Asian Cucumber Salad

Cucumber salad is at its best when it tastes cold, sharp, and awake, not like somebody apologized to a bowl of vegetables with vinegar. This Asian cucumber salad uses thin cucumber slices and red onion or shallot with soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, rice vinegar, a little sugar, and sesame seeds. The soy brings salt and savoriness, the vinegar supplies the bright edge, and the sesame oil gives the whole bowl a toasted aroma that shows up before the fork gets there. Thin slicing matters because every piece gets seasoned quickly instead of leaving you with watery cucumber centers and all the dressing pooled underneath.

Once tossed, the salad chills for at least 15 minutes so the cucumber and onion can pick up the dressing without losing all their snap. Taste before adding extra salt because soy sauce is already doing serious work in that department. This is the kind of side that helps richer food make sense—grilled meat, rice bowls, dumplings, anything that could use something cool and acidic next to it. It also disappears strangely fast for a bowl whose main ingredient is mostly water, which feels like a useful reminder that cucumbers have apparently been sandbagging their potential this whole time.