Don't you like cucumbers? They are great: Light, fresh, and super hydrating. They are easy to munch on outside the home and are a truly versatile ingredient for your salads or side dishes, but that's not all. Guess what fillings work well with cucumbers? Almost anything!
Let's take a look at how to prepare them.
Cucumber boats or rings
There is a way to serve a cucumber salad with a difference and we want to suggest a super original and tasty version: stuffed cucumbers.
Cucumbers can in fact become containers for mousse and cream cheeses thereby turning themselves into a light and tasty main course.
Just wash them properly and divide them in half lengthways. You can keep the skin on if they are not dark cucumbers with very hard skin. Then gently with a spoon empty them removing the central part with the seeds which are very watery. Put it aside and maybe add it to a cold soup of avocado and cucumbers, another perfect recipe for the summer. Now you have cucumber boats ready to fill as you like.
You don't have to cook them because cucumbers are great as they are, natural, fresh, and crunchy.
Another way to prepare the cucumbers is to cut them into sections to get lots of thick cylinders, then empty out the inside. The circumference of the cucumber remains intact and you will have lots of "rings" to stuff like bonbons.
Creamy cheese filling
You can stuff your cucumber boats with fresh and finely chopped seasonal vegetables or with cheese cubes or cold cuts. The important thing is that everything gels together in something creamy. The ultimate ingredient to do this is a cream cheese.
You can choose from numerous fresh soft cheeses such as robiola, goat’s cheese, ricotta, stracchino, and even gorgonzola if you love a stronger taste. You can also mix various cheeses together and add spices and herbs turning everything into a cream.
If you are a vegan, you can adapt using the many vegetable milk-based alternatives.
Tuna mousse
An unmistakable combination is cucumbers and tuna. Drain some good tuna in oil and then blend it with a spreadable cheese like Philadelphia or ricotta, for a delicate flavor.
Then add some small pieces of celery or tomato or even peppers. Then with this cream and using a sac à poche fill the cucumbers. A touch of crunchiness doesn’t hurt either so why not add lavish amounts of various seeds to decorate.
Ham mousse
Children like it so much and it's a great idea for this stuffing because it goes really well with fresh vegetables like cucumber.
To prepare the ham mousse simply blend cooked ham with a cheese of your choice and then, like with the tuna mousse, enrich it for added flavor with spices, herbs, vegetables, or cheese cubes.
Similarly, you can add a crunchy element by choosing between flaked almonds or pistachio grains.
Fruit version
The cucumber being very delicate and almost tasteless, we can play with both savory and sweet ingredients.
You can for example stuff inside diced watermelon with a cream of Greek yogurt, honey, and mint.
It would also go very well with grilled peaches and apricots mixed together with ricotta and cinnamon or white grapes, gorgonzola, and nuts for an especially interesting contrast of flavors.