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This Million Dollar Cucumber Salad is crisp, creamy, and loaded with ranch, bacon, cheddar, and green onions. It has all the flavor of a loaded baked Potato in a cool, crunchy salad. You’re going to love how easily it comes together.
Why You’ll Love It
- Cool and crunchy — crisp English cucumbers stay fresh and refreshing.
- Loaded with flavor — ranch, bacon, cheddar, dill, and green onions make every bite savory.
- Easy to make — just chop, toss, and chill.
- Great for cookouts — a cool side for burgers, sandwiches, Chicken, or barbecue.
- No mayonnaise needed — ranch dressing gives it a creamy finish.
Ingredient Notes
English cucumbers are the best choice here because they stay crisp and don’t have that big watery seed situation going on in the middle. You know the ones—the regular grocery-store cucumbers that can be lovely, but sometimes taste like they’ve had a hard life. English cucumbers are usually wrapped in plastic and are longer and thinner. Three or four will do it, depending on how large they are.
Use a ranch dressing you genuinely enjoy, because it’s doing a lot of work in this salad. Refrigerated ranch is a great option, but regular bottled ranch is perfectly fine. No need to make homemade ranch unless that brings you joy.
The dried dill is important. It gives the salad that familiar creamy cucumber flavor, the one that makes you think of summer tables and old glass serving bowls with scalloped edges.
For the cheddar, shred it yourself if you feel like it. Pre-shredded cheddar works just fine, and this is not the time to make a kitchen project out of a cucumber salad. A sharp cheddar gives it a little more personality, but any regular shredded cheddar will be good.
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Ingredients
- 3 to 4 English cucumbers
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 ½ teaspoons dried dill
- Salt and black pepper, to taste—I start modestly because the bacon and ranch bring their own salt
- ¾ cup ranch dressing
- â…” cup crumbled bacon
- 4 green onions, chopped
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Instructions
Slice the English cucumbers in half lengthwise, then cut them into roughly ¼-inch half circles. They do not need to be mathematically identical. A few thicker pieces are fine. Just don’t slice them paper-thin or they’ll lose that nice crunch after chilling.
Put the cucumbers in a large salad bowl and sprinkle over the garlic powder, dried dill, salt, and black pepper. Toss them around until the seasonings are distributed. A big spoon works well. Clean hands work too, but dill can end up on the cabinet handle.
Add the chopped green onions, crumbled bacon, and ranch dressing. Toss again until the cucumber pieces are coated. Make sure to scrape around the bottom of the bowl—ranch likes to settle down there like it pays rent.
Add the shredded cheddar cheese and mix everything together. Adding the cheese last keeps the shreds from getting too clumpy while stirring the dressing around. It works well, and small conveniences count.
Cover the bowl and refrigerate it for 30 minutes. Don’t skip that chill if you can help it. The salad tastes best cold, and the cucumbers have time to pick up the garlic and dill flavor without getting soft. Then serve it chilled.
Variations
Add extra green onions for a sharper bite. More bacon is also an easy option.
You can make it a little cheesier if that’s your household’s preference, but don’t go wild with it. The cucumber should still feel like the main event, or at least one of the main events. This isn’t a cheese dip wearing a trench coat.
A different creamy dressing can work if ranch is unavailable, but garlic parmesan dressing can have a weirdly heavy flavor with the dill.
I would not swap the English cucumbers for regular cucumbers unless that’s what you have. You can absolutely do it—life goes on—but the English ones really hold up better. And don’t add tomatoes, either. That seems like a reasonable thought until they leak all over the ranch and turn the bowl watery. It can look like a salad has given up.
Storage & Reheating
This salad should stay in the refrigerator, covered, and it’s best eaten the day you make it. It will keep for another day, but the cucumbers start releasing water and lose some of that snappy texture. It’s still edible—let’s be practical—but it won’t be at its peak.
There is no reheating involved, obviously. Please do not put creamy cucumber salad in the microwave. The result would be bleak.
If it gets a little watery after sitting, give it a quick stir before serving. You can drain off a spoonful of liquid if it bothers you.
Final Notes
This kind of salad feels like summer without requiring much from you. No oven heating up the whole house. No complicated sauce. No standing over a grill while mosquitoes treat ankles like an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Just cucumbers, a cold bowl, and a few ingredients that know exactly what they’re doing.
If you have cucumbers in the refrigerator and a package of bacon calling your name, make this. Let it chill the full thirty minutes if you can stand it. Then put it on the table and watch how fast it disappears.
Million Dollar Cucumber Salad
Ingredients Â
- 3 to 4 English cucumbers
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 ½ teaspoons dried dill
- salt and black pepper to taste; start modestly because the bacon and ranch add salt
- ¾ cup ranch dressing
- â…” cup crumbled bacon
- 4 green onions chopped
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
InstructionsÂ
- Slice the English cucumbers in half lengthwise, then cut them into roughly ¼-inch half circles, avoiding paper-thin slices so they keep their crunch after chilling.
- Put the cucumbers in a large salad bowl and sprinkle with the garlic powder, dried dill, salt, and black pepper, then toss until the seasonings are evenly distributed.
- Add the chopped green onions, crumbled bacon, and ranch dressing, then toss again until the cucumber pieces are coated, scraping around the bottom of the bowl as needed.
- Add the shredded cheddar cheese and mix everything together, adding it last so the shreds do not get too clumpy while stirring.
- Cover the bowl and refrigerate for 30 minutes, then serve the salad chilled.