Spicy Cucumber Salad (Only 10 Minutes)

Spicy Cucumber Salad Recipe

This spicy asian cucumber salad recipe, like our popular Spicy Korean Cucumber Salad (Oi Muchim/오이무침) and Pickled Cucumber recipe, provides a firm crunch, bold taste, and is ready in as little as 10 minutes!

Ingredients and Substitutions

Here are the “non-pantry” ingredients you need to make this dish. The full list of ingredients is listed in the recipe card below.

• Cucumbers – see below for the cucumbers I recommend using.
• Red Pepper Flakes – you can sub in Korean chili flakes (gochugaru) if you prefer.
• Rice Wine Vinegar – red wine vinegar or white wine vinegar will also work.
• Sesame Oil – this adds a ton of flavor so don’t replace with a neutral oil.
• Toasted Sesame Seeds – make sure the seeds are toasted! 
• Green Onion or Chives – adding thinly sliced red onions taste amazing, too!

While this Cucumber Salad is spiced with red pepper flakes, feel free to leave them out if you’re not one with hot spices. The other elements will create a fantastic stand alone dish on their own.

How To Make Cucumber Salad

This crunchy asian spicy cucumber salad doesn’t require much time to prepare, but it is all hands-on time. For the full recipe steps, reference the detailed recipe card below.

Mix the Dressing – Add all the sauce ingredients to a small bowl and whisk to combine.

Prepare Cucumbers – Thinly slice the cucumbers and place in a colander in the sink. 

Salt Cucumbers – Lightly salt the cucumber slices to remove any excess moisture. Let sit to drain for a minimum of 5 minutes, up to 30 minutes. Give them a quick rinse and dry with a paper towel.

Dress Cucumbers – Place the cucumbers in a medium mixing bowl and toss with the dressing. 

Types of Cucumbers

While any cucumber will work well, here are the best cucumbers to use as these tend to have minimal seeds and are less watery:

• Korean Cucumber
• Kirby Cucumbers
• Japanese
• Continental
• Persian Cucumbers
• English Cucumbers

Expert Tips

• Use a mandoline to quickly create even cucumber slices.
• Don’t skip the salting step to maximize flavor. Salting the cucumbers draws out the excess liquid to prevent a watery salad. 
• While most cucumber recipes are best after marinating for a few hours to develop the flavor, this bad boy is ready to go after mixing.

Serving Suggestions

Spicy Cucumber Salad can be served alongside many different Asian recipes, including Korean BBQ.

Here are a few of our favorite recipes to serve it with:

Storage

Refrigerate – store this cucumber salad in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. The cucumbers will continue to release water as they sit so the sauce will get runnier/watered down the longer it sits.

This recipe was originally posted in October 2015, but I updated it in July 2024 with new photos, additional text and small edits to the original recipe.