Ina Garten's Tip For The Creamiest Cucumber Salad
Creating a creamy cucumber salad for a barbecue party on a summer's day or to serve up at a posh tea party with friends comes with challenges. Crispy cucumbers have a high water content, which means if your salad sits for too long before your guests dig in, it could be a soggy, water-logged cucumber salad where the creamy elements can't adhere to the cucumber and instead become a diluted mess. Luckily, Ina Garten has figured out the process to create the creamiest cucumber sandwich every time, and you are going to want to follow her lead.
Her tip for the perfect cucumber salad? Per Food Network, Garten's first step is to remove excessive moisture from her clean, unpeeled, and chopped cucumbers and onions. The Barefoot Contessa does this by mixing them with salt and placing them in a colander that is perched over a bowl. She then explains you want to wrap the whole contraption up in plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator for four hours. This is going to force all the liquid from these veggies and will drip-drop into the bowl. But that's just the beginning of her waterproofing.
Garten also drains the yogurt for creamy cucumber salad
Garten uses a similar process to remove water from the yogurt she uses to make the creamy dressing — only she places a paper towel in the sieve, so the yogurt itself doesn't end up at the bottom of the bowl. The cookbook author stresses that you will want to allow your yogurt a good four hours to accomplish this, or you can plan ahead and let it drain overnight.
The amount of liquid that drains off both the cucumbers and the yogurt is a little eyepopping. Depending on how long you leave your cukes and yogurt to drain, you may find between one to two cups of liquid in the bowls below. Before Graten begins dressing the cucumbers, she carefully pats them dry with a paper towel to make doubly sure as much water as possible has been pushed out. With the moisture removed, the creamy and flavorful dressing she creates using the drained yogurt, sour cream, vinegar, dill, and seasonings is able to keep its shape, leaving you with a smooth and lovely bite.