Healthier Cucumber Salad: The Viral One Scores 50, Ours Scores 90

In early July 2024, an Ottawa-based creator named Logan Moffitt posted a video of himself slicing an entire cucumber into a deli container, shaking it with a dressing, and eating the whole thing with chopsticks. He picked up six million followers and a nickname — the cucumber guy — and ever since, everybody's feed has been full of people shaking cucumbers in jars.

It looks like the healthiest thing on the internet. It is a whole cucumber. So we ran three of the most-copied versions through Eat Well Planner's Nutrition Score — the same at-a-glance number you see on any public recipe page — and the best of them came back 53 out of 100. The classic soy-sesame one scored 50. The creamy spicy-mayo one scored 44.

That is not a knock on the trend. It is the whole lesson of this post: the cucumber is nearly free nutritionally, so the score is measuring the dressing and almost nothing else. Once you understand that, the fix is obvious and takes about four minutes. Our version scores 90 out of 100, and it is still a cucumber shaken in a jar.

The originals: three versions, and how they score

A note on servings, because it changes every number here: these are scored as one serving of one whole cucumber, which is how the trend actually works. Nobody in these videos is sharing.

Version 1 — the soy-sesame-garlic classic (50/100). This is the build that went viral, and the one most widely reproduced: one English cucumber (about 300 g), 1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce, 1 teaspoon fish sauce, 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil, 1 teaspoon sugar, a clove of grated garlic, 2 scallions, and a tablespoon of toasted sesame seeds. Per serving: 266 calories, 6.2 g protein, 3.5 g fiber, 18.8 g fat, and 1,840 mg of sodium — 80% of a day's Daily Value in one snack.

Version 2 — the creamy spicy-mayo one (44/100). Amounts vary a lot on this one, so we scored a representative build: the same cucumber with 3 tablespoons mayonnaise, 1 tablespoon sriracha, 1 tablespoon each of rice vinegar and soy sauce, a teaspoon of sugar, scallions and sesame seeds. It comes to 437 calories, 36.6 g fat, 5.5 g saturated fat and 1,530 mg sodium, and it is the only one of the three to pick up three flags at once — high sodium, high saturated fat, high added sugar.

Version 3 — the Din Tai Fung-style smashed salad (53/100). The restaurant-copycat version that predates the trend and got swept up in it. Scaled to one cucumber, a typical copycat runs about 1 1/3 tablespoons each of soy sauce and rice vinegar, a teaspoon of sugar, grated garlic, a teaspoon of chili oil and a teaspoon of sesame oil. At 167 calories it is by far the lightest, and it still lands 1,230 mg of sodium — 53% DV. (We scored it without the salt used to draw water out of the cucumbers, since most of that gets drained away. The real number is if anything higher.)

Three salads that look and taste nothing alike, all inside nine points of each other, none of them clearing 55. Here is why.

The cucumber is not doing much

This is the part worth internalizing. Raw cucumber with peel is about 95% water — 15 calories and half a gram of fiber per 100 g. A whole 300 g cucumber is roughly 45 calories, 1.5 g of fiber and 2 g of protein. It is genuinely good for you and it is genuinely almost nothing.

We tested this directly: we scored the classic dressing on its own, with no cucumber at all. It came back 42. Adding an entire cucumber to it was worth eight points. The vegetable everyone is celebrating moves the number less than a single change to the sauce does.

What actually drags the score down

• Sodium, in every version. The classic's 1,840 mg is 80% of a day's Daily Value from a snack, and it is not close to an outlier — most Americans already eat about 3,400 mg a day against a recommended ceiling of 2,300 mg, and Harvard's summary of the mechanism is worth reading: excess sodium pulls water into the bloodstream, which raises blood volume, which raises pressure on the vessels. A cucumber salad is a strange place to spend most of a day's sodium.
• There is no protein and not much fiber. 6.2 g of protein and 3.5 g of fiber, against a recommended 25 to 35 g of fiber a day. This is why people eat a whole cucumber and are hungry twenty minutes later. It is a lot of volume and very little food.
• The fat is all omega-6. A tablespoon of sesame oil is 7.75 g of omega-6 and essentially no omega-3, which the score flags. Not a reason to remove it — see below — but it is real.

And what is already fine? More than you would think. The classic is an excellent source of vitamin K (113% DV), and of phosphorus, iron, magnesium, vitamin B6 and potassium (all 22 to 26% DV), mostly from the sesame seeds and scallions. Garlic, scallions, sesame and cucumber give it 3.25 plant points before we touch anything. The bones are good. The salt is the problem, and the emptiness is the problem.

The upgrades

Three changes, applied cumulatively in this order. If you only make one, make the first — it is the biggest single jump, and it is an addition rather than a subtraction.

