This has to be one of the fastest go-to summer salads ever. Three ingredients and some light dressing or lemon juice and there you go.
By keeping summer recipes light and fast to prepare, you have more time to enjoy good weather and fun times with friends.
This recipe makes a surprisingly large amount, and of course, it can be doubled for a crowd. I use crisp, sweet, red apples or yellow opal apples, if you can find them, to add color and sweetness to fresh cucumbers. These two ingredients make a great salad to start, but I also love adding larger showy strawberries when they’re around.
A good dressing to add is a sweet fruit vinaigrette like the spicy orange or lemon poppyseed I have posted. These are light consistency and low in calories to just add a tiny finish to the fruit and cucumbers.
2 cucumbers
2 apples
1 pound strawberries
1/2 cup light salad dressing
Cut the ends of the cucumbers and slice lengthwise into quarters. Slice the apples into quarters and remove core parts of the quarters. Cut the tops off of the strawberries and cut them in half. Feed the strawberry tops, apple cores, and cucumber ends to the goats if you have them, which will make them happy.
You can continue to slice the apples, cucumbers, and strawberries into thin similarly sized pieces or use a food processor with the slicing blade.
Place all sliced fruit and cucumbers in a large bowl and pour the dressing over. Stir gently, so the ingredients are mixed and well covered by the dressing.
This salad can be served right away or refrigerated for the next day, but probably won’t keep longer than that. This recipe makes about 4 pints and can be served by itself as a light snack, on fresh spinach leaves as a larger salad, or even with fish in tacos.