Smashed Cucumber Salad With Spicy Feta And Olives Recipe

This simple summer salad relies on a number of smart techniques to make each one of the five ingredients shine. Smashing, salting, and draining cucumbers draws out moisture, resulting in crisper, crunchier cucumbers. It also makes for more nooks and crannies, allowing dressing and toppings (in this case feta and olives) to reach more places. Marinating the feta in olive oil and spicy red pepper flakes boosts both the flavor of the feta and the olive oil, and using a variety of greek olives means no two bites of this salad are the same.