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A hand holding an octagon bowl with cucumber salad with cashews, mint and feta There are 2 gold spoons in the salad off to the side.
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Cucumber Feta Mint Salad

This Cucumber Feta Mint Salad is a cool, easy and refreshing salad. This is perfect as a side dish or even a light lunch! This salad takes less than 30 minutes and only requires a handful of ingredients.
Course Salad, Side Dish
Cuisine American
Diet Vegetarian
Prep Time 5 minutes
Resting Time 25 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes
Servings 4 people
Calories 299kcal
Author Mara

Ingredients

  • 2 toll house cucumbers
  • ¼ cup red onion
  • .5 ounce mint
  • 4 ounces feta
  • cup cashews
  • kosher salt

Dressing

  • ¼ cup olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
  • ½ tablespoon honey
  • 1 pinch chili flakes, optional

Instructions

  • Wash cucumbers and cut each cucumber in half vertically, then scrape out the seeds with a spoon or melon baller. Slice the cucumbers into thin cross-sections about ¼-1/2 inch thick.
  • Salt the cucumber slices and place them in a colander with a bowl underneath or place in the kitchen sink to drain the excess water for at least 10 minutes up - 30 minutes.
  • While the cucumber is draining, crumble/cube feta, thinly slice red onion, wash and pull mint leave, crush cashews and whisk up dressing and set aside. Optionally, you can put the red onion in an ice water bath to remove some of the 'bite' of the red onion.
  • Lightly rinse salt off cucumber. Place the cucumbers in paper towels or a kitchen bowl to absorb the extra moisture. It's okay if some salt is still left on!
  • Once cucumbers are dried, add them to a salad bowl and add red onion and dressing. Gently toss, until well coated then place in the fridge for at least 15 minutes.
  • Take cucumber outs of the fridge and add mint, crumbled feta and crushed cashews. Taste and add salt if necessary. Serve.

Notes

Red onions too sharp? Add sliced onion to ice water for a few minutes, then dry before adding to the salad. It will take away some of the sharpness out of the red onion.
Salt your cucumber! Salting cucumbers and 'sweating' them will draw out the extra water and moisture resulting in a crunchy cucumber.
Wait to add the feta and fresh mint until just before serving to keep it extra fresh.
Check your salt! When drying the cucumber there might be a little bit of salt on your cucumbers. Also, whether you use salted or unsalted cashews will also affect the salt level. Make sure the taste the salt before serving to decide if you need to add extra salt or not.
Can I make this salad in advance? Personally I don't recommend it. After a day, the flavors get muddled and your mint will become brown and soggy. You could prep the dressing and salting your cucumbers in advance. Then toss the cucumber, dressing and red onion a few hours before serving and finishing it with feta, mint and cashews right before serving.
  Nutritional information for this recipe is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed. Please calculate your own nutritional information if you want it exact to what you make and use my calculations as a guide only.

Nutrition

Calories: 299kcal | Carbohydrates: 14g | Protein: 7g | Fat: 25g | Saturated Fat: 7g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 3g | Monounsaturated Fat: 14g | Cholesterol: 25mg | Sodium: 338mg | Potassium: 343mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 7g | Vitamin A: 429IU | Vitamin C: 6mg | Calcium: 181mg | Iron: 2mg