Cucumber, Tomato, Avocado Salad

Cucumber and tomato salad is a light and delicious side dish that can only be improved with one thing. Avocado! It’s not just for toast anymore! It can make a tasty and healthy side dish for dinner or a simple cucumber tomato avocado salad meal could make for a light lunch.

 Salads are super easy to put together, even for people who feel hopeless in the kitchen. This easy cucumber tomato avocado salad for beginners is all about cutting up the raw fruits and vegetables and tossing them with a little olive oil and lemon juice. 

 The crisp cucumbers contrast with juicy tomatoes and creamy avocado brings it all together. A little parsley gives it texture, and you can add salt and pepper to taste. It’s a light dish but full of flavor, not to mention lycopene, beta-carotene and Vitamin C. This family friendly cucumber tomato avocado salad is so tasty even kids who don’t usually like vegetables will love it. If you have a vegetable cutter that can cut your cucumbers into stars, hearts or other fun shapes, your kids will really love it. If you’re serving this at a fancy dinner party, you can make roses out of avocados and tomatoes for a garnish. Salads are not just easy to make, but versatile. 

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Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• Very easy to make. Just requires some cutting and measuring skills. 
• A healthy choice of a side dish made with nutritious fruits and vegetables. 
• This is the best cucumber tomato avocado salad recipe for vegans. 
• A great way to urge the kids to eat vegetables. 

Ingredient Notes and Substitutions

Tomatoes: Cherry tomatoes cut in half are recommended for this recipe. Grape tomatoes will also work. If you like roma tomatoes, they will have to be diced up. You can swap them out for red peppers if you prefer. 

Cucumbers: Chopped English cucumbers are recommended. The peels can be left on or removed as you see fit. 

Avocado: Diced ripe avocado is recommended. 

Lemon Juice: Gives it a bit of acidity. If you don’t have or don’t like lemon juice, you can substitute vinegar. 

Olive Oil: This classic salad dressing base is a rare “good fat” rich in anti-oxidants. Monounsaturated fats are heart healthy. You can replace it with tahini or avocado oil if you like. 

Parsley: This often used as a garnish. Here, it adds some texture and color with an appetizing aroma. Parsley seed will have a stronger flavor. Chopped fresh parsley is recommended but dried parsley will do in a pinch. 

How to make this Cucumber, Tomato, Avocado Salad:

Stir your cucumbers, tomatoes and avocado together in a mixing bowl. You want them cut small enough to easily fit on a fork but still large enough to taste.

Slices of cucumber cut into quarters should work. Get them all distributed so that there’s not too much of one kind in an area.

You want to put in equal parts lemon juice and olive oil so that they’ll balance each other out. Sprinkle on the parsley and toss it so that everything is more or less equally covered in oil and juice. Salt and pepper to taste.  If you’re trying to cut back on salt you can use garlic powder, basil, oregano or any number of spices that pair well with tomatoes. Paprika will add a bit of a kick plus some more red color to this red and green salad. It can be served right away or briefly chilled in the refrigerator. 

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Tips for Success

Avocados are notorious for being hard to get to that just ripe stage. Your best bet is to get bright green and rock hard avocados and force them to ripen. For best results, you can put them in a paper bag with an apple for a week. It will only take five days if you use a banana. If you need an avocado to ripen quickly, you can wrap it up (cling wrap for microwave, foil for oven) and expose it to high heat, followed by a cold bath. However, the flavor won’t be quite right. 

Storage and Reheating

You can store it in the refrigerator for about a day. You know how avocados can be. Any longer and it will start to turn brown, but it might taste OK with an extra squeeze of lemon mixed in. Leftover cucumber tomato avocado salad can be mixed with pasta to make a nice cool pasta salad. 

Serving Suggestions

If you’d like to add a little protein to this salad you can add grilled shrimp or chicken cubes. You can also mix it up with a creamy yogurt-based dressing if that’s what you like. Some people like a few crumbles of feta cheese. If you like a little crunch in your salad, you can add sunflower seeds, crushed walnuts or croutons. 

As a side dish it goes best with something light such as fish or chicken. Try these entrees: 

Honey Garlic Slow Cooker Chicken Thighs – Sweet Pea’s Kitchen 

Lemon Herb Sheet Pan Salmon Recipe – Sweet Pea’s Kitchen 

FAQs

Can I make this ahead of time?

Because avocados are so fragile, it’s best to eat this salad the day you make it. It’s quick and easy to put together, though. It would be a great dish to make for a potluck. 

Is this dish vegan?

If you follow the recipe as is, yes. Olive oil is made from the fruit of the olive tree and contains no animal products. It is rich in Vitamins E and K. A vegan may add tofu or nuts for protein. 

Notes:

Many people these days are trying their hand at backyard gardening. Another thing getting a surge in popularity these days is purchasing produce from the farmer’s market. Both are good ways to get organic produce without paying astronomical prices. The tomatoes you get this way may need a day or so on the windowsill to get good and ripe, but the flavor is tremendous. Cucumber plants are abundantly fertile, so you may be able to find them at a good price at a farmer’s market. Only grow cucumbers at home if you really like cucumbers or at least know how to make pickles.