Tossed with wakame seaweed and imitation crab meat, this sweet and tangy Japanese Cucumber Salad goes well with any Japanese-style meal. Make this refreshing side dish for your next potluck or dinner party. It will be a big hit!
A typical Japanese meal consists of one main dish of meat or seafood with rice and miso soup, complemented by several side dishes.
Today’s recipe is a sweet and tangy Japanese Cucumber Salad with Crab (きゅうりとワカメと蟹の酢の物) that goes well with any dinner meal. This easy salad happens to be one of the side dishes that I prepare regularly.
A Classic Japanese Cucumber Salad for Your Everyday Meal
In Japan, this type of side dish or salad is called Sunomono (酢の物), which translated to “vinegar food”. Growing up, my mom made sure we have different kinds of side dishes including a sunomono dish during mealtime. The Japanese believe vinegar is an important part of our diet due to its many benefits such as controlling blood sugar levels. You can find out more information on vinegar here.
The most typical sunomono includes thinly sliced cucumber and wakame seaweed dressed in rice vinegar, soy sauce, and sugar. We tend to overlook the health benefits of cucumbers, but they are actually high in fiber and great for digestion. That is why you can often find cucumber being served as salads in Japanese meals.
To yield a better texture for the salad, sprinkle the cucumber with a little salt, and rub it gently to pull out some of the water so they stay crisp. The crunch of the cucumber matches well with the soft wakame seaweed in a delicious tangy vinegar dressing. For today’s recipe, I also added imitation crabmeat for some pop of color, but it’s completely optional. You can still enjoy it as a vegetarian dish without the crab sticks.
Serve this Japanese Cucumber Salad as a refreshing accompaniment to chicken teriyaki, garlic saikoro steak, honey pork belly, or miso cod.
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Japanese Cucumber Salad
Ingredients
- 2 Japanese or Persian cucumbers (or use ⅔ English cucumber)
- Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- 1 Tbsp dried wakame seaweed
- 4 real or imitation crabmeat (skip for vegan/vegetarian; I used imitation crabmeat since I‘m allergic to crab)
- toasted white sesame seeds (optional)
For the Dressing
- 3 Tbsp rice vinegar (unseasoned)
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- ½ Tbsp soy sauce
- ¼ tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- 2 Tbsp dashi (Japanese soup stock) (use standard Awase Dashi, dashi packet or powder, or Vegan Dashi)
Instructions
- If you are using Japanese cucumber, this step called itazuri is necessary. Wash 2 Japanese or Persian cucumbers and sprinkle them with Diamond Crystal kosher salt. With both hands, rub the cucumber against the cutting board. It removes the pointy bumps on the cucumber and helps absorb the dressing.
- Alternate peeling ½-inch (1.3-cm) strips of skin lengthwise and leaving strips of skin intact. With this striped pattern, the cucumber slices have some decorative dark green accents and a little bit of extra crunchiness. Cut the cucumbers into thin slices, about ⅛-inch (3 mm) thickness (or even thinner).
- Sprinkle with Diamond Crystal kosher salt and rub the cucumber slices gently with your hands. Let it rest for 5 minutes or so until they are wilted. Then, quickly rinse the cucumber slices under cold water. Squeeze the cucumber to get rid of the water.
- Put 1 Tbsp dried wakame seaweed in a small bowl and soak in water for 10 minutes to rehydrate. Squeeze dry to get rid of the water.
- Cut 4 real or imitation crabmeat sticks in half and shred it with your hands.
- In a small saucepan, combine the dressing ingredients: 3 Tbsp rice vinegar (unseasoned), 1 Tbsp sugar, ½ Tbsp soy sauce, ¼ tsp Diamond Crystal kosher salt, and 2 Tbsp dashi (Japanese soup stock). Mix well. Then, heat until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from the heat and set aside.
- In a large bowl, combine the cucumber, wakame, and shredded crab sticks. Pour the dressing on top and mix together. Sprinkle toasted white sesame seeds and enjoy the salad at room temperature or chilled.
To Store
- You can keep the leftovers in an airtight container and store in the refrigerator for a day. However, the crispness of the cucumbers will be lost and the seasoning may become diluted due to moisture released from the cucumber.
This is my first time commenting on your website, but I just had to say – I knew if I had two ingredients and wanted to know if there was a recipe to use them together, you wouldn’t let me down! I’m trying to eat more wakame in things and wondered to myself, ‘Is there a crab salad with wakame?’ A quick Google search and here we are! I’m so excited to try this in my lunch tomorrow (and I love cucumbers, too). I love your recipes!
Hi Kristin,
Thank you so much for trying this recipe and for your kind feedback.
We’re so glad to hear how you found Nami’s recipe!🤗
Please explore and enjoy Nami’s other Wakame recipe as well. https://www.justonecookbook.com/seaweed-salad-recipe/
I found my way to this recipe probably because the Google algorithm knows I use your site so much that it showed justonecookbook first 🙂 I can’t remember how long it’s been now, but I think I first came to your site by finding the Nikuman recipe years ago when I was searching for steamed buns.
