Creamy Tomato Cucumber Salad

This Creamy Tomato Cucumber Salad is easy to make with only 7 basic ingredients! And, it's quick to throw together in only 15 minutes. This tomato cucumber salad is a super refreshing summer side dish for a cookout or barbecue!

Note: this recipe was originally published in 2019 and updated in 2021 with new photos and improved instructions.

Who doesn't love a refreshing, chilled tomato cucumber salad in the hot summer months? This salad is bursting with fresh flavor from vine-ripened tomatoes, cucumbers, and fresh herbs, and would go perfectly alongside your favorite grilled dishes for a backyard barbecue. (Maybe this delicious recipe for balsamic marinated grilled chicken?)

This salad also has a creamy, but not too heavy dressing that still allows the fresh flavor of summer tomatoes shine. It's a mayonnaise base, but mixed with a bit of Greek yogurt that lightens up the dressing and gives it an extra bit of tang.

And, my favorite part of this recipe is that it's easy and quick to make! You only need seven ingredients in all, and it comes together in only about 15 minutes! Summer barbecue, here we come!

Recipe ingredients

Ingredient notes

• Tomatoes: you can use any type of tomato you like for this creamy tomato cucumber salad; heirloom tomatoes would be especially beautiful! If you want, you could use grape or cherry tomatoes but it wouldn't be my first choice, there would be too much skin to tomato meat for my taste. But that's just me, you do you! Here, I used vine-ripened tomatoes because they are delicious and pretty accessible in most grocery stores.

• English cucumber: this is the long, thin cucumber that usually comes wrapped in plastic at the grocery store. I like using English cucumbers because there are less seeds and the peel is thin, so there is no need to peel it or scoop out the seeds.

• Fresh herbs: you can also use any type of leafy fresh herbs you like; basil, parsley, dill, and chives would all work great! I used a combination of basil and parsley (sorry if that counts as eight ingredients then!).

• Greek yogurt: you will want plain, unsweetened Greek yogurt. I like to use the full-fat type, but you could also substitute low-fat if you would like.

Step by step photos

1. Mix the dressing ingredients. You do this step first, in the bowl you are going to mix the rest of the salad in. That way you don't need to dirty another, smaller bowl just to mix up the dressing!

2. Prep the Tomatoes. First, cut off the stem end of the tomato (the little brown circle where the stem used to be attached). Then cut each tomato in half horizontally. You should have a nice cross-section of the tomato where you can see each chamber of the seeds and pulp.

Then use a small, sharp spoon to scoop out the pulp. Another way is to cut the little portion where the flesh attaches to the pulp, and flick out the chunk of pulp and seeds with the tip of the knife. Or, you can just use your fingers to dig out the pulp (this is the messiest, yet easiest way I have found!).

Once you have the seeds and pulp removed, cut the tomatoes into large chunks and place them in the bowl with the dressing.

3. Cut the cucumber in half length-wise, then cut it into thick slices. Place in the bowl with the tomatoes and dressing.

4. Next, thinly slice the red onion and place in the bowl.

5. Now come the herbs - just chop them up, no need to go super fine. Place them in the bowl with the rest of the salad ingredients.

6. All you have to do now is mix up the salad gently, until all the ingredients are evenly coated in the dressing. Taste a piece, and add in a sprinkle more salt if it needs it.

Tips and tricks

• The most important step to this salad is to make sure you remove as much of the pulp and seeds as you can without bruising the tomatoes too much. This helps the salad from becoming too wet and diluting that creamy dressing.

• If you decided to go with cherry tomatoes however, you can skip the pulp removal part! They are too small to really make this practical and they don't have as much watery pulp as larger tomatoes.

• The dressing for this salad is comprised of 2 parts mayo to 1 part Greek yogurt. This results in a creamy dressing with a subtle tanginess. If you like, you can try experimenting with this ratio by adding slightly more Greek yogurt and less mayo to bump up the tanginess.

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