Tomato, Onion, and Cucumber Salad
A Southern staple at barbecues, family gatherings, and reunions, we love the juicy and refreshing experience of eating this fresh tomato, onion, and cucumber salad!
If I had to describe the flavor of this salad in one word, I’d say refreshing. This is the embodiment of everything a body craves on a hot summer’s day. Well, everything a body craves that doesn’t come with a little paper umbrella in the glass! This simple and easy tomato, onion, and cucumber salad recipe features juicy chunks, slices, and tossed in a delicious vinegar and sugar dressing.
I recommend making this colorfully crisp and tangy summer salad in advance to let it fully marinate in the dressing. Then serve it at your next summer gathering and prepare to win over your friends and family! You can also have fun with this salad and add some interesting additions, which I mention in the Recipe Notes section below.
Recipe Ingredients
- Two freshly ripe tomatoes (can be whatever you have on hand – heirloom tomatoes, grape tomatoes…)
- Two cucumber
- One purple or red onion (or , the choice is yours)
- Sugar
- Water, and…
- White vinegar. Go for the cheap kind here, make me proud!
Cut up your tomatoes.
You can cut the in chunks, slices, or dice them. I’m doing chunks because it’s pretty that way.
Peel and cut your . However, if you prefer you can also skip peeling your .
Cut up your onion.
I slice mine and then cut the slices in half, still leaving pretty big pieces.
This way, those of you who don’t care for the raw onions can pick them out easily enough.
Dump all of that into a bowl. You can also opt to sprinkle these vegetables with and right now before adding the dressing.
Now we have to make our dressing.
For this, all we are going to do is combine equal parts water, vinegar, and sugar and stir it up.
I start with 1/2 cup of each but you can do more if you like. I wouldn’t do any less though.
This is me adding my sugar to the vinegar and water mixture.
Stir that up good.
Recipe Tip
Don’t worry if your sugar isn’t dissolved all of the way because we’re going to let all of this marinate in the fridge for a spell before we eat.
Pour this over your veggies and stir.
Cover and place in the refrigerator for a few hours before serving.
It will make more juice but I like to go give it a good stir after an hour or so.
Save some for me!
Storage
Store this tomato, onion, and cucumber salad in an airtight container in the fridge for up to five days.
Recipe Notes
- If you like, add some fresh herbs to your salad. Dried or and oregano will give this salad recipe a Mediterranean feel, while I also like sprinkling fresh dill or parsley on top.
- Other fun additions to make to this salad include crumbled feta cheese, chunks of avocado, bell pepper chunks, and mozzarella balls.
- Instead of white vinegar, you could also use either red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar. If you’re going for a Mediterranean-inspired , you can opt for too.
- Another option is using halves instead of chunks.
Recipe FAQs
What do you serve with tomato, onion, and cucumber salad?
Serve this refreshing salad with any grilled or barbecued meat and a side of crusty bread. My suggestions include grilled chicken tenderloins, pork chops, or slow-roasted beef brisket.
Can you make this salad ahead of time?
Yes, I recommend refrigerating the salad for a few hours before serving to let the vinegar sink into the vegetables. So you could definitely make this in advance the night before.
You may also like these other sensational salad recipes:
Cucumber Salad Creamy and Delicious
Fresh Fruit Salad with Lemon Honey Dressing
Low Carb Broccoli Cauliflower Salad
Ingredients
- 2 tomatoes
- 2 cucumbers
- 1 purple or red onion
- water
- white vinegar
- sugar
Instructions
- Peel and slice cucumbers, and chop tomatoes and red onion. Combine all in a large bowl.2 tomatoes, 2 cucumbers, 1 purple or red onion
- Mix up a dressing of equal parts vinegar, water, and sugar. I start with 1/2 cup each of my dressing ingredients.water, white vinegar, sugar
- Pour the vinegar dressing over the vegetables and refrigerate (ideally overnight).
Video
Be more concerned about your character than your reputation because your character is who you are and your reputation is just what others THINK of you.
~Submitted my Southern Plate Reader, Emily. To submit your quote, and make someone’s day a little brighter, click here.
I love the salad and have made it for years. I lived in TN for 35 years and also felt tied to the space museum as all my family lived out of state and of course every visit to our house included a visit to the space center. My husband worked for NASA.
I used that vinegar all the time – good as the more expensive. My question is can you use Spenda in place of the sugar? I am on Atkins and I think I would love this salad for a snack. LOL.
Hey Carmen, most times I use Splenda in mine. I think I mentioned that in my post but I’ll go check soon as I get a chance 🙂
Splenda works wonderfully in it!
My grandmother used to make a summer salad with tomatoes, cucumber and red onion but she had more of a sweet cream type dressing. I would love to be able to recreate that salad …. it’s one of those flavors that I can just TASTE … but it’s been over 40 years since I had the salad. Any ideas on how to recreate that salad dressing?
Melodi, she may have made it with mayonnaise. I get the tri-color slaw at Walmart and I make a creamy dressing of mayonnaise, vinegar and sugar (Spenda). I think a dressing made with sour cream and green onions would be good too.
Melodi, my mother used these same veggies to make a Sour Cream Salad. She just stirred in enough sour cream to lightly coat the the veggies & let it set in the fridge to “juice up.” Sometimes she sprinkled dill weed on it, too. Grandma sprinkled a little sugar over the mix before stirring it up. I hope this helps.
Christy, in my neck of West Virginia, our Fire & Ice Salad is like yours but using cider vinegar instead of white vinegar. Totally delicious both ways! =^..^=
I added an avocado to mine for a change of pace. Very good.
I throw in some celery seed. There’s something about the celery seed that really adds to it. YUM!
I bet poppy seeds would be good too.
In Southern Illinois, my mother use to make Thunder and Lightning Salad a lot like the Fire and Ice Salad. It’s bell pepper, tomatoes, onion, all diced up, with vinegar, sugar, and some water..
We have been making this for years in ‘southern’ Indiana but we call it thunder and lightning. It is a staple for every meal during summer.