Cucumber Salad Recipes

Star chef and Top Chef judge Tom Colicchio is crazy about Catapano Dairy Farm in Peconic, Long Island. The five-acre property has 95 or so milking goats, which generate about 60 pounds of cheese and yogurt on any given day. Capatano's fresh and aged cheeses are excellent, but Colicchio's favorite is the creamy, superbly tangy and slightly funky goat yogurt, which he uses for this supremely simple and delicious salad. It's a perfect summery side dish, and also makes a great crunchy topping for burgers.

In this refreshing salad, crisp cucumbers and aromatic cilantro are tossed with a tangy dressing made with lime juice, fish sauce and fiery Thai chiles.

Mast-o khiar is a refreshing yogurt salad made with cucumbers, dill, garlic and shallots. It can be served alongside everything from Persian flatbread to meats and fish.

Sandro Gamba uses nonfat yogurt in many of his sauces and salad dressings. Here he mixes it with succulent Dungeness crab, a high-protein seafood that's also high in iron and zinc.

The delicious dressing for this salad comes from the juices that form while the cucumber macerates with the other ingredients.

Kacie Loparto harvests seaweed along Maine's coast and sells it at farmers' markets and on her website, shesellsseaweed.com. She especially loves wakame mixed with miso, ginger and cucumber.

Michael Fojtasek and Grae Nonas cut two different types of cucumber into slices and chunks and serve them with a creamy herb dressing and sunflower sprouts and seeds.

This cold, crispy, superfast recipe from blogger Kian Lam Kho makes an excellent side dish.

A simple salad of cucumbers and fresh spearmint comes together perfectly with a lemony, creamy vinaigrette made from Greek yogurt.

This super fast corn salad gets a Greek twist with cucumber and a generous helping of feta.

To keep the vegetables in this salad crisp, Jeff Cerciello soaks them in ice water and then dries them in a salad spinner before tossing them with a lightly tangy creme fraiche and poppy seed dressing.

"When I was a kid, my mom would marinate cucumbers, red onions and canned potatoes in jarred creamy Italian dressing," says Jamie Bissonnette. "I'm not saying she was a great cook, but creamy Italian dressing is still my favorite. I make a version of it for this salad."

"I'm a thigh guy," says chef Michael Symon, co-host of The Chew. "It has the deepest flavor of all chicken cuts."