One of my favourite things to do is incorporate flavours from around the world into my regular meals. Today I’m serving up an Indian inspired cucumber salad, and it’s doing double duty serving as a bright and fresh side to our meal, and using that traditional, tangy, Indian style yogurt to help cool the spice from my chilli glazed BBQ pork chops.
I love the flavour of Hans Dairy’s Dahi Indian style natural yogurt (or curd, if you know your Indian food). It’s sweet and mellow with just the perfect amount of tang. It’s nothing like the generic super thick yogurts I grew up with. This style of yogurt screams to be stirred into a sauce, mixed into a dip, or tossed onto a salad like I did. I especially love using it in salads like today, because it gives them a bright, fresh flavour and really helps to cool down a spicy meal when you need it to (something the kids, and Bo, really appreciate).
For this salad, I diced up a combination of cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet peppers, and red onion. If you’re ok will a little heat right in the salad, some red and green finger chilis thinly sliced would be a great addition. The dressing couldn’t be simpler for this. Some of that amazing Hans Dairy Indian Style Natural Yogurt, fresh lemon juice, cumin, salt, and pepper. That’s it, just whisk it all together before tossing it with the vegetables. Just before I serve it I like to chop up some fresh cilantro and sprinkle it on top, too.
I really want to tell you a little bit more about Hans Dairy though, because it’s one of those Canadian owned companies we should celebrate more. It was founded just 20 years ago by Mr and Mrs Hans when they immigrated to Canada, and wanted to be able to share a taste of their former home with everyone else. Their love and passion has been passed along through the family, and the company is now being run by two sisters (knowing the company is run by two women is something else to be extremely proud of!).
On top of their history and success story, they’ve also always been a company committed to providing the best possible product to all of us. Everything they produce follows a 100% natural philosophy, with products that are free of any artificial sugars, flavourings, colourings, and preservatives; and they use only Canadian milk. Keep your eyes out for their many products: smoothies, lassi, yogurt, milk, butter, and rice pudding, and keep supporting the companies that make Canada such a wonderful place to live!
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Indian inspired cucumber salad
Ingredients
- 1 large cucumber, peeled, diced into bite size pieces
- 2 large, firm tomatoes, seeded and diced
- 1 large sweet pepper (red, orange, or yellow), diced
- 1 small red onion, diced
- 1/3 cup Hans Dairy Dahi Indian Style Yogurt (curd)
- juice of 1/2 a lemon
- 1/4 tsp cumin
- 1/2 tsp sugar
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Instructions
- Put the cucumber, tomatoes, pepper, and onion in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the yogurt, lemon juice, cumin, sugar, salt, and pepper.
- Pour the dressing over the vegetable mixture and toss to coat. Just before serving sprinkle the top with the chopped cilantro.
Disclosure: This post is part of a Hans Dairy and YMC sponsored program. I received compensation as a thank you for my participation. This post reflects my personal opinion about the information provided by the sponsors and their products.
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