GRANNY’S TOMATO-CUCUMBER SALAD
Tomato diced
Onion diced
Cucumber diced
Toss all ingredients together in bowl. Season with salt and pepper and chill for several hours before serving. All those great flavors of summer marry together into a sort of relish. Granny always said it made all the other food taste better and I agree with her. The simple salad adds brightness to a meal that might otherwise be bland.
TIP: A dash of apple cider vinegar gives the simple salad an additional kick.
TP
—Celebrating Southern Appalachian Food written by Jim Casada and Tipper Pressley.
Come summer, you can count on Granny having this simple salad in her fridge or on the table if you’re sitting down to eat.
A few years back I asked Granny who taught her to make the summertime salad.
There were eleven children in Granny’s family and nine lived to adulthood. Granny was the third youngest of the family. Some of her older siblings moved out, married, and had children of their own while Granny was still a young girl.
Granny used to spend the summer with her sister Dorothy in Gastonia. She babysat her nephews and helped out around the house.
Dorothy served the simple salad for supper almost every day. Granny said she just loved it so she asked her sister where she learned to make it? Dorothy surprised her by saying “Why mother made that for us all the time when we were little. Don’t she make it for you and the rest of the bunch at home?”
For whatever reason, their mother, Gazzie, had quit making the salad by the time Granny came along, but thanks to Aunt Dot the simple recipe survived and was passed along in our family.
You can find a copy of our cookbook here.
Last night’s video: Too Hot to Work.
Tipper
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Love it with rice vinegar and fresh herbs. The cucumber and onion stay mostly crispy with the rice vs regular vinegar. You also don’t need much because the cucumber tomatoes and onions eventually make their own juice.
I also grew up eating this salad. However, I have changed it a little over the years. I will add diced watermelon, or jicama, cilantro, and you should try it with a sprinkle of sunflower seeds. there are a lot of change ups you can use just to upgrade the taste.
We always seem to have excess zucchini, so instead of cucumbers, I make this salad with the zukes & often use red onions.
Great side dish!
I do the same.
Ive been eating this for years, I saw it here a good while back. I like a little olive oil and red wine vinegar mixed with this salad and a ton of pepper. Ive gotten a lot of good recipes from your Blog!!
I love the cucumber, onion & tomato salad, but recently the cucumbers started bothering my stomach so I substitute celery instead & put a little Ranch Dressing on it. And, I just love celery so that is a nice substitute for me.
We love tomato, cucumber and onion salad. I usually add some diced sweet or hot peppers if they are fresh in the garden. And I always dress mine with a little olive oil, vinegar, garlic powder and a drizzle of honey.
Even easier, and lower in calories…
Use seasoned rice vinegar, salt and garlic powder instead of other condiments … It’s sweet and sour with plenty of taste. Just be sure it’s “Seasoned” Rice Vinegar.
Something that I add that is better for you than ranch is a little dollop of ricotta cheese and swirl of olive oil, on my cucumbers.
I make that same salad every year when my fresh tomatoes, onions and cucumbers are ready to harvest. Sometimes I add a little Zesty Italian dressing to it to give it a little extra flavor. My husband and I love it with our meals.
A fresh cucumber and tomato salad is our side dish almost daily this time of year. I like it with a little oil and vinegar, and whatever herbs are ready, dill and fresh basil always add a little more freshness. it’s also a good way to use another green or yellow squash that’s getting old. We need to enjoy them while there here, before you know it the growing season will be over!
With an abundance of figs we put some in our garden salad and enjoyed it very much today
Tipper and y’all other members have done flung a craving on me for this salad. I need an onion and some tomatoes anyway, I might as well buy me a cucumber too while I am buying and give it a try. To heck with the indigestion! I already have a big bottle of Tums on standby.
It is 10:40 AM and the temperature just hit 70º outside for the first time in 3 days, and it’s not raining. The weather forecast calls for highs back down in the mid 60s tomorrow. Don’t it feel like late October to early November to you? Not the best for a cold salad wouldn’t you say? Next week August is forecast to return here. Whatever the weather holds it will be glorious!
Forget about the “not the best” part, Granny’s Salad is good any time of the day, any day of the year. I’ll pass on the vinegar though. Vinegar tastes of age and fermentation. Not the best for a clean bright salad like that. But, that’s just me.
This is one of the best simple salads that you can eat. Mama would put a pinch of sugar in it and it’s also good with other ingredients, but we love it just like it is. Quick and easy too.
This also was a regular salad growing up, and that I made for my own in later years. Sometimes served plain, or with mayonnaise, or oil & vinegar. Sometimes mom would throw in some diced celery or green onion tops. I still enjoy it as plain and simple today. But like Randy said, in the past few years regular cucumbers don’t like me, but I can eat the long English cucumbers with no aftereffects. It is funny with some recipes, how we can make them on a regular basis then suddenly stop, and when you do make it again you wonder why you stopped!!
I loved reading “Aunt Dot”. My grandma’s name was Dortheanna, but everyone called her Dot.
I find it strange that Mom never made that simple salad, nor have I. All three vegetables can be found on my plate at suppertime almost every day, but not mixed. It sounds like it would be great with some fried chicken and green beans.
Nothing’s better than those three delightful vegetables mixed together! I have been known to add a splash of vinegar, a little water and fresh dill. Yum! Love you and your family.
