What’s the Deal with Cucumber Salad? Here’s Why the Recipe Is Trending All of a Sudden

In the age of TikTok, it’s remarkable how a recipe can become so ubiquitous overnight that no one could tell you where it came from…yet they’re searching every grocery store within a five-mile radius for feta cheese. (Remember baked feta pasta?)

It’s happening again, except this time, everyone is losing their minds over the produce aisle because “cucumber salad” is trending.

According to Google Trends, searches in the U.S. for “cucumber salad” have reached all-time highs, with the top trending cucumber salads being the following:

• Jalapeño popper cucumber salad
• Crunchy Asian cucumber salad
• Cucumber salad with soy ginger and garlic
• Crab rangoon cucumber salad
• Old fashioned cucumber salad with mayonnaise

But why? It can all be traced back to TikTok user Logan Moffitt, @logagm, who is being deemed “cucumber guy” thanks to a now-viral video in which he claims, “Sometimes you need to eat an entire cucumber. This is the best way to do it,” and then makes a salad from an entire cucumber in a pint container. (If you’re on FoodTok at all, you might recognize him from previous videos where he would make kimchi and other Korean food at home.)

The recipe Moffitt shares involves thinly slicing a cucumber into a pint container using a mandoline, then adding soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar, MSG, sesame oil, grated raw garlic, scallions and toasted sesame seeds before putting a lid on the container and shaking it.

But for reasons unexplainable other than, well, it’s TikTok, the salad has blown up and now there are a plethora of spinoffs from Moffitt (and other creators like @wishbonekitchen), all involving a whole cucumber, a pint container and various additions ranging from “everything but the bagel” lox and cream cheese to “jalapeño popper” with bacon and cheddar.

Not to discount Logan’s cucumber salad iterations—which all look and sound pretty tasty—but I’d be remiss not to mention that cucumber salad is not a new invention. It’s popular in many cultures: There’s the Chinese pai huang gua, a smashed cucumber salad made with many of the same ingredients as Logan’s. There’s also a Polish cucumber salad made with sour cream called mizeria—the word translates to “misery” and it was long considered a peasant dish. This isn’t even the first time cucumbers have trended on TikTok: Last year, user Cassie Yeung shared her Korean cucumber salad which involves cutting a cucumber into a spiral shape with the help of chopsticks.

So yes, cucumbers may be getting their moment in the sun, but let’s not forget that TikTok didn’t invent cucumber salad. It’s been waiting, deliciously, to be loved all along.