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Preview: Cucumber Sunomono Salad

by Dawn T in Rouxbe Recipes

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Thinly sliced cucumbers are tossed with rice wine vinegar, mirin and chili flakes. This Asian-inspired dish is delicious as a light salad or garnish.

  • Total Time: 1 hr
  • Active Time: 5 mins

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Step 1: Making the Salad

Making the Salad

To make the salad, mix together the rice wine vinegar, mirin, sugar, salt and chili flakes.

Note: For this recipe you can use regular English, Japanese or mini cucumbers. We do not recommend using regular field cucumbers, because they often have bigger seeds and a higher water content.

Thinly slice the cucumbers and add the cucumbers to the dressing. Toss, cover and place in the refrigerator for at least an hour, or even overnight. This will give the cucumbers time to absorb the flavors.

Strain the cucumbers and serve as light salad or garnish.

  • 6 tbsp rice wine vinegar
  • 2 tbsp mirin
  • 1 tbsp sugar
  • 1/2 tsp kosher salt
  • 1/8 tsp dried chili flakes
  • 4 cups Japanese cucumbers - can substitute with 1/2 English cucumber

Notes

This is actually better the next day, so feel free to make this the day before. Also, if you want it more spicy, heat the dressing up, this will bring out the heat from the chiles. Just allow the dressing to cool completely before adding the cucumbers.

Related Tips & Techniques

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What is Emince?

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What is Mirin?

 Dd_mandolin_whatis_thumbnail

What is a Mandoline?

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Slicing Long, Round Ingredients

Related Cooking School Lessons

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How to Cut Using a Chef's Knife

Jordi C

Easy and effective !

Did it now in just 10 min !
I recommend to try it with sesam seeds. Delicious !

barcelona_spain

Daniel C

Try some onions too

Great salad. I second the sesame seeds.

This is similar to a classic Midwestern salad (rural Illinois) made with red wine vinegar. In that salad, I love to add onions to the mix. I assume they would be a good choice here too.

seoul

Brad A

I was thinking of this recipe when...

I came across news of Pepsi's latest flavor: Ice Cucumber!

I would definitely give it a try. Cola is refreshing. Cucumbers are refreshing. Combined it has potential. Released yesterday (and only in Japan for a limited time) it's been doing brisk business so other people must have followed the same logic that I have.

Link to their press release AND WITH PHOTO (post Google translation):
http://tinyurl.com/2eal9q

Dee F

Delicious and Simple

This took me about 2 seconds to put together and my family loved it. Thanks!

Ken J

Yowza!

This was quite a recipe! Thank you Rouxbe so much for providing it. I made it twice for separate groups of diners last week, and they all liked it.

1) I deviated a bit from the recipe: I substituted distilled white vinegar in place of rice wine vinegar because I had run out of the latter and no time to go get more. I also added 1 Tbl of sesame oil which provided a really nice nuttiness, and added sliced radishes for color. (Although the radishes lost their red after soaking in the liquid overnight.)

2) This recipe taught me a cooking fundamental: Always, always use the safety shield when slicing on a mandolin! See my middle finger? See that flesh wound on the tip of it? While I like to put something of myself in my dishes, I try not to practice that literally. I'm pretty sure my body's now rebuilt that, ohhh, tablespoon or three of blood I lost.

Despite my attack of dumb, or perhaps because of it, this is a recipe I won't forget! I plan on making this many more times. I'll probably add thin-sliced red onion next time.

...and I wonn't blow off the mandolin safety guard.

Ali N

Question

Can be cucumbers be substituted by courgettes ?

Thank you

Dawn T
Rouxbe Staff

Using Courgettes

You know I am not quite sure about courgettes. Perhaps they would work. They would sure be pretty. Next time I make this I will give it a try. If you try it please let me know if it worked for you.

Ali N

Courgettes

Tried this salad with courgettes. I do not know how the original salad with cucumbers tastes, so can not tell the difference, but I liked main with courgettes. I kept it for 5 hours in the fridge and courgettes were crunchy and a little bit spicy. Thanks for the great site !

Ken J

Unexpected use

I found the salad to be a wonderful topping for grilled fish and chicken.

Bill W

excellent recipe and instructions

I made this but added a little ginger, sliced onion, grated carrot and just before serving added 1 cup of cooked shrimp

Linda C

amazing

this was great. My brother does not like cukes...he loved this...as a matter of fact, I had none left. I served it with thai basil chicken. It was perfect.

Dara M

Yum!

Along with the platefuls of sushi that I order at Japanese restaurants, I always make sure to have an order of sunomono salad, which always tastes so fresh. Now I can make it for myself.

Elaine D

Wonderful

I loved this. It is so healthy, and I loved the spice of it. I had it with teriyaki pork kabobs.

Mike P

Spectacular

I marinated for only thirty minutes due to limited time but it was still spectacular and turned an OK lunch into a great lunch - inspired me to match other dishes to this dish.

Liz D

Quick side dish

I love how quick and easy this is to put together.

I served this with Asian pork chops and the salad was the perfect flavor combination to the sweet and salty pork. I'd like to try this with the addition of some thinly sliced red onion and maybe a bird's eye chile instead of the chili flakes.

Liz

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