Pineapple Cucumber Salad with Cilantro, Lime, and Spicy Chili Crisp

Jeff the Chef

Just about everything you need to know about this salad is in it’s name: Pineapple Cucumber Salad with Cilantro, Lime, and Spicy Chili Crisp … except that it’s delicious. Maybe I should’ve called it Delicious Pineapple Cucumber Salad with Cilantro, Lime, and Spicy Chili Crisp.

Pineapple Cucumber Salad with Cilantro, Lime, and Spicy Chili Crisp
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Pineapple Cucumber Salad with Cilantro, Lime, and Spicy Chili Crisp

Recipe by Make It Like a Man!Course: SaladsDifficulty: Easy
Makes

14

moderate side servings

This salad is perfect for a barbecue or picnic. Pairs beautifully with a charcoal-grilled burger.

Ingredients

  • 2 large English cucumbers (~1.75 lbs in total), unpeeled, cut into half-inch rounds, then the rounds halved or quartered

  • 1 pineapple, peeled, cored, and cut into cubes similar in size to the cucumber pieces

  • 1/2 small red onion, peeled, quartered, and thinly sliced

  • 2 Tbs chopped fresh cilantro

  • 1 lime, juiced

  • 1 small clove garlic, pressed

  • 2 tsp spicy chili crisp

  • Salt to taste (perhaps a generous 1/4 tsp)

Directions

  • Place cucumber in a bowl. Add enough of the pineapple so that you have an approximate half-and-half mix. Add enough onion, making sure the layers of pieces aren’t sticking together, so that they appear sparsely throughout the mix. Gently toss. Repurpose any remaining pineapple and onion.
  • Mix remaining ingredients, drizzle over the pineapple mixture, and toss gently. Allow to sit until flavors blend, at least 10 minutes.
  • Tilt the bowl so that the juices that have accumulated on the bottom run to the side. Dig deep with a very large basting spoon and toss the salad, slowly rotating the bowl, so that you bring the juices up from the bottom and get them redistributed all over. Serve, or cover and refrigerate.

Notes

  • Substitutions: samal oelek, red pepper flakes, chile paste, chile oil, or a combination of these for the spicy chili crisp.
"Pineapple Cucumber Salad," from Make It Like a Man!

This salad is delightfully interesting and unusual. Spear a piece of pineapple or cucumber with your fork, and it tastes one way. Spear a chunk of both plus a piece of onion, and it tastes another way, equally good. It’s sweet, it’s fresh, it’s tart, it’s spicy … it’s surprisingly a tiny bit umami (from the chili crisp).

Social Learning

Prep

This is a quick and easy salad to make. The hardest part is prepping the pineapple, and that’s not hard – if you have a sharp chef’s knife. I’m sure there are probably cleverer ways, but I slice off the bottom, slice off the top, stand it on end and carve away the peel. Then I quarter it lengthwise and slice away the core. Slicing a pineapple always seems heartbreaking to me, because to get rid of those tough, brown nibs (that I think are called “bracts”), you must slice so deep into the flesh you wind up wasting a lot of the flesh.

Apparently, there are things you can do with the pineapple peel (aside from throwing it away). I’ve tried making pineapple water but didn’t find it all that interesting.

Use mini cucumbers and you won’t have to halve or quarter the rounds. You can see that this is what I did for the batch I made for this post.

Spice

The amount of chili crisp I’ve recommended will give you a clearly spicy salad. At first it seems subtle, but it builds as you eat. But it’s a super-pleasant spiciness. I couldn’t be happier with it. If you have strong feelings about spiciness, add the chili crisp gradually to the dressing and taste several times before adding it to the salad. The amount of spice you taste will be only slightly diffused in the salad. It will be difficult to add more chili crisp to the salad once it’s already dressed (and of course impossible to take it away) – though you could easily add red pepper flakes to the already-dressed salad if you found it wasn’t spicy enough.

Ingredients

In a pinch, I think you could use pre-packaged, fresh pineapple chunks, although I think they’re softer than a freshly prepped pineapple, and so would pair less well with the cukes. Canned pineapple would not at all be a good substitute.

I used Lao Gan Ma brand spicy chili crisp, which I found at Amazon – although I get the impression that it’s available at many popular grocery chains. Aside from the titular spiciness, it’s crunchy – which is both unexpected and interesting. Aromatic. Savory, salty, and well balanced. It’s umami notes are what I find the most interesting. If you don’t want to buy a jar just for this purpose, see the substitutions list. However, if you do buy a jar, you won’t have to work hard to find ways to use it up. For instance, whip a couple heaping spoonsful into a block of softened cream cheese for a fantastic spread, or stir some into sour cream for a wonderful dip.

Leftovers

Twenty-four hours after you’ve made the salad (refrigerated, of course), it will taste just as perfect as it did when it was fresh. However, it won’t look quite as beautiful. It will look “leftover.” The pineapple – and especially the cucumber – will start to take on colors from the onion and dressing. The pineapple will darken and ever so slightly begin to brown, and the cucumbers with begin to glisten and take on a very light, reddish tint here and there. And – although I’ll say again that the flavors and textures aren’t affected AT ALL – we eat first with our eyes.

If you strained the dressing from the leftover salad and stored them separately, and added the dressing back in at serving time, I believe you could mitigate this problem to some extent.

"Pineapple Cucumber Salad," from Make It Like a Man!
Pineapple Cucumber Salad with Cilantro, Lime, and Spicy Chili Crisp

Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! unless otherwise credited. References: All Recipes, The Kitchn. This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything. Thank you, Kesor. Make It Like a Man! is ranked by Feedspot as #14 in the Top 30 Men’s Cooking Blogs. 

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34 thoughts on “Pineapple Cucumber Salad with Cilantro, Lime, and Spicy Chili Crisp”

  4. This salad looks and sounds incredibly tasty. I would throw the pineapple on the grill for added caramelization and smoky flavour. This sounds like a lovely side for barbequed ribs.

    Reply

    • Uhg, we’ve had nothing but steamy nights for the past few weeks, it seems. But today is much nicer.

      Reply

  10. What a fun recipe, Jeff! We always keep chili crunch around as Laura loves it. Pineapple does go well with spice and we’ve tried it with a bit of Tajin sprinkled on top. However, now I’m inspired by the idea of chili crunch! We even have a mango chili crunch that I picked up somewhere – now I bet that would be tasty in a salad like this. I’ll have to pick up a pineapple and find out. On a side note, they make pineapple slicers that are quite handy. Yes, definitely a kitchen unitasker which I am normally very opposed to…but this one is handy! https://amzn.to/3Apigh2

    Reply

  11. It does sound delicious Jeff. I’m sure I would like it since I like a the ingredients in this interesting salad. It’s a combination that I’ve never tried before. Thanks

    Reply

  12. This sounds like a refreshing and vibrant dish that’s perfect for summer gatherings. Definitely something I’ll try for my next barbecue.

    Reply

  13. Summer is just around the corner for us, and this salad will be perfect. I love the combination of flavours you have used Jeff, I’ll need to hunt down the chilli crisp. I would love some of it now for lunch.

    Reply

    • That must mean that fall is right around the corner for me! In fact, I know it is, because I just saw a box of pumpkin spice flavored cereal at the store, and a Christmas-themed Instagram post.

      Reply

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