This Creamy Cucumber Tomato Salad combines crisp cucumbers, juicy tomatoes, sweet onions, and a smooth sour cream dressing for a refreshing side dish that's perfect for everything from backyard barbecues to weeknight dinners. When fresh garden vegetables are at their peak, sometimes the simplest recipes are the ones everyone remembers.

With just a handful of everyday ingredients and only a few minutes of prep, this classic salad comes together quickly while delivering bright, fresh flavor in every bite. A short rest in the refrigerator allows the vegetables to mingle with the creamy dressing, creating a cool, refreshing salad that's hard to resist on a warm day. Serve it alongside grilled burgers, barbecue chicken, pulled pork, or even sandwiches for an easy side dish that tastes like summer.

Creamy cucumber tomato salad in a white bowl with thick cucumber half moons, juicy tomato chunks, and sour cream dressing topped with parsley

About This Recipe

This is a creamy cucumber tomato salad made with sliced English cucumber, ripe beefsteak tomato, and onion, all folded into a simple sour cream dressing. It serves 6 to 8 as a side, takes about 5 minutes of prep, and needs a 10 minute rest in the fridge before serving. There is no mayo and no vinegar required. Slice the cucumber about a quarter inch thick so it keeps its crunch under the dressing.

Recipe Snapshot

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Chill Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

Servings: 6–8

Difficulty: Easy

Perfect For: Cookouts, picnics, weeknight dinners, potlucks

Main Ingredients: English cucumber, tomatoes, onion, sour cream

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Creamy cucumber tomato salad in a white bowl with thick cucumber half moons, juicy tomato chunks, and sour cream dressing topped with parsley on a dark blue table top and blue napkin

Why You'll Love This Recipe

No mayo needed: If you're in the no-mayo camp, this one's for you. Sour cream gives you all the creaminess with a fresher, tangier finish.
Five minutes of actual work: One cucumber, one tomato, one onion. You'll spend more time deciding what to grill than making this salad.
It goes with everything: Steak, ribs, burgers, fajitas, a sandwich at your desk. There's no main dish this doesn't sit nicely next to.
Budget friendly: Nothing on this ingredient list will make you wince at checkout, and in summer you might be growing half of it.
Lighter than it tastes: Five tablespoons of sour cream stretched across 6 to 8 servings. It eats rich without weighing you down.
You can't really mess it up: There's no emulsifying, no cooking, no timing. If you can slice a cucumber, you're already most of the way there.

Why This Recipe Works

Name: Creamy Cucumber Tomato Salad
Prep time: 5 min
Total time: 15 min
Ingredients: 1 English cucumber (sliced into half moons or circles, don’t cut it too thin); 1 large beefsteak tomato (sliced into quarters); 1 cup brown onion (sliced (I cut the long strips in half)); 5 tablespoons sour cream (or low fat sour cream or Greek yogurt); Salt and black pepper to taste; Parsley for garnish

The beauty of this salad is that every ingredient has a purpose.

English cucumbers stay crisp and contain fewer seeds than traditional cucumbers, which means they release less water into the dressing. The tomatoes add juicy sweetness while the onions bring just enough bite to balance the creamy dressing.

Mixing the dressing separately before tossing everything together helps coat every piece evenly instead of leaving pockets of sour cream throughout the bowl.

Finally, letting the salad chill for about 10 minutes gives the vegetables time to absorb the seasoning while allowing the flavors to blend together without sacrificing too much of their crisp texture.

Creamy cucumber tomato salad ingredients arranged overhead with English cucumber, beefsteak tomato, sliced onion, sour cream, and fresh parsley

The Ingredient Breakdown

English cucumber: Thin skin, tiny seeds, no peeling. Slice it into half moons or circles, and keep them about a quarter inch thick. I tested this with paper thin slices once and they went limp before the salad even hit the table. Thick slices stay crunchy, and the crunch is the whole show here.
Large beefsteak tomato: Big, meaty, and juicy. Slice it into quarters, then cut those into chunks. Grab the ripest one you can find, because in a salad this simple the tomato has nowhere to hide. Firm Roma tomatoes work too and release a little less liquid.
Yellow onion, sliced: I cut the long strips in half so you never get a full ribbon of raw onion in one bite. If raw onion is too sharp for your crowd, soak the slices in cold water for 10 minutes and pat them dry. It mellows the bite without losing the flavor. If you don't want as sharp a flavor, then you can swap out for a Vidalia Sweet Onion.
Sour cream: The whole dressing, right here. Full fat gives you the silkiest coat, but low fat works fine. Greek yogurt is a solid swap, just know the tang comes through stronger and the dressing sits a little looser on the vegetables. Still good, just different.
Fresh parsley: A little green lift at the end. Fresh dill instead of parsley is honestly delicious here and turns this into something close to a classic creamy dill salad.

