Dill Cucumbers

Dill and cucumbers both hit their peaks in gardens around the same time, which makes them a classic combination—especially when it comes to making pickles. It takes weeks for the dill flavor to fully infuse fermented or home-canned cucumbers, but you don’t have to wait that long. When you make fresh dill cucumbers—whether as quick pickles or a zesty side salad—they’re ready to be served in less time than it takes to bake a casserole.

Sliced cucumbers go through flavor and texture changes in two stages. When you sprinkle them with salt, watery juice rises to the surface and can be washed away with a quick rinse. The cukes then marinate in the dilly, zesty dressing. The resulting dill cucumbers are flavorful and crisp—a perfect side dish for burgers, grilled fish or any other summer barbecue cookout favorites.

Dill Cucumbers Ingredients

ALLISON CEBULLA FOR TASTE OF HOME

• Cucumbers: Thin-skinned varieties, such as Persian or English cucumbers, make the best dill cucumbers because you don’t have to peel them. The peel gives the slender slices extra crunch and helps them keep their shape. Lemon cucumbers also work well; they have large seeds, like common slicing cucumbers, but still lack a thick skin. A mandoline makes consistent, paper-thin slices with ease.
• Kosher salt: Salt pulls water to the surface of cucumbers, making room for their cells to absorb the dressing. Kosher and pickling salt usually lack anticaking agents and iodine, which turn vinegar cloudy and darken cucumbers. Check that the label lists just one ingredient: salt.
• White vinegar: Commercial salad dressings often use distilled white vinegar because it’s affordable and has a neutral taste. Sugar somewhat disguises its harshness, but to reduce the sharp bite further, use a different type of vinegar like apple cider vinegar or white wine vinegar.
• Fresh dill: Snip fresh dill and other common herbs with scissors rather than chopping them to preserve the strong oils in the leaves. You’ll also get a mix of small and larger pieces that cling attractively to dill cukes.
• Sugar: Granulated sugar dissolves in room-temperature vinegar with just a few seconds of stirring. Avoid brown or turbinado sugar, which will give the dressing a tan hue.
• Coarsely ground pepper: Vinegar mellows the bite of peppercorns even as it picks up their flavor and aroma. Set your pepper mill to a coarse grind for multifaceted flavor.

Directions

Step 1: Draw out the natural water

Place the cucumber slices in a colander set over a plate, sprinkle them with salt and toss to distribute the salt. Let the salted cucumbers stand for 15 minutes, stirring once. Rinse the cucumbers and drain them well.

Editor’s Tip: Salted cucumbers release a lot of liquid in just 15 minutes, but a longer salting time might draw even more water out of particularly juicy cucumbers. To slice and salt the cucumbers ahead of time, set the colander in a bowl, cover it loosely with a tea towel and put it in the refrigerator for two hours to overnight. The cucumbers absorb even more dressing when you pat them dry after draining them.

Step 2: Mix in the dressing

In a large bowl, combine the vinegar, fresh dill, sugar and coarsely ground pepper, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Add the cucumbers and toss to coat them in the dressing. Cover and refrigerate the cucumbers for at least 15 minutes before serving them.

Editor’s Tip: Use a slotted spoon or small tongs to serve dill cucumbers. These tools let you drain away extra vinegar while capturing most of the dill.

ALLISON CEBULLA FOR TASTE OF HOME

Dill Cucumbers Variations

• Adjust the sugar: You can make dill cucumbers as sweet or savory as you like by reducing the sugar or eliminating it entirely. For a honeyed version, heat the dressing briefly in the microwave until the honey dissolves into the vinegar when stirred, and then let it return to room temperature before you toss the cucumbers in it.
• Add onions: Add thinly sliced red onions for more color, or sweet ones for a milder flavor. Toss the onions with the salt and cucumbers to extract their excess water, too. For a fresher, lighter onion taste, stir in freshly snipped chives with the dill.
• Make it bolder: Replace the salt with celery salt and add a clove of fresh minced garlic. Mix a splash of lemon juice into the vinegar for brighter flavor or a couple of drops of hot sauce or pinch of red pepper flakes for a spicier one.
• Add a garnish: Dill softens quickly, so snip more over the cucumbers just before serving them. If you’re concerned that the flavor will overpower the mellow cucumbers, use complementary types of herbs as garnish, like mint, basil, chives, Italian parsley or lemon thyme.

How to Store Dill Cucumbers

Store dill cucumbers in a tightly sealed container in the refrigerator. Submerge them in the dressing so that they stay fresh and crisp. If there’s not enough dressing, gently pack the cucumbers into a smaller, narrower container, reducing the surface area the dressing must cover, or make additional dressing to pour over the slices.

How long do dill cucumbers last?

Vinegar keeps dill cucumbers from spoiling, but their quality fades within two to three days. The slices are so thin that they’ll become soft and mushy far faster than spears of refrigerated dill pickles. English cucumbers and other slicing varieties also have greater water content than pickling cucumbers, which means they’ll lose their crispness quickly.

Dill Cucumbers Tips

ALLISON CEBULLA FOR TASTE OF HOME

Do you need to peel cucumbers?

You only need to peel cucumbers if they have tough, bitter skins. American slicing cucumbers dominate produce departments because their thick skins protect them during transport, but they stay chewy even when thinly sliced. If they’re your only option for this dill cucumber recipe, peel them before slicing and eat the vinegary slices before they fall apart. Most other cucumber varieties don’t travel as well, which makes them more expensive, but they also don’t have to be peeled.

What can you serve with dill cucumbers?

Dill cucumbers are a fresh contrast to grilled sides and entrees at a barbecue. Pack them as a picnic salad with focaccia sandwiches or chicken Caesar pitas. As a salad, they complement lemon-garlic shrimp pasta and pulled pork sliders. Treat these dilly cucumbers like quick pickles and add them to the condiment lineup on burger night, or put them on a snack tray with cheese, crackers and million-dollar deviled eggs.