take putting in a really big garden , but old age ain’t for sissies…
And there are several nice little truck garden stands around here to pick up fresh veggies grown by some other nice person…
My daddy and mom always raised a huge garden and we spent most of the summer “putting up” things and giving everyone a basket or box of things out of the garden when they stopped by to “visit” I miss those times and those people.. wish I lived closer to you.. haha
hugs Jo in Sapulpa, Oklahoma
That looks delicious! I love tomato cucumber salad and it’s a favorite with my kids too. I found your blog through Mommy’s Kitchen and I’m glad I did!
I made this the other day, only I added avocado (because they were on sale and I couldn’t resist) It was so good. Then, the next day I decided to add some pasta shells and a little more dressing to make it into a pasta salad. Then, I ate it for lunch, and a snack! Such a good recipe and the possibilities are endless depending on personal taste. I was even thinking maybe some leftover chicken, or a can of tuna and then it would be a meal!
Great ideas! I’m gonna have to give that a try, too!