Spicy Cucumber Bean Curd Salad

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Chinese Cucumber Bean Curd Salad is based on a dish from my childhood. The traditional (non-vegetarian) recipe consists of julienned cucumbers, sliced tofu sheets, thinly-sliced beef, mixed with a umamiful dressing of garlic, soy sauce and chili oil. For this version, I’ve left out the beef but it is still flavourful and highly refreshing.

Bean curd cucumber salad in a teal green bowl with a pair of wooden chopsticks surrounded by fresh garlic and herbs.

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Why Make This Salad?

As mentioned above, this is a dish I’ve been eating since childhood, but it usually contained meat. Feeling nostalgic recently, I tried making the vegan version simply by taking out the beef and turns out it still tastes fantastic. The beancurd strips / soybean zeroodles provide a chewy, proteinaceous texture and the maggi sauce brings on the umami with no need for any animal products.

In fact, my boyfriend, whom I have never known in five years to willingly eat a salad, enjoyed this and ate it almost every day for lunch for a whole summer! Of course, the Lao Gan Ma chili crisp has to take a lot of credit here—put that stuff on ANYTHING and it’ll taste amazing.

What You’ll Need

Ingredients for bean curd cucumber salad are laid out on a grey tile.

This simple hot-weather salad uses minimal ingredients so you can make this even when it’s too hot to spend much time in the kitchen:

Bean Curd Strips (you can find these in the refrigerated or frozen sections of most Asian supermarkets). Alternatively, you can use a bean pasta like Zeroodle, Liviva, etc. They have a similar chew and texture and have the advantage of being shelf-stable because they’re dry. Mung bean spaghetti is pictured in the above photo, but I’ve also had success with edamame spaghetti and soybean spaghetti.
Cucumber. Use an English cucumber which are best for eating raw, instead of field cucumbers or slicing cucumbers, which have thicker, tough skin.
Garlic. You can add more garlic than specified, if you want. When I make this for Kevin who is a garlic fiend, I double the amount.
Soy Sauce or Maggi Liquid Seasoning.
Chili Crisp (such as Lao Gan Ma brand).
Some optional Toppings include: shichimi togarashi, sesame seeds, cilantro, and scallion.

Step-by-Step Process

Closeup of boiled bean curd noodles in a white bowl.

Step 1: Boil the bean curd or Zeroodles, then rinse in cold water and drain.

Sliced cucumber strips tossed in a white bowl.

Step 2 (Option 1): Thinly slice up the cucumbers into 2-inch long strips.

Smashed cucumbers in a small ziploc bag on a grey counter.

Step 2 (Option 2): Alternatively, you can put roughly-chopped cucumber pieces into a ziploc bag and smash them.

Sliced cucumbers and bean curd strips together in a white bowl.

Step 3: Add the sliced or smashed cucumbers to a salad bowl together with the boiled bean curd.

Did you know: Smashing cucumbers is a popular Chinese technique for preparing cucumbers. It breaks open the cucumber skin and helps it absorb lots of flavour. And it’s quicker than slicing, too. 🙂

A generous dollop of Lao Gan Ma chili crisp is placed on top of a bowl of cucumbers and bean curd.

Step 4: Add chili crisp.

Crushed garlic is added to the bean curd salad bowl.

Step 5: Add crushed garlic.

A sprinkle of shichimi togarashi is tossed over the salad bowl.

Step 6 (Optional): Sprinkle on shichimi togarashi to taste.

Cucumber bean curd salad is topped with fresh herbs (cilantro and scallion) and shichimi togarashi.

Step 7 (Optional): Add chopped cilantro, scallions, and sesame seeds. Give it a good mix and serve cold!

Ingredient FAQs

A note on the chili sauce: as mentioned, the chili crisp is important for the spicy-savoury flavour here, but a chili oil can work too. You can use Lao Gan Ma, which is the most widely available and my favourite, or any other brand. I’ve probably used three or four different brands of chili crisp at this point and they all do the job, though I find myself returning to Lao Gan Ma.

Maggi or soy sauce?

In the past, I’ve always made cucumber bean curd salad with soy sauce. I never tried maggi sauce until a month or so ago when my mom turned me onto it. It’s a super flavourful sauce that looks exactly the same as soy sauce, but IMO tastes even better. Maggi is slightly less acidic than soy sauce and works really well in this recipe. I imagine that most people are more likely to have soy sauce than maggi in their pantry, but if you do have maggi, definitely give it a go in this recipe.

What’s shichimi togarashi?

It’s a Japanese spice mix. I’ve yet to find an Asian-style recipe that a sprinkle of shichimi togarashi doesn’t work on. I buy mine from Silk Road Spice Merchant (Canada-wide shipping!!). If you don’t have any, that’s fine too. The base ingredients (garlic, chili crisp, soy sauce) provide enough flavour already, which is why I noted that the toppings are optional.

Ingredients for cucumber bean curd salad, just before mixing, in a large stainless steel metal bowl.

More Salad Recipes

I’ll be honest, there aren’t a whole lot of salad recipes on this site because we in this household are quite salad-resistant. Not only do I not make many salads, but finding one that’s good enough to post is even more rare. However, here are a few that I made and quite enjoyed recently:

Vegan Olivier Salad, aka Russian Salad! It’s a totally different type of salad from this one: potatoey, tangy, and creamy. But go and give it a shot if you’d like a twist from regular old potato salad recipes.
Gurkensalat, a sweet and tangy dill cucumber salad that’s beloved in Germany.
Kısır Salad, a Turkish recipe with bulgur and tons of fresh herbs.
Hiyayakko, Japanese cold tofu salad. Might not fit the Western preconception of salad, but it brings on the cold and refreshing flavours all the same.

Wooden chopsticks over a bowl of cucumber zeroodle salad.

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Did you make this recipe? Please consider leaving a rating below to let me know how you liked it. You can also take a picture and tag me on Instagram @earthtoveg, I will shout you out in my Stories!