1. Add a cup of edamame

• Swap: Add 1 cup (150 g) shelled cooked edamame
• Score impact: +10 points (50 → 60)
• What it changes: Protein from 6.2 g to 23.0 g, fiber from 3.5 g to 10.7 g, plant points from 3.25 to 4.25
• What it costs you: 163 calories, and three minutes if the edamame is frozen. Nothing at all in flavor — the dressing was always the flavor

The single most useful thing you can do to a cucumber salad is put something in it. A cup of prepared frozen edamame carries 18 g of protein, 8 g of fiber and 121% of the Daily Value for folate, and it is the rare protein that adds fiber instead of displacing it. It also happens to be exactly right texturally: firm, cold, faintly sweet, and it rolls around in the container the same way the cucumber does.

This turns a snack into a meal, which is the honest reframe of the whole trend. Nobody is worse off for eating a whole cucumber. Plenty of people are worse off for eating a whole cucumber instead of lunch.

2. Fix the sodium: low-sodium soy sauce plus rice vinegar

• Swap: 1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce + 1 teaspoon fish sauce → 1 tablespoon low-sodium soy sauce + 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• Score impact: +26 points (60 → 86) — by far the biggest jump in this makeover
• What it changes: Sodium from 1,850 mg to 560 mg, dropping it from 80% of a day's Daily Value to 24%
• What it costs you: Genuinely a little saltiness. The vinegar covers most of it, but taste and adjust

Two things are happening. Low-sodium soy sauce carries roughly 40% less sodium than regular while keeping the same fermented depth, and using a tablespoon instead of a tablespoon and a half compounds that. Then the rice vinegar replaces what you took out — not with salt, but with acid, which is the lever most home cooks under-use when a dish tastes flat. That is the whole trick, and it is the same principle behind the four levers that make any dish taste better. Our soy sauce substitutes guide covers coconut aminos and the other lower-sodium routes if you want to go further, and the rice vinegar guide has what to use if you have none.

Now the interesting part, and the reason we publish deltas in order rather than as a menu. We also tested this swap on its own, against the untouched original: it was worth +7 points, taking a 50 to a 57. The same swap, applied after the edamame, was worth +26. Once there is real food in the bowl, the score has something to measure, and cutting the sodium stops being damage control and starts being the thing that unlocks everything else. Order matters more in this recipe than in any we have scored.

3. Add carrot, cilantro and jalapeno

• Swap: Add 1 medium carrot (60 g) shaved into ribbons, a small handful of cilantro, and half a sliced jalapeno
• Score impact: +4 points (86 → 90)
• What it changes: Fiber from 10.7 g to 13.0 g, vitamin A from 38% to 97% DV, vitamin C from 33% to 59% DV, plant points from 4.25 to 6.5
• What it costs you: 31 calories and two minutes with a peeler

Four points is a small delta and the plant-diversity gain behind it is not small. Six and a half plant points from one container matters if you are working toward the 30-a-week target: in the American Gut Project, people eating 30-plus different plants a week had measurably more diverse gut microbiomes than people eating fewer than 10, and the number of different plants mattered more than whether someone called their diet vegan or vegetarian. Plant Points in Eat Well Planner tracks exactly this, and a shaken cucumber salad is an efficient way to bank several at once.

Practically: shave the carrot with a vegetable peeler rather than grating it, so the ribbons stay crisp against the cucumber instead of going limp. The jalapeno is there for heat and it is doing real vitamin C work. Cilantro is the one ingredient here with a genuine opt-out — if it tastes like soap to you, use Thai basil or mint.

What we kept (on purpose)

The full tablespoon of toasted sesame oil. This is the swap everyone expects, and we tested it: dropping sesame oil from 1 tablespoon to 1 teaspoon, and bumping the sesame seeds from 9 g to 16 g to compensate, moved the score from 86 to 86. Zero points. It removed 40 calories and the single most recognizable flavor in the dish in exchange for nothing measurable. Toasted sesame oil is an aromatic, not a cooking fat — it is the reason this tastes like the video. It stays. Our sesame oil substitutes guide is there if you cannot get it, but do not cut it for the score.

The teaspoon of sugar. We took it out to see. The score went down two points, from 90 to 88. It is a teaspoon, it is balancing a tablespoon of vinegar and a tablespoon of soy sauce, and the number did not reward removing it. Leave it in.

The MSG, sort of. Most versions of this include a pinch to a teaspoon and we left it out of the scored recipe, because the amount varies wildly from video to video. It is worth knowing it does contribute sodium — it is monosodium glutamate — so if you use it, the sodium numbers above go up rather than down.

Where we stopped. 90 is the honest ceiling for this as a shaken cucumber salad. The remaining flags are sodium, still marked high at 26% DV, and the omega-6 from the sesame oil — and clearing either one means removing the soy sauce or the sesame oil, at which point you have made a cucumber, not a cucumber salad.

The healthier version: full recipe

Nutrition Score: 90/100. Makes one large serving — one whole cucumber, as intended.

