Ginger-Lime Cucumber Salad

By Ashley Lonsdale

Published July 2, 2025

  • Armando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Brett Regot.
Media 1 of 1
Total Time
25 minutes
Prep Time
10 minutes
Cook Time
15 minutes
Rating
5(784)
Comments
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Cooling, refreshing and supremely easy to make, this cucumber salad spotlights spicy ginger, bright lime juice and a blend of fresh herbs to emphasize its green color and flavor. The most essential ingredient, an often-overlooked component in the cucumber universe, is patience. Marinating cucumbers, even if only for 10 minutes, allows new and distinct flavors the opportunity to penetrate the juicy flesh, resulting in a more savory outcome. Make this salad a couple of hours before serving, or even the night before, to allow the dressing its most optimal influence. Spoon this salad over freshly toasted, crusty bread, with or without a few slices of gravlax, along with the juices that inevitably pool at the bottom of the salad bowl.

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Ingredients

Yield:4 to 6 servings

  • 3 tablespoons lime juice

  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

  • 1 tablespoon honey

  • 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

  • 1 teaspoon finely grated lime zest

  • 2 English cucumbers, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced into half-moons

  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper

  • 1 handful mint leaves (about ½ cup, loosely packed)

  • 1 handful basil leaves (about ½ cup, loosely packed)

  • 2 scallions, trimmed

Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (4 to 6 servings)

8 grams carbs; 71 calories; 3 grams monosaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 5 grams fat; 1 gram fiber; 289 milligrams sodium; 1 gram protein; 5 grams sugar

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    In a large bowl, whisk together the lime juice, olive oil, honey, ginger and lime zest. Toss with the sliced cucumbers and season generously with salt and pepper. Set aside for at least 10 minutes at room temperature or up to 2 hours refrigerated.

  2. Step 2

    While the cucumbers marinate, finely chop the mint and basil. Thinly slice the scallions. Mix the herbs into the cucumber salad. Serve at room temperature or chilled.

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Ratings

5 out of 5
784 user ratings
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Comments

Theresa

@khnyc I always slice, salt and drain cucumbers for a couple hours before making a salad with them. Makes a crisper salad that isn’t languishing in all that water.

Natasha Montgomery

You don’t need to salt, sweat and rinse cucumber just use the mini Persian cucumbers. Crunchy and sweet , not soggy and waterlogged

khnyc

Marinade tasted good, so was looking forward to the salad - however, it tasted pretty washed out. Checked other cucumber salad recipes, and many of them call for sweating the cucumbers first. Will try again.

Erica

I found this overwhelmingly lime-flavored, and I don’t usually object to that. But there really was no balance of flavors in this one. I make a cucumber, tomato, Gorgonzola salad that is way simpler (salt, pepper, balsamic, and evoo) that is way more flavorful. First misstep for me among Nyt recipes. Sry but gotta give a thumbs down to this one.

Mark Gleicher

My wife says that the only problem with this recipe is in the order of ingredients. And it probably should be tweaked. The recipe calls for the juice of two limes, but then later on in the ingredient list calls for lime zest. There should be a note somewhere saying to zest the lime before you squeeze it for its juice. So that you don’t waste any lime. Other than that good recipe four stars.

Sterling

Delicious, and even more so the second day.

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