Kirby cucumber
Cucumis sativus · Fruit vegetable
Top 10 pairings
The Kirby cucumber (Cucumis sativus) is a short, stubby pickling-type cultivar group, typically 10–15 cm long, with thin, bumpy, often blotchy green-to-pale-green skin and dense, firm, low-moisture flesh. Bred for crunch and a thin skin that holds its snap, it is the classic American pickling cucumber — turned into dill, sour and bread-and-butter pickles — but it is equally prized eaten raw for salads because it is the crispest of the common cucumbers.
Picking a good onedrag
Field firmSoft and yellow
Shop freshBuy itFirm and green — anything a cucumber does
SkinEven green, taut
FleshFirm, springs back
Cut endDry scar, firm around it
SmellClean, faintly green
These cues are Cucumber's, and hold across its varieties; where this one differs, its own page says so.
What you get from one
97%
Edible part
216 g · ends trimmed
223 g
Weight each
each one
Keeping ittap a temperature
Long below 10°C, it pits and collapses. Four days chilled is fine if you use it straight after.
95%
Humidity
Still
Airflow