• 1 large English cucumber (about 300 g / 10.5 oz)
• 1 cup (150 g) shelled edamame, cooked and cooled
• 1 medium carrot (60 g), shaved into ribbons with a peeler
• 2 scallions (30 g), thinly sliced
• 1/2 jalapeno (15 g), thinly sliced
• A small handful of cilantro (8 g), roughly chopped
• 1 tablespoon low-sodium soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
• 1 clove garlic (3 g), grated
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon (9 g) toasted sesame seeds

1. If the edamame is frozen, boil it for 4 to 5 minutes, drain, and rinse under cold water until cool. Pat dry so it does not water down the dressing.
2. Slice the cucumber thin, straight into a quart container or large jar. A mandoline is faster; a knife is fine. Thin slices hold more dressing per bite, which is the entire physics of this dish.
3. Add the edamame, carrot ribbons, scallions, jalapeno and cilantro on top.
4. Add the low-sodium soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, grated garlic and sugar.
5. Seal and shake hard for 15 to 20 seconds, until the sugar has dissolved and everything is coated.
6. Let it sit 5 minutes, shake again, then taste. If it is flat, add vinegar before you add soy sauce.
7. Scatter the sesame seeds over the top and eat it out of the container with chopsticks. Drink the juice at the bottom; that is where the dressing went.

Per serving, the viral original versus this version:

• Nutrition Score: 50 → 90
• Calories: 266 → 457
• Protein: 6.2 g → 22.9 g
• Fiber: 3.5 g → 13.0 g
• Total fat: 18.8 g → 26.1 g
• Saturated fat: 2.7 g → 3.8 g
• Sodium: 1,840 mg → 600 mg
• Plant points: 3.25 → 6.5
• Flags: sodium very high (80% DV) → sodium high (26% DV)

The finished salad is an excellent source of vitamin K (182% DV), folate (132%), vitamin A (97%), biotin (77%), iron (67%), phosphorus (62%), vitamin C (59%), potassium (49%), vitamin B6 (49%), riboflavin (47%), magnesium (45%) and fiber (44%). The potassium is worth calling out next to the sodium — the two work against each other, and the original had far less of it.

Swaps we tested and skipped

Chicken breast instead of edamame: 73. Seventeen points worse, which surprised us. Swapping the cup of edamame for 120 g of cooked chicken breast gives you more protein — 33.1 g against 22.9 g — and the score still falls, because fiber collapses from 13.0 g to 5.8 g and you lose the folate and iron the soybeans were carrying. Chicken makes a good cucumber salad. Edamame makes a much better-scoring one, and it is the cheaper, faster ingredient besides.

Regular soy sauce instead of low-sodium: 73. Same tablespoon, same everything else, seventeen points down. Sodium goes from 600 mg to 990 mg. If there is one bottle to change in your kitchen for this dish, it is this one.

Cutting the sesame oil: no change at all. Covered above, and it is the most useful negative result in the post — the thing that "feels unhealthy" was not costing anything.

Greek yogurt for the mayonnaise, in the creamy version: 63. This one is not a rejection, it is a win we could not use here because it belongs to a different build. Swapping the 3 tablespoons of mayo in the creamy spicy version for an equal weight of plain Greek yogurt takes it from 44 to 63 — nineteen points — and it stays creamy and tangy, because nothing is heated and cold yogurt dressings do not split. It still does not touch 90, because the sodium is untouched and there is still no protein or fiber to speak of. If you are on team creamy, do this and then add the edamame too. The mayonnaise substitutes guide has the other binders that work cold.

Make it fit other diets

Gluten-free: the only gluten here is in the soy sauce — use low-sodium tamari, which is a straight swap at the same volume. Soy-free: harder, since both the soy sauce and the edamame are soy; coconut aminos plus a cup of green peas or white beans gets you close on flavor and protein, though coconut aminos are sweeter, so cut the sugar. Vegan: the recipe above already is, once you use soy sauce rather than fish sauce.

If you would rather not work that out yourself, Eat Well Planner's Recipe Variations will rewrite this exact recipe for a given diet in one step, with the swaps already worked into the ingredients and instructions, and the AI Recipe Chat answers "what can I use instead of the edamame?" with the whole recipe in context instead of as a generic substitution.

Do this to your own recipes

Nothing here was estimated. Every number came from tools you have: when you see a recipe in a TikTok or Instagram reel, import the video straight into the app — it pulls out the ingredients and instructions for you — then look at its Nutrition Score and the flags behind it before you decide whether to cook it. That is a thirty-second check that would have told you this salad's real problem was 1,840 mg of sodium, not the cucumber.

Then run Make It Healthier, which proposes concrete swaps for that specific recipe and verifies the actual nutritional gain with a calculator before a suggestion is ever shown to you. The per-swap deltas in this post came from the Recipe Playground, where you change one ingredient at a time and watch the score move — which is how we found out that cutting the sesame oil was worth exactly nothing, and that the order you make changes in can be worth nineteen points on its own.