How to Meal Prep Cucumbers

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Cucumbers are a favorite summer vegetable, adding crunch to salads, cooling my palates in tzatziki, and flavoring my water. This delicious, versatile, and nutritious gourd is ideal for meal-prepping. You can snack on it and add it to several different meals.

How to Meal-Prep Cucumbers

When I started meal-prepping, I didn’t use cucumbers, thinking they would go soggy and be unusable. Whenever I grabbed my lunch salad, I had to wash and chop a cucumber quickly. After experimenting a couple of times, I’ve worked out how to meal-prep cucumbers and keep them fresh for up to four days.

Buy the Freshest

The fresher your cucumbers, the more successful your meal prep will be. Choose firm, unblemished cucumbers. Avoid any that are shriveled, soft, or have yellowing skins.

Choose to eat rather than pickling cucumbers: good varietals include English, garden, Persian, Armenian, and Hothouse cucumbers.

My family always complains about burpy cucumbers, so I stick to English varieties which seem to cause less burping and lack bitterness. They’ve also got fewer seeds. Researchers don’t know why cucumbers make some people burp – it appears to be linked to a bitter compound called cucurbitacin.

Wash Thoroughly

Even if you’ve bought organic veggies or picked them in your backyard, you must wash them. Unfortunately, many of my vegetables are exposed to harmful pesticides and fertilizers.

Store-bought cucumbers, in particular, will have been handled by several people, from picking to shipping and displaying.

Here’s how to wash cucumbers:

1. Soak your cucumbers in clean, cool water for a couple of minutes.
2. Do not use bleach or household detergent to wash vegetables.
3. Gently scrub the skin with a clean brush, especially if you plan on eating it.
4. Rinse the cucumber.
5. Dry with a paper towel.

Trim and Chop

Decide how you plan to use the cucumber, which will dictate how you chop and store it.

• Trim the ends off the cucumber.
• Peel the cucumber with a paring knife or vegetable peeler. Unless cucumbers make you burp, remember that veggie skins contain healthy nutrients, especially fiber.
• Slice your cucumber in half lengthwise and remove the seeds.
• Julienne cucumber into sticks or slice into rounds for snacking.
• Slice into rounds and then halve and quarter the slices for adding to salads and bowls.
• Dice cumber for soup.

Having meal-prepped a cucumber, only to find it bitter and burpy, is disappointing. I always have a piece of the cucumber when I start chopping. If it’s bitter, I deseed the cucumber and remove the skin, as the bitter chemicals are clustered beneath the skin, at the ends, and in the seeds.

Store

Storage methods go a long way to ensuring that your vegetables stay fresh.

Place cucumbers in the fridge in airtight containers on a damp paper towel. This will stop them from drying out.

• Snacking cucumbers: I like to pack cucumber snacks in a two-section container, with hummus for dipping, so that a hungry teen can grab a healthy snack. This avoids the usual,  “Moooom, I’m huuuungry!” If you’ve got little kids, make sure that the containers are easy for them to open.
• Cucumbers for a salad: Add them to a mixed salad to store in the fridge. However, do not add the dressing, or the vegetables will become mushy.

• Store the rest of the cucumbers in separate containers depending on their purpose. To keep them crunchy, store cucumbers underwater in airtight containers. Mason jars work well to prevent the cucumbers from drying out.
• Stack the containers in the crisper drawer. Set the drawer to high humidity by opening the small air vents.

Follow these guidelines for food safety. This is particularly important for cucumbers, as you tend to eat them raw.

• Refrigerate your chopped cucumber within two hours to avoid foodborne diseases and bacteria.
• Store vegetables separately from raw meat, chicken, or fish to prevent cross-contamination.
• If it is fresh, you can store meal-prepped cucumber in the fridge for up to four days.
• If you don’t know how old the cucumber is, use it within two to three days.

Cucumbers do not freeze well. If you have an abundance of cucumbers, rather pickle them.

10 Ways to Use Meal-Prepped Cucumbers

My family loves cucumbers, so I always serve them in my household. Half a cup of chopped cucumber is a single serving of veggies, which is easy to eat; I try to get my family to eat the recommended five fruit and veg daily. They are really versatile, and you can add them to all kinds of meals. Here are my favorites:

• Cucumbers make delicious snacks, especially on a hot day. They’re a more nutritious option than sugary or salty snacks.
• Use cucumbers in fresh salads, including green, Thai, and Greek salads.
• Cucumbers make a great topping for chili and curry.
• Add cucumbers to burrito bowls, along with quinoa, lettuce, peppers, onions, tomatoes, and spicy grilled beef or chicken.
• Create sushi or poke bowls with rice, cucumbers, carrots, radishes, snap peas, sprouts, and salmon.
• Create a bento box in a multi-compartment lunchbox: fill the compartments with cucumber, carrots, hummus, nuts, hardboiled eggs, pieces of cheese, and a dollop of nut butter.
• Load sandwiches and wraps with cucumber, along with your lettuce and tomato.
• Set a grazing board for your family with sliced cucumbers, carrots, radishes, tomatoes, apples, berries, dips, nuts, and crackers.
• Make a bowl of refreshing gazpacho and keep it in the fridge for snacking. This soup makes the ideal starter on a hot summer’s day: I prefer chatting with my guests to being in the kitchen, and you can make gazpacho well in advance and serve it chilled in a cute glass.
• Grate your cucumber into yogurt and add garlic for a tasty tzatziki dip. This dip is ideal with Greek food.

4 Reasons to Meal-Prep Cucumbers

While cucumbers are 90% water, that doesn’t mean they don’t contain any nutrients. These summer favorites are an excellent choice for your family’s diet.

Water-Rich

Cucumbers are wonderfully refreshing because they contain so much water. In addition, they are full of electrolytes, so they can prevent dehydration. Keep yourself hydrated and regular by adding cucumber, mint, and lemon to your drinking water.

Nutritious

These crunchy treats are rich in four essential nutrients:

• Vitamin C: This immune-boosting vitamin is found in many fruit and veg: you get 10% of your recommended daily allowance (RDA) from a single cucumber.
• Vitamin K: This unusual vitamin is necessary for blood clotting and assists in your body’s absorption of calcium. Cucumbers give you more than half your RDA.
• Potassium: Enjoy cucumber, knowing it provides 12% of your RDA. Potassium helps to regulate blood pressure.
• Magnesium: Including magnesium-rich foods in your diet helps to reduce inflammation.

Full of Fiber

Like all green vegetables, cucumber contains fiber, especially if you eat the skin. Studies show that 95% of Americans have too little fiber in their diets, opening them to lifestyle diseases like diabetes, cancer, stroke, and heart disease. Fiber is vital for weight loss, so including cucumbers in your meal planning is perfect.

Low in Calories

Cucumbers are an ideal vegetable to include in weight-loss programs. A hundred grams of cucumber contains only 15 calories, while half a cup, or a single serving, only has 8 calories. Besides detoxifying your body, cucumbers are fat- and cholesterol-free but filling and satisfying.

Conclusion

A healthy diet includes plenty of fruit and vegetables. Meal-prepping helps you to eat more veg by making nutritious meals convenient. Add cucumbers to your meal prep and enjoy a nutrient boost.