Cucumber bites with herbed cheese and smoked salmon – a simple, elegant and beautiful three ingredient appetizer! Healthy, crisp, creamy and smoky, these are sure to become a favorite for entertaining.
Cucumber Bites with Herbed Cheese and Smoked Salmon:
When you’re entertaining, it’s fun to greet your guests with a platter of beautiful appetizers. Especially when it’s an easy three ingredient appetizer that looks so impressive! You can also make these ahead of time. If you have last minute details to attend to, or if you are busy making everyone a glass of Festive Red Wine Sangria, these cucumber bites with herbed cheese and smoked salmon will keep everyone happy until you’re ready to join the party.
When you’re making a simple appetizer, having an ingredient like smoked salmon is key. It will be the star of the show and it’s not only delicious, it’s also a luxurious ingredient. A little goes a long way, so splurging on a package will yield lots of cucumber bites for you and your guests. And, if you have any left over, you can use the rest on your bagel or in your eggs the next day!
The Ingredients:
For this three ingredient appetizer, you’ll use an English (seedless) cucumber, the herbed cheese spread of your choice (I used the Alouette brand), and lox style smoked salmon. And yes, I did garnish the cucumber bites with a little chopped dill, but that is completely optional! Is that breaking the rules of a three ingredient appetizer? I don’t think so, but you be the judge. If you want to garnish your appetizer too, dill, Italian parsley or sliced green onion will all look beautiful.
The reason I like to use an English cucumber is mainly because you don’t need to peel them. English cucumbers are also called seedless. I think that must be a relative term, because there are seeds, but there are less of them and they are small. If you do use a regular cucumber, the skin is much thicker and slightly bitter, so you’ll want to peel it before you slice. You can also peel off sections of the skin to give it a green and white striped look.
Use the best smoked salmon you can find – after all, it’s the main event! By “lox style” smoked salmon, I mean the thinly sliced, cold smoked salmon you would associate having with a bagel and cream cheese (oh, how I love that too).
The Preparation:
These tasty little bites come together so quickly, and you can make them a few hours ahead of time too. For your prep work, all you need to do is slice the cucumber and cut the smoked salmon into smaller pieces.
Once you have everything ready to go, you can set up an assembly line and spread each cucumber slice with the herbed cheese.
Next add a small slice of smoked salmon on top of each cucumber bite and place it either on your serving platter, or if you are making them ahead of time, place them in a covered container to keep in the refrigerator. If you fold each piece of salmon on top of the herbed cheese it makes a nice presentation.
Again, this may be cheating, and it’s completely optional, but if you want to garnish, choose something green – I used a little dill.
The Payoff:
Cucumber bites with herbed cheese and smoked salmon aren’t just for special occasions either. Make them the next time you watch a game, as part of a lunch with your friends, or bring them to a pot luck!
This appetizer is naturally gluten free on the cucumbers, but it’s also really good on crackers if you like that better!
Cucumbers with Herbed Cheese and Smoked Salmon
Description
Cucumber Bites with Herbed Cheese and Smoked Salmon are a simple, elegant and beautiful three ingredient appetizer! Healthy, crisp, creamy and smoky – these are sure to become a favorite for entertaining.
Ingredients
- English cucumber, sliced into 1/4 inch slices
- Herbed cheese, about 1/2 teaspoon on each cucumber
- 4 – 8 oz smoked salmon (depending on how many bites you are making), cold smoked “lox style”
Instructions
- Slice cucumber into about 1/4 inch slices, as many slices as you need to feed your crowd, at least 2 per person.
- Spread about 1/2 teaspoon of the herbed cream cheese on each cucumber slice.
- Cut the smoked salmon into strips and fold on top of the herbed cream cheese.
- If you want to break the three ingredient appetizer rules, you can garnish with sprigs of fresh dill, Italian parsley or green onion!
