Ajaad (อาจาด) or Thai style cucumber relish is a side that goes well with satay, Thai pork toast, Thai yellow curry and more. It's super easy to make and you'll already have most of the ingredients in your kitchen!

Thai cucumber relish to go with satay, Thai pork toast and more

Why We Love This Recipe

If you're a real fan of Thai-style satay, then you know that no satay is complete with just a peanut sauce. Satay *must* be had with ajaad or Thai cucumber relish. I've seen Thai restaurants outside of Thailand serve satay without it. This does nothing but make me scream inside. If you want to have satay the Thai way and enjoy it even more, you need the good old ajaad.

That said, satay isn't the only one thing we eat with ajaad. In Thailand you can also see this sweet and sour cucumber condiment accompanying Thai pork toast, and Thai yellow curry. If you love those dishes and ever decide to make them yourself, be sure to enhance their flavors with ajaad.

And hey, just throwing it out there, you might like my pickled red cabbage as well.

Video Tutorial

Ingredients

Here is a visual overview of the ingredients in the recipe. Scroll down to the recipe at the bottom for quantities.

Ingredient Notes

sliced shallots, peppers, and cucumber in a white bowl

Vinegar: Any distilled white vinegar will work for this recipe. You don't need anything fancy.

Pepper: We usually use the kind that isn't hot to make ajaad. When it comes to colors go, you can use red, green, yellow or all of them to add more colors and make your cucumber relish look more inviting.

And as much as we love heat in our food, we add peppers to ajaad only to give it a mild kick. So when you're out shopping for some peppers for your ajaad, remember they're not supposed to be hot, unless that's what you want.

Shallots: This Thai cucumber relish is traditionally made with shallots but if you can't find them, you can use red onions.

Step-by-Step Instructions

process shots of how to make Thai cucumber relish or ajaad

Step 1: Heat water in a saucepan over medium heat.

Step 2: Once the water is hot, add sugar.

Step 3: Add vinegar.

Step 4: Stir until the sugar is fully dissolved. Remove the saucepan from heat and let it cool down completely.

Step 5: Slice the shallots, cucumber and peppers.

Step 6: Put all the sliced fresh vegetables in a bowl.

Step 7: Once the liquid mixture has cooled down, pour it over the vegetables.

Step 8: Stir the ingredients with a spoon so that everything mixes well.

Tips

Check that the liquid mixture has cooled completely before you pour it over the fresh ingredients. Otherwise, it might cook the veggies and made them soft. They should be crunchy.
If you want to adjust the size of the recipe, you can do so by changing the amounts of each ingredients while still keeping the ratio. This recipe is used to go with my 32-piece Thai pork toast recipe.

📖 Recipe