Top Tip for a “Fabulous” Finish

Salt pulls water out of vegetables the moment it touches them. That's why this salad gets seasoned in the dressing, not sprinkled over the cut cucumber and tomato. Keep the salt suspended in the sour cream and it seasons every bite evenly while buying you more time before the salad turns watery.

How to Make Creamy Cucumber Tomato Salad

Step 1: Slice the Vegetables

Slice the cucumber into half moons or circles about a quarter inch thick. You want each slice to give you a clean snap when you bite it, not bend. Cut the tomato into quarters and then into chunks, halve the onion strips, and add everything to a large mixing bowl.

Step 2: Mix the Dressing

In a separate small bowl, stir the sour cream with salt and pepper until smooth. Taste it. It should be noticeably seasoned, a touch saltier than you'd want on a spoon, because the vegetables will dilute it as they release their juices. If it tastes like plain sour cream, keep seasoning.

Step 3: Toss It All Together

Add the seasoned sour cream to the bowl of vegetables and fold gently with a spatula or big spoon. You're coating, not stirring, so take it easy on the tomato. When every piece has a thin, glossy white coat and no dry spots remain, you're done. The whole toss takes maybe 20 seconds.

Step 4: Chill and Serve

Slide the bowl into the fridge for 10 minutes so the flavors get to know each other. When you pull it out, the dressing will have loosened slightly as the vegetables release a bit of juice, and that's exactly right. It should look creamy and lightly saucy, not soupy. Scatter fresh parsley over the top and serve it cold.

Close-up of crunchy cucumber slices and ripe tomato chunks coated in glossy sour cream dressing with cracked black pepper

Fun Variations (Make It Your Own)

A touch of sweet: Stir 1 teaspoon of sugar into the dressing. It rounds out the tang and makes this taste like the version a lot of us grew up with at grandma's table.
Brighten it up: Add 1 to 2 teaspoons of mild vinegar or a squeeze of fresh lemon juice to the sour cream. You get a lighter, tangier dressing that leans toward a classic Eastern European style.
Go full dill: Swap the parsley for fresh dill. Dill and creamy cucumber are an old married couple, and this might be my favorite version on a hot day.
Add some bite: A handful of halved cherry tomatoes alongside the beefsteak gives you little bursts of sweetness and makes the bowl look gorgeous.
Make it heartier: Fold in a drained can of chickpeas and it goes from side dish to light lunch without any extra work.

Storage & Make-Ahead

Room temperature: Keep it out no longer than 2 hours, and less than 1 hour if you're outside in the heat. Sour cream and sunshine are not friends.

Refrigerator: Leftovers keep in an airtight container for up to 24 hours, but the vegetables will release a lot of liquid and the flavor fades. Give it a stir, pour off excess liquid, and add another pinch of salt before serving. The first time I stored this overnight, I couldn't figure out why it tasted so flat the next day. It wasn't the recipe, it was the salt riding out with all that cucumber water. Re-season and it comes right back.

Freezer: Don't. The dressing separates and the cucumber turns to mush when thawed. This is a fresh salad, full stop.

Make-ahead: Slice the vegetables and mix the seasoned dressing up to a day ahead, stored separately in the fridge. Toss them together 10 minutes before serving and it tastes like you made it that second, because you basically did.

Close-up of crunchy cucumber slices and ripe tomato chunks coated in glossy sour cream dressing with cracked black pepper with fresh parsley on a wooden cutting board

More Recipes You'll Love

If cold, creamy, and crunchy is your summer food group, my dill pickle pasta salad brings that same cool tang with a briny kick that pickle people lose their minds over.
For a bigger, heartier bowl that still screams summer, the California spaghetti salad is loaded with fresh vegetables and feeds a crowd at any potluck.
When bacon needs to be involved, and honestly, when doesn't it, my BLT pasta salad takes everything you love about the sandwich and turns it into a scoopable side.
And if you want another light, fresh option for the table, the summer couscous salad is bright, lemony, and just as easy to throw together.

