Salads with tomatoes and cucumbers

Tomatoes and cucumbers are the main summer vegetables that almost everyone likes and blend perfectly with each other. This duet is the basis of many popular snacks. Salads with tomatoes and cucumbers look bright and appetizing, have a fresh taste, are useful and have a low energy value. They do not require hard-to-reach products, they prepare quickly and easily, even if the hostess is just beginning to master the basics of culinary skill. Such a snack can be served as a supplement to dinner, use instead of a snack, cut to a shish kebab, put on a festive table.

Cooking Features

To spoil a salad of tomatoes and cucumbers is difficult, but some inexperienced chefs manage to do it. Advice from experienced chefs will help to avoid mistakes.

For a salad, it’s better to use ground vegetables - they are more fragrant and healthy. Choosing them on the market, give up sluggish cucumbers and too soft tomatoes. In tomatoes, rub the base near the stem. If you feel the characteristic tomato smell, then you can be sure that you have made a good choice: the salad of such vegetables will turn out fragrant.
If tomatoes do not seem to be red enough for you, let them soak for a few days - they will die.
Sluggish cucumbers can be tried to reanimate by dipping for some time in icy water.
Before adding the cucumber to the salad, cut a slice at the base of the fruit and taste it. It happens that these vegetables are bitter. If even one bitter cucumber gets into a snack, it will irreparably spoil it.
Do not salt the vegetables long before serving to the table, otherwise they will put the juice in and you will get the salad watery, little appetizing. A lot of salt should not be added to a salad of tomatoes and cucumbers, because the vegetables themselves contain it in their composition, albeit in small quantities, so they are tasty even under-salted.
From the same ingredients, you can make snacks that have completely different flavors. The secret is in the choice of refueling. Changing the set of seasonings and herbs that complement the main ingredients, also affects the taste of the finished dish.

When preparing a salad with tomatoes and cucumbers, you should not be afraid to experiment: by following the above recommendations, you will make a tasty snack even if you make your own adjustments to the usual recipe.

A simple recipe for a salad with tomatoes and cucumbers

Composition:

tomatoes - 0, 3 kg;
cucumbers - 0, 3 kg;
salt, fresh greens, sour cream - to taste.

Method of preparation:

Wash vegetables and herbs, let them dry.
Cut the tips of the cucumbers, cut the vegetables into halves of the circles.
In tomatoes, cut seals in the stalk area. Cut the tomatoes into semicircles or quarters of circles, depending on their size. For slicing tomatoes it is better to use a special knife that resembles a saw - it allows you to chop a vegetable without squeezing juice out of it. If you do not have such a device, you can use a regular knife, but it must be sharp.
Chop greens with a knife.
Combine vegetables and herbs, lightly salt and season with sour cream.

This salad is served immediately after cooking. Sour cream in this recipe can be replaced with unrefined vegetable oil or white yogurt.

Salad with tomatoes and cucumbers in garlic-lemon sauce

Composition:

tomatoes - 0, 4 kg;
cucumbers - 0, 4 kg;
red onion - 100 g;
garlic - 2 cloves;
lemon - 1/2 pcs .;
olive oil - 50 ml;
salt, greens - to taste.

Method of preparation:

Wash vegetables, pat dry.
Cut tomatoes into semicircles, cucumbers into thin circles.
Spread the vegetables on a platter.
Free the onions from the peel, cut it into thin half-rings, sprinkle the vegetables on the platter.
Finely chop the garlic and greens with a knife, squeeze the juice from half a lemon on them, add olive oil, whisk together.
Lightly salt the tomatoes and cucumbers, pour the salad over the prepared dressing.

Salad with garlic-lemon dressing has a savory taste, which will appeal to lovers of savory snacks. Additionally, you can enter crushed nuts in the recipe, then the taste of the dish will acquire new notes.

Salad with tomatoes, cucumbers and eggs

Composition:

tomatoes - 0, 3 kg;
cucumbers - 0, 3 kg;
lettuce leaves - 0, 2 kg;
fresh dill - 20 g;
fresh parsley - 20 g;
chicken egg - 2 pcs .;
sour cream - 50 ml;
mayonnaise - 50 ml;
salt - to taste.

Method of preparation:

Boil the chicken eggs, cool them under running cold water. Free from the husk and cut into small cubes. Put in a bowl.
Wash the lettuce leaves, let them dry. Break your hands.
Spread one part of the lettuce leaves along the bottom of a large dish; send the rest of the salad to a bowl with eggs.
Wash, dry vegetables with a napkin, cut them into cubes and place them with the rest of the ingredients.
Mix the mayonnaise and sour cream, season the appetizer with the sauce, put it on the salad leaves.
Sprinkle with finely chopped greens.