Hi Kristine,
Wow! Thank you for sharing your experience with us and for your support!💕
[…] Japanese Cucumber Salad with Crab […]
I lost my cucumber recipe and I am going to try yours. It looks like mine but I put octopus in it. I want to thank your for sharing your recipes. When my mother passed away 21 years ago she didn’t leave me with recipes written in English. We always thought we had time. I use your cookbook and it has brought back so many fond memories. I even updated and bought a instapot. Thank you for helping me keep my culture and honoring my mother. Thank you for our New Year feast. Happy New Year!
Hi Karen! We always take home cooking for granted. My mom also does not leave any written recipe, so I try to learn it as much as possible whenever I go back to Japan. She even forgets how she used to cook as she doesn’t cook a variety of dishes anymore. Your cucumber salad with octopus maybe similar to this? It’s called Takosu in Japanese
https://www.justonecookbook.com/octopus-salad-tako-su/
Happy New Year!
This looks delicious, and I can’t wait to try it. How long will it sit in the fridge?
Hi Teena! I’d say 12 hours to keep the best result. After that, the cucumber lose crispness and the seasoning will be diluted.
Just tried this today and love it very much! Thank you for your wonderful recipes, I am a big fan 🙂
Hi Karina! Thanks so much for trying my recipe and I’m so happy you enjoyed it (and my other recipes)! Thanks for your kind feedback. 🙂
When doing the imitation crab for cucumber salad says to cut in half but pictures show shredded is that what I should do?
Hi Pamela! At Step 5, the imitation crab was cut in half (shown in the picture) and also separated by hands. I’ve edited the recipe. Thank you for letting me know.
If I prepare this without the crabmeat, how long can I keep this for?
Hi Denise! I’d say up to 2 days. Water from cucumber comes out and it won’t be as fresh. 🙂
I just made this tonight. I added a little red pepper flakes to it. It’s so good!
Hi Summer! I’m so glad you liked it! Great idea with red pepper flakes for spicier version! 🙂
Dear Nami,
Can i make a batch of the cucumber salad and keep in the fridge? How long I can keep it in the refrigerator? Thanks.
Hi BI! Sure you can, but please consider that thinly sliced cucumber will absorb flavor easily and they will become more like pickles (will become more softer too). So I’d suggest to keep it separate until 1-2 hours before serving or so. Hope this helps! 🙂
This may be a silly question…but how do you get the crab sticks shredded like that?
Hi Erin! I think I know what you are asking about. When I bought some brands (usually non Japanese brands), the crab sticks don’t separate like how Japanese crab sticks do… It just won’t get “shredded” and it becomes more like pieces. If you don’t mind the shape, that’s okay too. But I looove the texture of long thin shredded crab sticks. 🙂 Hope you can find Japanese brand – they usually come in smaller packages like one I showed in the recipe, not in a huge bulk. Hope that helps! 🙂
Makes perfect sense…thank you so much! I love the texture of the shreds too so I’ll find a Japanese brand. I’ve tried several of your recipes and I LOVE them all, my girls are obsessed with the Soba Salad 🙂 Thanks again!!!!!
Hi Erin! Aww so nice to hear you tried some of my recipes! 😀 So happy to hear your daughters enjoyed the soba salad too. 🙂 Thank you again for writing! xo
Hi, I am the only one in the house that likes food like this, so I have to cook for myself. I see that this makes a lot of servings. Should I refrigerate the dressing from the rest of the ingredients? How long would it last do you think? Thanks!
Hi Steven!
The dressing will last about 3 days, so either you make half of the recipe portion or keep the dressing separate and mix it right before you eat it (so it doesn’t become like pickled dish).
Hope this helps!
Hello Nami! do you know how long can i keep the cucumber salad in fridge?
Thanks for sharing such a nice recipe!
Thanks for asking! Hmm… I’d eat within 2 days and it’s the best till next day. 🙂
Oh how I miss Japanese cucumbers. They are much more expensive over here so I stick with the English ones. I can’t eat the regular ones since they are so tough. Looks like a simple but yummy recipe. Will definitely give it a try.
Hi Kit – yeah here too it’s pretty pricey. I usually buy English cucumbers because its texture is very similar to Japanese cucumbers. Thanks for your kind comment and hope you will enjoy this recipe! 🙂
Thank you for sharing this delightful recipe. Can’t wait to try it… as soon as this monster of a storm is over.
Hi Cheryl! I hope you and your loved ones are okay from the storm. Thank you so much for your kind comment!
Another great & easy recipe, Nami! I love cucumber and didn’t realize that dish cucumber salad is so easy to make. I think the only difficult ingredient I may have trouble with is the dashi stock (making it from scratch).
Do you know if they sell dashi packets at 99 Ranch?
Hi Candice! I doubt 99 Ranch has dashi packet… but Chinese supermarket Marina in San Mateo has it and a little cheaper than Japanese supermarket. 🙂
If you don’t make miso soup, you can use dashi powder (there are MSG-free dashi powder) for small amount of dashi stock we need for dishes like this.
I usually make miso soup so I scoop up 2 Tbsp. of dashi stock for this dish before putting miso etc.
Hope this helps! 🙂
This looks refreshing. 🙂
Thank you Debra! 🙂
I am looking for a bean string salad dressing is this the one or similar, it has noodles and you can add crab meat cucumber tomato please help me in this request. Thank you
Hi Nyretti! Maybe not exactly same, but something like this? It’s Harusame Salad: https://www.justonecookbook.com/harusame-salad/