Cucumber Raita Recipe (Indian Raita)

Raita is personally a favorite choice of accompaniment at home, especially when it comes to pairing them with robust dishes like a Biryani or Pulao. All raitas cool the palate by default as one of the key ingredients is yogurt in them. This Cucumber Raita is a popular savory variant made with cucumber, yogurt, a few ground spices and herbs. It is simple, refreshing and even more cooling to the palate. This recipe comes together in 5 minutes and tastes fabulous when paired with a rice dish or any Indian meal.

About Cucumber Raita Recipe

Raita is a savory tangy side dip or dish usually served with Indian meals. It is basically made with yogurt, various vegetables and seasoned with roasted cumin powder, salt with the addition of a few more spices and herbs.

Mostly the raita variants are made with onion, tomato or cucumber. The sweet tangy versions are made with fruits like apple, mango, and pineapple.

The Cucumber Raita is a refreshing dip/condiment or side dish that we make with two main ingredients – Yogurt and fresh cucumber.

Of course, we also like to spice it up with light sprinkles of roasted cumin powder, chaat masala, rock salt or black salt and garnish it with some coriander leaves (cilantro) or mint leaves.

And that’s that! These are all the ingredients you need for this super easy and quick recipe of Cucumber Raita. If you want to add some spice and heat to this raita, you can include red chili powder or cayenne pepper.

In Hindi, Cucumber Raita is known as ‘kheera raita‘ or ‘kheere ka raita,‘ where the words ‘kheera’ (singular) and ‘kheere’ (plural) refer to cucumber.

You can use any variety of cucumber. In India, we make it with the green or white cucumber varieties, but English cucumbers work well too.

You absolutely don’t have to bother about the seeds, unless you do not prefer them or your cucumber has large tough ones. Use fresh tender cucumber and not ripe ones as they do have tough seeds and taste sour.

In addition to this lovely and easy-peasy Cucumber Raita, there are so many variations of raita made with other vegetables, fruits and herbs. Some of our other favorites are Onion Raita, Boondi Raita and Pineapple Raita.

I also like this Cucumber Raita, especially for its cooling properties in the scorching hot summer months in India. A famous South Indian variation of raita that you can make with cucumber is this Kerala style Cucumber Pachadi.

Two Methods

There are basically 2 ways in which you can prepare a comforting Cucumber Raita. You can choose any method to prepare it. I make with both these methods at home.

Giving the details below:

• In first method, the cucumber is grated. This grated cucumber is squeezed of its juices prior to being added to the yogurt. When you grate the cucumber, obviously more juices are released. This can result in a runny raita. So, the juices are squeezed from the grated cucumber using a cheesecloth, muslin cloth or sieve. Usually, I do not squeeze out the juices and directly add the grated cucumber to the yogurt for nutritional reasons.
• The second method (shared on this post) involves adding chopped cucumber to the curd or yogurt. When you chop the cucumber, less juices are released and your raita does not become thin or watery.

How to make Cucumber Raita

Preparation

1. In a mixing bowl, whisk 1 cup chilled yogurt until smooth.

Use fresh homemade or packaged yogurt. Avoid using sour tasting yogurt or curd.

2. Rinse, peel and finely chop 1 medium cucumber. You need 1 cup finely chopped cucumber.

Add the chopped cucumber to the whisked yogurt. If you prefer, you can add grated cucumber.

Tip 1: Check the taste of the cucumber before chopping or grating. If it has a bitter or sour taste, then do not use it.

Tip 2: I always peel the cucumber skin, whether they are thick or thin. It is better to peel them if they are thick. The white cucumber we get in India, have thick skin and they have to be peeled. If using a thin-skinned cucumber, then keep the peels on.

3. Add the following ground spices and seasonings:

• 1 teaspoon roasted cumin powder
• ½ teaspoon chaat masala powder (optional)
• ½ teaspoon kashmiri red chili powder (optional) or ¼ teaspoon red chilli powder or cayenne pepper
• salt according to your desired taste

Make Raita

4. Combine all the ingredients together.

5. Lastly, add 1 tablespoon chopped coriander leaves.

You can also add 1 tablespoon chopped mint leaves, in place of coriander leaves.