That looks so good. My mom always made it in slices, but I think the little cubes make much more sense for some reason…more salady, maybe?
i was just contemplating this salad over the weekend. got the sweet onions and mini cukes, but tomatoes were just too dear this week. i don’t understand why, if it’s tomato season, the grocery prices don’t reflect it! just added 10oz (about one cup) of grape tomatoes for 2.19 to my order as the closest i could get 🙁 it’s not that i can’t, but that i won’t pay $5-7 a pound for tomatoes (2)!
My tomatoes didn’t last long this year because of the weather I have already mentioned. Luckily, I have been able to buy some local grown “commercial variety tomatoes” at a local produce stand. They have a pretty good taste but are not Cherokee Purples. I can’t write what I would like to say, but I remember reading an article a few weeks ago that said something that was done would cause a big increase in price of “grocery store tomatoes.” In the last few weeks there has also been a big increase in the price of coffee such as Maxwell House or Folgers in my neck of the woods. I do not drink more than 2 cups a day, some mornings none at all. Starbucks would go out of business if they were depending on me.
That salad is my all-time favorite. If we have any, we add bell pepper. I think the red-white-green color combination is a treat for the eyes just for starters. I think I could eat it for breakfast though I never have. We also put fresh basil in ours. Have not done it but I think fresh oregano or thyme would also be good as long as it was not too much. We have mint but somehow I don’t think it would be a good match. Norman Chester, I like your “acorns” name for us.
My Mama used to make it regular but she always put some vinegar on it
I’ve had tomato-cucumber-onion salads all my life. Daddy planted a huge garden every year and we had this salad every day. I still serve it. My husband likes Ranch dressing on his and so do most of my children. I can eat it plain or with other dressings. We’ve had cooler temperatures the last few days. Right now, at 8 a.m. its 57 degrees and is supposed to go up to 81. Feels so good and you can actually sit on the porch without the oppressive heat.
So easy and looks refreshimg!
This would make a yummy lunch with a thick slice of fresh bread to go alongside. I have some tomatoes and cucumbers ready so I will have to make this today or tomorrow. Makes me wonder if there will be things between my oldest and our new little one coming that I forget or stop doing that the oldest will pass on for me!
We have been eating it ally life. Mama puts Italian dressing, just a little, and it’s so good.
Good Morning. I have tried many of your recipes and they have become a staple at our house. This salad is one of them. Reading the Blind Pig and Acorn and watching your YouTube videos are some of my favorite things to do. It feels like you and all your family are just “old friends.”
We love this salad and it’s great to use as a fresh relish on hotdogs and brats. I have a dish in the fridge that I made a couple of days ago and it’s just about gone.
Love cornbread and buttermilk with a little salt and pepper
Unsweet cornbread and sweet milk for me, never could get a taste for buttermilk. No matter what else might be on the table, I am going finish up my meal with some cornbread and milk.
Many Sunday nights growing up that was supper for us, and that’s what I had yesterday. Hubby made himself a bowl of “GRANNY’S TOMATO-CUCUMBER SALAD”, his favorite summer salad.
I have eaten this all my life and is one of my summertime favorites. It is so easy and delicious.
YUM!! My grandmother used to make Tomato-Cucumber Onion Salad every summer. Ingredients were always fresh picked from the garden. It was a fine treat to come inside from the sweltering heat to find her cool, colorful and delicious salad along with either a sandwich or a hot dog or on rare occasion, a salmon patty. Such a simple meal, but always wonderful.
I still make this quick and easy salad today, minus the pinch of sugar that my grandmother always sprinkled in to tame the tartness of the vinegar. LOL!
My mom used to make this but dressed it with a little oil and vinegar. The perfect summertime salad.
good morning fellow acorns, God bless you very much, I praise God for the rain we’ve had, yesterday morning it was 64°, and about dark it was only 68, praise God
We need your weather a little south at upstate Florida…101 yesterday…God Bless us all!!!
Is an acorn considered a nut? I have been told over the years I was a nut, but not the kind you can eat!
I would like to try this salad, but while I like cucumbers, they don’t like me. They give me a bad case of indigestion, even if they are suppose be burpless. I watched some of your video about being too hot to work and was envious of your green corn and other things I could see. The corn along with our gardens and grass yards burnt up around here because of the heat and dry weather. The last 6-7 weeks have been brutal for my area, 42 straight days of 90 degree plus temperatures along with the heat index up to 115 degrees and less than 1 inch of rain. This changed to 75 degree days and showers of rain over the weekend with most of this week being the same. I don’t think words can describe how good this cooler weather feels, everyone I have talked to are tickled to death with how good it feels. As for working in the hot weather, I saw men trying to roof a 2 story home around 4 o’clock one afternoon on one of the hottest days of the past weeks. I think they were spending more time wiping sweat than putting down shingles. I tried to do what I had to do outside very early in the morning and then go inside and be spoiled by my ac. I can no longer be tough and stay out and work in the heat like I once could, after getting heat exhaustion a couple of years ago, I now get swimmy headed and nauseous in the high heat.
Randy, try the English cucumber instead of the garden variety. It’s sometimes called a seedless cucumber here in Texas. It comes wrapped in plastic wrap whereas the others are not wrapped at all.
As for the dish described here today, we’ve eaten it for as long as I can remember. This combination of veggies – plus bell pepper and croutons – are added to a doctored tomato or V-8 juice chilled before serving to create gazpacho. I add about a tablespoon of olive oil and the same amount of Worcestershire sauce, salt and fresh ground pepper to taste, and a minced clove or 2 of fresh garlic to the juice with a few of each of the veggies then run it through the blender. This thickens the base for the soup. Place the chilled veggies in bowls so each can choose what and how much of each to put in his bowl. This ‘kicks it up a notch’ over the summer salad alone.