If your cucumbers are doing well and the squash bugs have not gotten to them, you will have an abundance of cukes and may be wondering what to do with them. After all, cucumbers are not used much in cooked dishes, so the recipes are not nearly as plentiful as some other vegetables.
The standard way to eat cucumbers at my house when I was growing up was cucumber vinegar. That’s what we called it anyway. It’s a simple dish used to spice up other simple side dishes (or in a farmer’s home such as ours, the MAIN dish) such as collards, cabbage, string beans or butterbeans.
Cucumber Vinegar Recipe:
We would slice up a few small cucumbers into a bowl, cover them with apple cider vinegar, then top them with salt and pepper. A spoonful or two of this on top of your bowl of butterbeans is some really good traditional southern eatin’.
The longer this mixture has time to marinate, the more bite it will have. My Daddy LOVED that bite! I am not good at planning ahead though and so I usually make mine right before sitting down to eat it and its still delicious.
Cucumber Vinegar Variations:
If we had green onions (scallions) growing, we’d often slice them up and add them to the bowl. Or, if the cucumbers had quit producing, we would substitute the green onions in their place.
After I moved away from eastern North Carolina, I found that people in Texas and Alabama often add sugar to theirs. And while I like it this way, I don’t need the added calories.
Some people even go so far as to use white vinegar. In my opinion, you might as well just not make the dish if you are going to use white vinegar. It just doesn’t have any taste. But obviously, taste buds vary. If you don’t like the “bite” of apple cider vinegar you can water it down with equal parts of each.
If you enjoy super simple recipes for your garden produce you might like to read How to Make Your Own Hot Pepper Vinegar.
And here is Betty Crocker’s recipe where she uses white vinegar, sugar AND fresh dill, which I LOVE!
Oh yes.. Love it.. It’s a favorite of mine and we are up north.. 🙂
Oh that is so cool to know! I had no idea it would be a known dish further north. 🙂
Never tried it with apple cider vinegar, I use vinegar and oil dressing but always add onions 🙂
I had never even heard of white vinegar until I was oh … at least 35 or 40!
My husband is eating what he calls ‘pickling’ cucumbers to beat the band this summer. Probably because we are doing Weight Watchers and we can’t eat a lot of the goodies we would rather eat. I am pinning this recipe to give him another option for these low cal veggies. Thank you.
Cucumbers are so great! My favorite is just a cucumber sandwich.