Why You Ought to Salt Your Cucumbers

Come summertime, cooks and residential cooks in all places are particularly excited—like, actually excited—about tomatoes. Tomato tarts, sandwiches, and pastas galore! Whereas we are able to’t deny that tomatoes are nice, there’s additionally so much to like about their summer time salad sidekick, the cucumber. Cucumbers, which carry coolness, crunch, and a refreshing chew to salads, sandwiches, and even stir-fries, can actually make your summer time meals pop. Plus, they’re scrumptious to snack on with a dip or on their very own. However as a result of cucumbers are filled with moisture, they’ll flip your meals right into a soggy, waterlogged mess. Fortunately for us, there’s a easy answer to this downside: salting your cucumbers.

Why You Ought to Salt Your Cucumbers

Salting your cucumbers initiates the method of osmosis, which expels water from the cucumber’s cells whereas concurrently enhancing its taste. As Critical Eats contributor Tim Chin wrote in his guide to brining vegetables, the salt “diffuses throughout these membranes and seasons the greens deeply.” Individuals typically consider cucumbers as bland and watery, however relying on the range, they are often candy, pleasantly bitter, and even savory. Salt helps cucumbers launch their moisture, however, simply as importantly, highlights the nuanced flavors we’d in any other case miss. 

It’s a method our editors and contributors depend on. “After I make cucumber dips, I at all times pre-salt cucumbers to attract out moisture earlier than stirring into the dip, so the surplus moisture would not skinny the dip because it leaches out over time,” says senior culinary editor Leah Colins. 

Culinary editor Genevieve Yam, who despises a soggy salad, steadily salts her cucumbers to stop her meals from turning into a puddle. And Chin employs this method in his stir-fried cucumbers and mushroom recipe to assist the cucumbers correctly sear as an alternative of turning into mush. 

Easy methods to Salt Your Cucumbers

You’ve got heard of “set it and neglect it,” however what about…salt it and neglect it? Salting your cucumbers is such a low effort activity that every one you’ll want to do is season them, stroll away, and let osmosis do the arduous give you the results you want. Do it initially of dinner prep, and by the point you have gathered all of your mise en place, your cucumbers might be able to go.

You’ll wish to use about half a teaspoon of Diamond Crystal kosher salt for each pound of cucumbers you’re making ready. (Use 1 / 4 teaspoon if utilizing desk salt.) Wash and slice the cucumbers, place them in a colander set over a big bowl or sink, then salt them. (You might wish to calmly toss them to verify the cucumbers are evenly coated) Let the cucumbers sit till they start to launch their water, about 5 to 10 minutes. Some individuals wish to rinse the salt off or dab the cucumbers dry afterwards, however whether or not you select to is solely as much as you. Should you do rinse them, simply remember to drain them nicely so you are not including much more water to your last dish after working to take away moisture—as a result of that might defeat the entire function of salting them within the first place.