Time to Grab a Cucumber

This is the salad I want on the table all summer long. It's cold, it's crunchy, it takes five minutes, and it makes everything you serve it with taste better. When the tomatoes are ripe and the cucumbers are cheap, there's no reason not to have a bowl of this in the fridge.

Make it this week and tell me how you took it. Did you go the dill route? Add the pinch of sugar like grandma did? Drop a comment below, leave a star rating on the recipe card, and share your version. I read every single one, and your twists have made more than a few of my recipes better.

David Murphy

Creamy Cucumber Tomato Salad

A cool, crunchy creamy cucumber tomato salad made with 5 ingredients in 5 minutes. Thick cut English cucumber, ripe tomato, and onion in a simple seasoned sour cream dressing. No mayo, no vinegar, no cooking.

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Prep Time 5

Resting Time 10

Total Time 15

Servings: 6 Servings

Course: Salad, Side Dish

Cuisine: American

Calories: 48

Ingredients

1 English cucumber sliced into half moons or circles, don’t cut it too thin
1 large beefsteak tomato sliced into quarters
1 cup brown onion sliced (I cut the long strips in half)
5 tablespoons sour cream or low fat sour cream or Greek yogurt
Salt and black pepper to taste
Parsley for garnish

Instructions

Add all the vegetables into a mixing bowl.
Mix salt, pepper and sour cream separately and add the vegetables. Toss to combine.
Let sit in the fridge for 10 minutes for flavors to combine. Serve with parsley.

Nutrition

Serving: 1ServingCalories: 48kcalCarbohydrates: 7gProtein: 1gFat: 2gSaturated Fat: 1gPolyunsaturated Fat: 0.1gMonounsaturated Fat: 0.5gCholesterol: 6mgSodium: 8mgPotassium: 259mgFiber: 1gSugar: 4gVitamin A: 587IUVitamin C: 11mgCalcium: 30mgIron: 0.4mg

Notes

Pro Tips

Slice thick and stay strong: A quarter inch is the magic number for the cucumber. Anything thinner surrenders to the dressing within minutes.
Chill your serving bowl: Ten minutes in the fridge or five in the freezer. Cold salad in a cold bowl stays crisp on the table twice as long, especially outdoors. We chilled every salad plate in the restaurant for exactly this reason.
Pat the tomato dry: After cutting, give the tomato chunks a quick blot with a paper towel. Less surface juice means the sour cream clings instead of sliding off.
Dress it close to serving time: This salad hits its peak between 10 and 30 minutes after tossing. If you're prepping for a party, keep the vegetables and dressing separate and combine right before guests arrive.
Taste again before serving: Cold mutes salt. Give it one final taste straight from the fridge and adjust. A tiny pinch at the end wakes the whole bowl up.

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FAQs: Cool as a Cucumber

Why did my creamy cucumber salad get watery?

Salt pulls the water out of cucumbers and tomatoes, and both vegetables are mostly water to begin with. Some thinning is normal and even welcome, but a soupy salad usually means it sat too long after dressing. Toss it within 10 to 30 minutes of serving and keep the salt in the dressing, not sprinkled directly on the vegetables.

Why does my salad taste bland after sitting in the fridge?

The salt leaves with the water. As the vegetables release liquid, the seasoning drains out of the dressing and pools at the bottom of the bowl. Pour off the excess liquid, add a fresh pinch of salt, stir, and taste again. That almost always brings it back.

Can I make creamy cucumber tomato salad ahead of time?

Yes, with one rule: keep the parts separate. Slice the vegetables and mix the seasoned sour cream up to a day in advance, store them in separate containers in the fridge, and toss them together about 10 minutes before serving. Dressing it hours ahead is where this salad goes wrong.

Can I use Greek yogurt instead of sour cream?

Absolutely. Use the same 5 tablespoons of plain Greek yogurt. The tang comes through stronger and the dressing sits a little looser on the vegetables, so it tastes brighter and slightly less rich. Low fat sour cream also works with almost no difference in the final salad.

What kind of cucumber is best for this salad?

English cucumber is my pick because the skin is thin enough to leave on and the seeds are tiny, so there's nothing to peel or scoop. If you're using a regular garden cucumber, peel it if the skin is thick and waxy, and scrape out large seeds with a spoon so they don't water down the bowl.

How long does creamy cucumber tomato salad last in the fridge?

Up to 24 hours in an airtight container, but it's genuinely best within the first hour. The cucumbers soften and shed water as they sit, and the dressing thins out. If you know you'll have leftovers, store the vegetables and dressing separately instead.