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Grandma’s Creamy Cucumber Salad with Sour Cream and without dill is made with sliced cucumbers in an easy creamy dressing. It’s the perfect side dish for summer.
Easy Sour Cream Cucumber Salad Recipe
When I was growing up, this sour cream cucumber salad was on the table very frequently during the summer months. Sometimes, my mom would make it and sometimes my grandmother would, but either way, it was always cool, creamy and completely delicious.
Cucumbers in sour cream is made with sour cream, no mayo — and without dill. I’ve seen some recipes that call for dill, which sounds good too, but that’s not how my mom and grandma made it. I love cucumber dill dip, and dill dip but I don’t like dill in cucumber salad!
We had cucumber sour cream salad, or Mizeria, as my Polish Grandma called it, with ribs, steaks, onion soup burgers, grilled Italian Dressing Chicken and Polish breaded pork chops. That’s the great thing about this easy salad — it goes well with pretty much anything. And, you can make it in just a few minutes.
Table of Contents
Ingredients
You only need a few simple ingredients from the grocery store for this old fashioned sour cream creamy cucumber salad. Full amounts are in the printable recipe card below.
- Cucumbers — use regular cucumbers or English cucumbers. If you use regular cucumbers you will need to peel them.
- Sour cream — I use Daisy brand full fat sour cream.
- Vinegar — Use white vinegar or apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar.
- Sugar — white sugar for a little sweetness
- Sea salt and black pepper
How to Make Creamy Cucumber Salad with Sour Cream
First, you peel the cucumbers and slice them nice and thin using a sharp knife. If you’re using English cucumbers, hot house cucumbers or Persian cucumbers, you don’t need to peel them. The peels give the salad a little pop of color! You can use a mandolin slicer if you prefer. I don’t, since I personally don’t like super thin cucumbers in this salad.
Then, you sprinkle a little bit of sea salt and pepper over the cukes. You can use regular salt if you want, but I love sea salt, especially pink Himalayan salt, so that’s what I use. My kids love helping out with the seasoning, so I usually let them do this part.
Then, mix the sour cream, vinegar and sugar in a separate bowl until creamy. After that, you just toss the cucumbers with the tangy sour cream dressing, and you’re done!
How to Prevent Cucumbers from Getting Soggy
Cucumbers have a high water content. Many recipes call for salting the cucumbers to remove extra water before adding the sour cream. If you’re eating the salad right away, you don’t have to do this. My mom and grandma never did, so I usually skip this part if I make it right before dinner.
However, if you want to make the salad ahead of time this step prevents the salad from becoming too watery as it sits. Just salt the cucumbers and allow them to drain in a colander for about 30 minutes. Then rinse, wring out excess liquid with a paper towel or clean dish towel, and stir in the dressing.
Storage
Store leftovers in an airtight container or tightly covered with plastic wrap in the fridge for up to 2 days. Cucumbers release a lot of excess water, so leftover salad may get runny even if you salt the cucumbers, as I mentioned above. Just drain the excess juices, and stir well before serving.
Variations
There are a couple ways to customize this creamy cucumber recipe. Add your favorite seasonings to the salad. Besides, black pepper and sea salt, garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika are all great options.
You can sub plain Greek yogurt for the sour cream.
We never add onions to our cucumber salad, but you can add thin slices of red onion, or green onions or yellow onions for a delicious cucumber onion salad. Fresh dill weed also pairs well with fresh cucumbers — if you like dill.
More Summer Salads
If you’re looking for more easy summer side salads, try Easy Three Bean Salad, Grandma’s Potato Salad or Cucumber Tomato Salad.
Creamy Cucumber Salad with Sour Cream
Ingredients
- 3 large cucumbers washed, peeled and thinly sliced
- 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ½ cup sour cream
- ½ tablespoon vinegar
- ½ teaspoon sugar
Instructions
- Place the cucumber slices in a medium bowl, and season with salt and pepper
- In another bowl, mix the vinegar, sugar and sour cream together
- Stir sour cream mixture into cucumbers until well coated
- Refrigerate until ready to serve
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
This quick and easy cucumber salad has been around forever, but you all know by now that I have a huge soft spot for classic retro recipes.
I like to serve them every now and then just so that my kids can taste the dishes that their parents and grandparents grew up with, and in this case, I also just love how it tastes.
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Just what I was looking for as I grew up with the simple recipe as well. Thanks!
Love this!! Exactly like my great grandmother made 50 years ago. Just sprinkled some Hungarian sweet paprika over top before serving (eating all myself 😉 Thank you so much!
Just like Grandma used to make! Smooth and creamy light salad for summer!
I’m a Retired bachelor, and I grow my own Cucumbers which I really like. This is such a simple recipe for me and it tastes so awesome. Thank You Dee!
Thank you so much, Terry. Glad you enjoyed the salad!
A childhood favorite of mine! Made it for my family for Mother’s day! Still as good as I remember!
After I slice my cucs, I put garlic salt and black pepper on. I put mine in a strainer with some chopped green onion mixed in, with bowl underneath overnight. In the morning, I mix my vinegar still in strainer for a few hours. Hour before serving, I chop a few more green onions to add with sourcream, and additional vinegar or salt to taste. This has been a staple in my Polish family for over 40yrs. Agreed, NO DILL!!!
Thanks for the tips, Stacey!
Dear Stacey you have a great creamy cucumber salad recipe. Our Polish family here in PA add some chopped dill to the topping instead of all the onion, alternately, we top with chives, about 1or 2 tablespoonsful..
Sincerely,
Ed Mockapetris, Mt. Carmel (Atlas) and Kulpmont, PA
Agree with straining! My polish grannies and mom always strained and always added sliced onion. What I would give to have 1 more TRADITIONAL meal from my grandma may she RIP.
Is this a tangy cucumber salad? It looks so good!
It’s definitely more tangy than sweet. 🙂