Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Recipes

Sweet-and-Sour Cucumber Salad

We substituted shallots for the onion in this recipe because we had them on hand and loved the look of the purple color against the green of the cucumber.

Uborka salata, Hungarian Jewish sweet-and-sour cucumber salad, actually benefits from a long stay in the fridge. That’s why it is such a perfect choice for Seudah Shlishit, the third Shabbat meal.

My father was a genius at making this dish. I still remember how he sliced the cucumbers gossamer thin and soaked them in a perfectly balanced marinade. I’m sad to say that I never got his original recipe, but this recipe evokes that flavor.

Serves 6

5 medium-size cucumbers, sliced into thin rounds
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 small onion, sliced into thin rounds
1/3 cup distilled white vinegar
1/3 cup water
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
½ teaspoon sweet Hungarian paprika (optional)
1/8 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
Table salt to taste

1) Place cucumber slices in a colander and sprinkle with kosher salt. Leave them to sweat for at least 30 minutes.

2) Squeeze cucumbers to remove liquid and rinse with fresh water. Drain and squeeze gain, then place cucumbers in a bnowl along with onion slices, freshly cracked black pepper, and salt to taste. In a separate bowl, combine vinegar, water, sugar, paprika and pepper and pour over the cucumber and onion slices. Adjust flavors adding salt sugar and pepper to taste. Refrigerate, covered, until you are ready to serve.

3) Keeps for up to 10 days in a closed container in the refrigerator. Does not freeze well.

Reprinted from “Jewish Soul Food” by Carol Ungar (Brandeis University Press). Carol Ungar is a freelance writer who lives in Israel. Her website is kosherhomecooking.com

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.