Healthy Cucumber Radish Salad with Sprouts is a fresh and simple side salad recipe with crisp, nutrient-rich, hydrating vegetables sliced in thin ribbons.

We love this fresh salad filled with naturally hydrating vegetables! And we’re excited to hear what you think of this simple side salad. It uses everyday ingredients like cucumber, radish, sprouts, and leafy greens to create something rather extraordinary!

Since the ingredients in this gorgeous salad are relatively common and don’t require much explanation, we’ll explore their not-so-common nutrients. We’ll also spend just a moment to suggest a few plant-based and refined oil-free dressing alternatives.

By the way, while we’re skipping the lengthy tale of how I grew up eating garden-fresh side salads. But during the summer and early autumn, those little bowls to the side of my dinner plate were nearly always topped with slices of radish and cucumber, straight from the garden.

Our Favorite Easy-to-Make Tahini Dressing

To dress this healthy cucumber radish salad with sprouts, we suggest our favorite easy-to-make Tahini Dressing with Lime. 

This unique dressing is a zesty, healthy, vegan, gluten-free, and refined oil-free dressing or sauce that comes together in minutes!

Use this tangy tahini dressing for all sorts of salads, like this one with sprouts and hydrating vegetables, or  drizzle it over grilled veggies, tofu, tempeh, or enjoy it as a dipping sauce! 

We often think of this new dressing recipe as a juice sauce with a little bit of dressing. Like the hydrating vegetables in this salad, this dressing is mostly lime juice—with a tasty bit of tahini.

5 More Oil-Free Salad Dressings to Top this Simple Side Salad Recipe

• Maple Mustard Dressing, Dip, or Sauce
• Creamy Oil-Free Lemon Ginger Dressing
• Creamy Vegan Blue Cheese Dressing
• Oil-Free Buffalo Sauce Dressing
• Thai Inspired Peanut Tahini Sauce & Dressing

Why We Include Cucumbers in this Simple Side Salad Recipe

Even though they’re pretty watery, cucumbers provide tons of healthy nutrients.

In one cup of cucumber, you get up to nineteen percent of the vitamin K you need in one day. That single serving also gives you essential vitamins such as B and C and minerals like copper, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, folate, and beta carotene,

So while it’s true that cucumbers are naturally high in water, cucumbers certainly contain their fair share of beneficial nutrients!

And in addition to their vitamin and mineral content, cucumbers contain unique substances appreciated for therapeutic effects. The following are some of the ways healthy cucumbers are beneficial.

Cucumbers May Reduce Cancer Risk

Cucumbers contain cucurbitacins which are a natural compound found in cucumbers and a few other vegetables. Multiple variations of cucurbitacins work together to inhibit cancer growth.  

Breast cancer appears to be particularly sensitive to the effects of cucurbitacins.

Non-Starchy Vegetables Improve Blood Sugar Control

Non-starchy vegetables, like cucumbers, are one of the best categories of food for managing diabetes. The American Diabetes Association recommends a minimum of three to five servings of non-starchy vegetables per day.

When you find yourself getting hungry, including more non-starchy vegetables in your meal can help satisfy your appetite without raising blood sugar levels. The fiber and water content of fresh cucumbers make them an ideal choice for blood sugar control.

Cucumbers Help Keep You Hydrated

High-water foods give us vitamin-rich hydration. Since cucumbers are nearly all water, they’re a terrific way to rehydrate in hot temperatures.

Snacking on cucumbers after exercise replaces electrolytes and water your body needs. Because cucumbers’ interior is usually up to twenty degrees cooler than outside temperatures, they even help cool you down to the touch.  

Pretty cool, no?

Well, that makes sense of that old saying, “Cool as a cucumber!” 

Beans Aren’t the Only Veggies that are Good for the Heart!

Cucumbers are an excellent way to add more fiber and potassium to your meal. Fiber helps you feel satisfied and helps keep cholesterol levels down. And potassium reduces blood pressure levels. 

Cucumbers also provide folate—an essential B-vitamin that may reduce stroke risk. 

Winner-winner cucumbers for dinner!

If you’d like to learn a bit more about the health benefits of minerals, you might want to check out this informative article.

5 Reasons to Include Radish in a Simple Side Salad Recipe

And radishes contain valuable minerals such as manganese, calcium, and potassium.  Calcium and potassium help regulate blood pressure, and manganese helps brain and nerve function.

Radish is an Anti-Fungal

Radishes are a natural anti-fungal. Also, radish juice has enzymes that kill common fungus typically found in us human types.

Eating Radish Helps Keep You Hydrated

Hydration matters much more than most of us realize. And though staying hydrated certainly helps the look of our skin, that’s just the tip of hydration’s perks.

Radishes, like many veggies, help keep the entire body hydrated because of their high-water content. And while yes, staying well hydrated may make you skin look younger, it also gives you more energy, boosts your mood and even helps keep your kidneys functioning properly!

Healthy Radish Keeps Digestion Running Smoothly

Radishes are little balls of roughage and fiber, so they may help keep your digestive system moving. A half-cup serving of radishes contains a gram of fiber.  

Another benefit of fiber you may not know about is that healthy digestion via fiber may also help manage blood sugar levels.

Radish May Help Detoxify Blood

Radishes are even good for your liver because radishes act as a powerful detoxifier. Radishes increase the supply of fresh oxygen to the blood. Wow!

Healthy Radishes Boost Immunity and Energy

Remember that half-cup serving of radishes with its healthy gram of fiber? That same half-cup eaten just once a day gives you almost fifteen percent of your daily vitamin C.  

Vitamin C is indispensable. It boosts your immune system, helps regulate metabolism, and is key to the body’s process of changing fat into usable energy.

If you would like to learn more about radishes’ numerous health benefits, you may enjoy reading this informative article.

Thank You For Exploring our Healthy Cucumber Radish Salad with Sprouts!

We hope you’ve enjoyed this deeper dive into a couple of the ingredients in our easy-to-make Healthy Cucumber Radish Salad with Sprouts recipe.

So, now you have a fresh and simple side salad recipe to try—complete with eye-catching red radish, ribbons of cucumber, and bright pink beet sprouts! 

You’re going to love the way the ribbons of cucumber make this simple side salad look extra pretty! This salad almost seems to invite your fork in for a bite. You’ll likely find the crisp, nutrient-rich, beautifully hydrating ribbons of cucumber hard to resist.

And, by the way, there’s no need to fear making those long slices of cucumbers look pretty—they do most of the work! All you have to do is use a vegetable peeler.

Happy Eating!