6. Mix again.

7. Serve Cucumber Raita immediately garnished with a few coriander leaves or mint leaves. Additionally you could sprinkle some roasted cumin powder and red chilli powder (or cayenne pepper) on top of the raita.

Serving Suggestions

Here are a few ways you can serve and enjoy this fantastic Cucumber Raita:

• Indian meals: It can be served as a side dish with some vegetable Curry, Lentils, and Roti or Naan.
• Paratha: You can serve it with stuffed parathas as well. Aloo Paratha, Gobi Paratha, Mooli Paratha or any stuffed paratha pairs nicely with Cucumber Raita.
• Rice: A quintessential way of serving this Cucumber Raita is with a rich Vegetable Biryani or pulao recipes like Peas Pulao or Kashmiri Pulao. It also tastes great with Khichdi, dal (lentils) and steamed rice.
• Vegetables: And yes, you can also serve this raita as a dip with fresh, roasted, sauteed or baked veggies.

Storage

Leftovers can be stored only for a day in the refrigerator. This Cucumber Raita is best had fresh and the taste changes when you refrigerate it. So, only make amounts of it that you can finish in one day.

Cucumber Raita vs Tzatziki

While Cucumber Raita is from Indian cuisine, Tzatziki is a classic cucumber-yogurt based dip from the Mediterranean cuisine repertoire. Both these are our preferred condiments. I make the tzatziki when I cook Mediterranean inspired meals at home.

So basically, tzatziki is a yogurt dip from Greek cuisine and made with cucumber, garlic, olive oil, vinegar and salt. It tastes wonderful with bits of pungent hits from the garlic and freshness of the cucumber.

On the face of it, making Cucumber Raita and tzatziki may look similar, but there are differences. Firstly, tzatziki is made with Greek yogurt or what we call in India as hung curd.

Cucumber Raita is simply made with yogurt or plain curd. So, obviously tzatziki is creamy, thick and works greatly as a spread too.

Garlic is a unique spice that is added in tzatziki, while in Cucumber Raita we do not add garlic. Moreover, in any raita recipe, we do not add any kind of acidic ingredients like lemon juice or vinegar.

We also do not add oil directly to the yogurt. But yes, we may sauté some spices in oil and add this infused oil together with the spices to the yogurt.

Expert Tips

1. Cucumber: Any fresh cucumber works greatly in this raita. If you are concerned about the seeds, then make it with English cucumber. Taste the cucumber before chopping or grating. If it tastes bitter or sour, then discard it. Avoid making this raita with matured cucumber as they have tough seeds and are sour.
2. Yogurt: When you make any raita, always use fresh homemade yogurt or whole milk yogurt. It should not be sour. For low-fat raita, use a low-fat yogurt.
3. Spices: The usual spices that we add to raita are roasted cumin powder and red chili powder. I also perk up my raita with some chaat masala powder. But you can skip it. Replace red chili powder with paprika or cayenne pepper. Roasted ground cumin helps in digestion.
4. Cumin powder: In the cucumber raita recipe, roasted cumin powder is added. You can make a small batch by toasting/roasting ½ cup cumin seeds (or any quantity you prefer) in a skillet or pan until fragrant. Let the cumin seeds cool and then grind to a fine texture. Place it in an air-tight jar and store in a cool dry place.
5. Spice levels: Any raita is subtly, minimally spiced and is never made extremely fiery, as it accompanies a spiced biryani, gravy or kabab. So, use the same proportion of red chili powder as mentioned in my recipe. You can definitely add less, but not more. You can increase the quantity of roasted cumin powder and chaat masala powder a bit.
6. Herbs: Fresh coriander leaves and mint leaves are the preferred choice of herbs in raita. You can even substitute the fresh leaves with about ½ to 1 teaspoon dried mint leaves. Use fresh parsley in place of coriander leaves.

Cucumber raita recipe from the archives was first published on September 2011.