Creamy Cucumber Salad with Sour Cream

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 side salad — it goes well with pretty much anything. And, you can make it in just a few minutes.

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 Recipe 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.

How to Store

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.

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.

If you’re looking for more summer side salads, try Easy Three Bean Salad, Instant Pot Potato Salad, Cucumber Tomato Salad or visit my salad recipes for more inspiration!

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Recipe first published in 2016 and updated in 2024