Asian Keto Cucumber Salad

This Asian keto cucumber salad is a fresh and delicious side salad. You can easily control the heat level to be as mild or as spicy as you’d like!

When you want a delicious and pretty side salad, this Asian keto cucumber salad is the perfect choice. It comes together quickly, and you can make it a day ahead of time if you’d like. I like my salad to have a nice kick of heat, but you can make yours mild if you’d prefer!

Let’s talk about our main ingredients!

We start with cucumbers to make this delicious salad. I used regular cucumbers, which are the most common kind of cucumbers you’ll find in the grocery store, but you can use English cucumbers if you’d like. Regardless of the type of cucumber you use, you don’t have to peel your cucumbers to make this salad. I like to partially peel mine to create a pretty striped appearance. To our cucumbers, we add diced onions. I like to use a red onion for its mild flavor and addition of color it brings to this salad, but you can use a yellow onion if you’d prefer. We then add fresh minced garlic. I added 2 minced garlic cloves, but you can add even more garlic if you’d like. A fun tip to peel garlic is to microwave a few cloves of garlic for 10-15 seconds, then it’s easy to peel!

How do I make the dressing for this Asian keto cucumber salad?

The dressing for this salad comes together quickly, yet creates an amazingly delicious dish! For our dressing, we combine rice vinegar, tamari, toasted sesame oil, toasted sesame seeds, keto granulated sugar, and salt. When buying vinegar, you’ll want to make sure you’re buying plain rice vinegar and not seasoned rice vinegar because seasoned rice vinegar contains added sugar. Tamari and toasted sesame oil add amazing flavor, and the keto sugar balances out the flavors and adds just a touch of sweetness. I also add some salt to this dressing, but you can adjust that to taste. If you’d like a mild dressing, you can stop here. I like to add about ¼ teaspoon of red pepper flakes to my dressing to give it a nice kick of heat! You can also add a few dashes of your favorite hot sauce if you’d like!

How do I make homemade toasted sesame seeds for this Asian keto cucumber salad?

It’s amazingly easy to make homemade toasted sesame seeds and they’re delicious. When you toast sesame seeds, they end up with an awesome nutty flavor. They can then be added to all kinds of salads, or as a topping for vegetables, meats, or stir fry dishes, just to name a few. Although they can be toasted in the oven, I prefer to toast mine in a skillet on the stovetop. To do this, you’ll want to heat a small skillet over medium heat. Once heated, you’ll add a couple of tablespoons of sesame seeds to the skillet. I then let the sesame seeds set for a minute before stirring them. It will take about 3-4 minutes total time to toast your sesame seeds. I like to stir my seeds every 30 seconds or so while they’re cooking. You’ll want to keep an eye on them to ensure they don’t burn.

Need some more fun keto cucumber recipes? Here are a few of our favorites!

Creamy Keto Cucumber Coleslaw

Easy Cucumber Tomato Salad

Everything Bagel Cucumber Bites

Mediterranean Cucumber Salsa

Helpful Hints:

*You can add even more garlic to your salad if you’d like.

*You can serve this salad immediately, but the flavors will meld together nicely if the salad is refrigerated for a few hours before serving.

Main Kitchen Equipment and Utensils

• Mixing bowls
• Measuring spoons

Splash of Encouragement:

***Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! Romans 11:33***