Salad made according to this recipe is nourishing, it can replace not only snacks, but also a light dinner.

Salad with tomatoes, cucumbers and radishes

Composition:

tomatoes - 0.5 kg;
cucumbers - 0, 5 kg;
radishes - 0, 25 kg;
green onions - 100 g;
vegetable oil and salt - to taste.

Method of preparation:

Wash vegetables, cut off their tips.
Cut the vegetables into quarters, fold them into a bowl.
Wash, dry the green onions, chop it with a knife and send it to the vegetables.
Salted vegetables and season with vegetable oil.

Vegetable oil for this salad is better to use unrefined - it is healthier and more fragrant. The appetizer will get a different taste if the butter is replaced with sour cream or mayonnaise. In any case, the dish is rich in vitamins, fragrant and juicy. This salad is often called summer or spring.

Salad with tomatoes, cucumbers and cheese

Composition:

tomatoes - 0, 4 kg;
cucumbers - 0, 5 kg;
Bulgarian pepper - 0, 2 kg;
red onion - 100 g;
cheese - 0, 2 kg;
salt, pepper, olive oil - to taste.

Method of preparation:

Wash vegetables, blot with a napkin.
Free onions from the husk, cut into thin quarters of rings, put in a bowl.
Pepper seeds are removed by removing the stalk. Cut into quarters of rings about 3-5 mm wide. Put in a bowl with onions.
Cut the tips of the cucumber, cut the fruit into large cubes, send to other ingredients.
For tomatoes, cut a dense part of the flesh near the stem. Cut the vegetables in the same pieces as the cucumbers, put them in a bowl.
Add the butter, pepper and salt to the bowl, mix.
Put the appetizer in a salad bowl.
Cut the cheese into cubes, spread it on the surface of the salad, pour a little oil.

An appetizer made according to this recipe resembles a popular salad known as “Greek”. Adding basil and lettuce to it will enhance the similarities.

“Aztec” salad with tomatoes, cucumbers and avocado

Composition:

tomatoes - 0.5 kg;
cucumbers - 0, 5 kg;
avocados - 0, 4-0, 5 kg;
salad onions - 100 g;
lemon - 1/2 pcs .;
vegetable oil - 60 ml;
salt, pepper - to taste.

Method of preparation:

Wash and dry vegetables and avocados with a kitchen towel.
Peel the onions, finely chop, put in a bowl.
Cut the avocado in half, remove the seeds from the fruit. Make cuts in the form of a lattice on the pulp, cutting it almost to the skin. Remove the avocado halves, at the same time separating the flesh cubes from the peel. Put them to the bow.
Remove the tips of the cucumbers, and the tomatoes of the seals near the stem.
Cut vegetables into cubes of approximately the same size as avocados, put in a bowl with other ingredients.
Prepare the dressing by mixing juice, salt, pepper and olive oil squeezed from half a lemon. Pour in the sauce to the food in a bowl, mix and put the appetizer in a salad bowl or dish.

Despite the use of an exotic fruit, the taste of this salad does not seem specific to you, as it is pleasant and harmonious. Avocados in this recipe can be replaced by an apple. The taste of this dish will change, but it will remain interesting and balanced.

How to decorate a salad with tomatoes and cucumbers

The combination of scarlet tomatoes and green cucumbers creates a color contrast, making the salads of these vegetables bright and appetizing. If you skillfully decorate such a snack, it will become a decent holiday table.

Do not rush to dress the salad of tomatoes and cucumbers with sauce. The best idea would be to decompose sliced or diced vegetables on a platter and pour over the prepared dressing. Options for beautiful placement of vegetables on a dish can offer a few. You can lay out tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes or onions in a circle or in a spiral. You can put the salad components in rows. Sometimes tomatoes are laid out on one side of the dish, and tomatoes on the other.
A tomato and cucumber salad is often decorated with flowers made from these vegetables. You can make them in different ways. One of them is to lay down thin vegetable circles in the shape of a bud. If you cut cucumbers into thin slices lengthwise and fold them in half, you can make leaves or petals of a flower from them, bow.
Another original way of serving tomato and cucumber salad is in the form of a watermelon lobule. Diced tomatoes are laid out in a semicircle, on the one hand they are surrounded by slices of cucumber. Tomato and cucumber layers can be separated from each other with grated cheese or eggs, grains can be made from pieces of olives.

The salad with tomatoes and cucumbers on lettuce leaves looks beautiful. They can be laid on a dish, in a salad bowl or in bowls, if the salad is served in portions.

Salads with tomatoes and cucumbers are simply cooked, they are easy, but tasty. They can be done both on weekdays and on holidays. In the summer of such pleasure is inexpensive.