Simple Tomato Cucumber Salad Marinated In Vinegar

Here’s a vegetable salad that’s super easy to make ahead. Try this simple tomato cucumber marinated in vinegar for your next dinner or potluck event. It’s an easy vegetable side dish that uses champagne vinegar dressing. It’s crunchy. It’s light. Let’s make it.

This simple tomato-cucumber salad is a great way to use up vegetables from the garden, farmers market, or fridge. The champagne vinegar dressing keeps it light and easy to make ahead for a crowd or WFH lunch.

This make-ahead vegetable salad keeps in the fridge for days and is perfectly satisfying. It’s the type of salad that takes 10 minutes or less to make.

Ingredients for simple tomato-cucumber salad

You could toss in almost any fresh vegetable to this salad. Here are the ingredients for this particular version of tomato and cucumber salad marinated in vinegar.

The simple main salad ingredients

• Tomatoes – diced in chunks
• Cucumbers – sliced in discs
• A few fresh chopped basil leaves

The vinegar dressing tomatoes and cucumbers marinate in

• Olive oil
• Champagne vinegar – you can use any white wine vinegar)
• Paprika
• Red pepper flakes – used crushed red pepper flakes, or crush them against a cutting board with the back of a spoon
• Salt and pepper, to taste – add some extra salt and pepper on the salad when you add the dressing

How to make a tomato and cucumber salad with vinegar

Step 1. Add the main ingredients (tomatoes, cucumbers, basil) to a large bowl and set aside.

 Step 2. Whisk together the dressing ingredients (olive oil, champagne vinegar, paprika, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper).

Tips for the champagne vinaigrette dressing marinade

Taste the dressing once it’s combined in the small bowl. You might like a little more vinegar, or you might like it just the way it is. If it tastes good in the small bowl of dressing, it will be good in the salad. Sometimes I dip a cucumber in the dressing and take a bite – just to be sure.

Step 3. Add the champagne vinegar salad dressing to the bowl of vegetables and toss to combine. Add salt and pepper as desired.

Step 4. Marinate tomato and cucumber salad for at least 1-2 hours before serving. Overnight marinating is recommended.

This is a salad that keeps well in the fridge

When I have something like this very simple tomato-cucumber salad to add to dinner, it saves time and checks off the “vegetable” box for a well-rounded meal. Chef hubs also love this as a late-night snack. Because when you eat dinner at 5 pm with a toddler, by 9 pm you’re ready for a snack. When we serve this to the baby, we dice it up small and call it the “cukes and tomatoes recipe”.

So how long does cucumber salad last in the fridge? About 2-3 days.

This is the perfect end of summer salad to make with tomatoes. Here in Oregon, this year tomatoes grew much later in the season. They were green all summer. But now, with the hot Portland days, Portland gardeners are getting a ton of ripe tomatoes and they can’t use them up fast enough. While we aren’t going out to Portland lunch restaurants as much with the 2020 changes going on, refreshing soup and salad combo WFH lunches are filling the void.

Another vegetable dish I love lately is this frozen vegetable stir fry.

Kitchen staples for making easy simple salads

• Save time, use a mandoline or food processor to chop vegetable salads, and make them faster.
• Since using high-quality knives like my 8″ Shun chef’s knife, I’ve gotten way more into meal prep. It’s easy and fun.
• A nice clean work station like these bamboo cutting boards or my beautiful Acadia wood cutting board.
• These mixing bowls come with lids, which is great for marinating Caprese chicken sandwiches or refrigerating recipes like make ahead Mexican salads.
• Love having beautiful wood serving spoons on hand.
• Mini tongs are cute and handy for serving sides and salads.
• I love this baking pan set for cooking homemade pizza to serve on the side of vegetable salads

Final tips for making this easy tomato-cucumber salad

• My favorite plating tip for this simple tomato and cucumber salad is to add it on top of a green salad. It gives the salad something special and looks stunning on the plate.
• Make it creamy by adding cheese like grated Parmesan or fresh mozzarella balls (similar to my best Caprese salad).
• Make sure to taste the dressing before adding it to the salad – you might like a little more vinegar, a little more red pepper flakes, etc, or you might like it just the way it is. Don’t add it to the large bowl of salad ingredients until you’re happy with how the dressing tastes on its own.
• Thanks to Colavita for sending their Colavita champagne vinegar used in the tomato-cucumber salad recipe video. It’s actually called Prosecco vinegar, which makes this tomato dish sound super fancy.
• This tomato cucumber salad lasts in the fridge for 2-3 days.

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Love easy WFH lunch ideas? And tasty salads?

At the end of the week, I do a fridge clean out to go along with my buy and freeze meal prep mantra. Whatever is left – vegetables usually – get turned into a soup or become a tasty make-ahead salad. I’m always cooking seasonally and you can find me on Instagram to get inspired with more make-ahead tomato salads and similar dishes @sipbitego.

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