Cucumber Chile Salad is a cool-hot combination with a smooth sour cream dressing and onion accent – great as a side dish with just about anything
I first made this back in 2010 for the Green Chile Class I taught at Hilltop Gardens. We had about 35 students. I made three versions of this – one with mild chiles, one with medium (Big Jims) and one
with hot (Moscos). The group was split between preferring the medium versus the hot. They thought the mild was too mild to really taste the chiles.
When I teach chile classes, I often make 3 versions of each dish -mild, medium, and hot. The point here is that certain dishes are much better with mild, while others are better with hot. In this case, a reason the hot is better is that with cucumbers and sour cream, cucumber salad is cool. The hot chiles give it contrast and make Cucumber Chile Salad more interesting. This principle also tends to apply to sweet-hot. It’s fun to explore this stuff – and lots of sampling is mandatory!
It was a real hit – many asked for this recipe. It’s not only easy, but is just really yummy and is an example of cucumbers at their best. Ever think cucumbers are not exciting? In this dish, nothing could take the place of those cucumbers! I used the mini cucumbers, often called Persian cucumbers, and didn’t peel them. When I make this with regular cucumbers, I peel them as the skin is a bit thicker and tougher.
Hope everybody tries this one!
- ½ cup sour cream or plain yogurt
- 1 tbsp vinegar
- 1 tsp sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp dried dill
- dash black pepper
- ½ cup diced hot or medium hot green chiles
- 2 cups sliced mini cucumber or sliced peeled regular cucumber
- 1½ cups thinly sliced red onion
- Combine first 7 ingredients (through chiles) in a bowl.
- Mix all ingredients until blended, then add cucumbers and onions.
- Chill at least 4 hours or up to 5 days, then serve.
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