Ingredients You’ll Need

• Orange-thyme simple syrup: You do need to make this homemade, but it’s totally worth and it and so easy to make! I steep orange peel and fresh thyme into a basic simple syrup, which infuses it with a bright, herbal citrusy notes. It makes enough for 6 drinks.
• Olive brine: The secret ingredient! All you need is a teaspoon (straight from the olive jar) to give it complexity that tastes like alcohol. Pickle juice works in a pinch.
• Pomegranate juice: This is for looks: it’s hard to get a color that’s close to the bright orange of Aperol, but adding this really brightens the color.
• Fresh orange juice and tonic water. Freshly squeezed orange juice tastes incredible, and the tonic water is bubbly with subtle flavor notes.

How to Make A Non Alcoholic Aperol Spritz

The full recipe with quantities is below, but here’s the short version:

1. Make the syrup. Simmer sugar, water, orange peel, and thyme until the sugar dissolves, then let it cool and infuse for at least 30 minutes. Strain and refrigerate.
2. Build the spritz in the glass. Fill a glass with ice (clear ice if you have it), then pour in the pomegranate juice, olive brine, orange syrup, and orange juice. Top with tonic water. Stir gently once with a bar spoon. 
3. Garnish and serve. Express an orange peel over the top to release its oils, then add an orange wedge.

Pro tip: Always add your tonic last and only stir very gently to preserve the bubbles.

Ingredients You’ll Need

This cucumber salad recipe is actually more like quick-pickled cucumbers and onions than a salad (similar to this German Gurkensalat). While we love a creamy cucumber salad, the vinegar-based cucumber salad is our preference. It’s so easy, holds up well over time, and has incredible flavor. Here are the ingredients you’ll need:

• English cucumbers: Look for the long, thin English cucumbers that come plastic-wrapped in the grocery store.
• White onion and red onion: I like using both to get the bright color of red and the mild flavor of white.
• Fresh dill: It’s best with fresh herbs, but you can substitute dried dill here and it’s still fantastic.
• White vinegar: Make sure it’s white vinegar (not white wine vinegar); it has a piercing straightforward flavor that’s the signature of this salad recipe.
• Granulated sugar: A bit of sugar balances the acidity.

Tips for the Best Cucumber Salad

Got your cucumbers? Here are a few tips for making this cucumber salad recipe, the ideal summer side dish for cookouts, pitch-ins and more! Here’s what to know:

• Use a mandolin for easy slicing. A mandolin is a slicing blade that makes it easy to cut vegetables uniformly. If you’ve got one, it makes this salad recipe a breeze! Make sure to wear the protective gloves that come with the blade to prevent injury.
• Don’t have one? Use a chef’s knife to cut the cucumber as thinly as possible.
• French cut the onions. Cut the onion from the root end to stem end to make the most attractive-sized pieces (here’s a video).
• Refrigerate for 1 hour. You can eat this salad right away, but it’s best after 1 hour of refrigeration. This chills the salad and softens the vegetables.

What to Serve With Cucumber Salad

This refreshing summer cucumber salad is of course a perfect pairing for anything rich, smoky, or grilled as a cool, crunchy contrast. Here are a few of my favorite pairings:

• Grilled proteins: It’s made for grilled chicken thighs, grilled salmon, chicken burgers, or veggie burgers
• Seafood dinners: One commenter said it’s great with Cajun salmon (I must try it!).
• Cookout spreads: Set it alongside my dill pickle potato salad and classic corn salad for the full picnic lineup.
• Sandwiches: Spoon it next to a focaccia sandwich.
• Mezze plates: It’s great in Mediterranean spreads with loaded hummus and baked feta.

How to Make Cucumber Water, Step-By-Step

Cucumber water requires two ingredients: cucumbers and water. But to make it, you do need one extra thing: time! It takes 1 hour for the flavor to infuse into the water. Here’s what to do:

• Slice ½ cucumber into thin rounds.
• Muddle for maximum flavor. Here’s my secret: I gently mash the cucumber slices at the bottom of the pitcher with a wooden spoon before adding water. This releases those refreshing juices, creating a more flavorful drink.
• Add 8 cups of cold water.
• Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Choosing Your Cucumber

You can use any type of cucumber for this cucumber water! Often, you’ll see it with the standard variety, but an English cucumber works, too:

• English cucumbers are long and straight, with a thin skin with ridges and very small seeds. Because the thin skin is so fragile, it’s sold with a plastic covering in the grocery store. This is my favorite type to use in cucumber recipes like cucumber salad or tzatziki sauce, because the flavor is so mild and it doesn’t need to be peeled.
• Standard slicing cucumbers are shorter, with thick, dark green skin and very large seeds. The thick skin and seeds can be bitter, so they’re often removed when cooking.

More Refreshing Beverages

• Fruit Infused Water
• Green Detox Smoothie
• Lemon Water
• Lime Water With Mint
• Perfect Strawberry Smoothie
• Strawberry Water
• Top 10 Healthy Drinks to Try

Ingredients You’ll Need

The ingredients in a Bijou cocktail are:

• 1 oz gin
• 1 oz sweet vermouth
• 1 oz green Chartreuse
• 2 dashes orange bitters

As a note, some people like to change-up the ratios to use less Chartreuse. I decided to stick with the 1890’s equal parts recipe, and I’m glad we did. Let’s break down the ingredients:

More Black Bean Recipes to Try

What can you do with a can of black beans? Let us count the ways. Here are some of our favorite black bean recipes:

• Go from can to side dish in 5 minutes with this black beans recipe, or mix up a pot of black bean soup.
• Snack on black bean hummus.
• Make up a batch of tasty black beans and rice or Cuban black beans.
• Throw them into chili for black bean chili, or make refried black beans.