Creamy Cucumber Salad with Dill

There is absolutely no shortage of ways to toss together a totally refreshing cucumber salad. But the one I come back to again and again is made with crisp slices of cucumber tangled with sweet red onion and wisps of fresh dill, and blanketed with a rich and tangy dressing. It’s a summer staple that’s a breeze to pull together and partners with almost anything. Best of all, the cucumbers stay crispy for days.

The best solution to keep your cucumber salad from getting watery is to salt the cucumbers before mixing together the salad. This simple step actually has several benefits:

• Keeps the salad from getting watery. Setting the sliced cucumbers in a colander, sprinkling them with salt, and letting them sit for 30 minutes pulls some of the water content from the cucumbers and allows them to easily drain.
• Keeps the cucumbers crisp. The cukes will keep their crisp bite for days.
• Seasons the salad. Not to worry, the salad won’t be salty. You’ll use just enough kosher salt that the salad is nicely seasoned.

I think the best cucumber salad starts with peeled cucumbers, though ultimately this comes down to personal preference. Leaving the skin on can make for a tougher bite. This recipe calls for English cucumbers, which have a relatively thin, sweet skin. Slicing cucumbers, on the other hand, have a thicker, sometimes waxy skin, and should always be peeled first.

English cucumbers (also known as hot house cucumbers) make the best cucumber salads thanks to their subtle sweetness and firm texture. These are the long, semi-seedless variety that usually come wrapped in plastic if you buy them in the grocery store. The only explanation we can find for the shrink wrapping is that it protects the skin (which is un-waxed and sweeter than slicing cucumbers) and prevents water loss. They are referred to as seedless simply because the seeds are smaller and less noticeable.