Total time: 24 min • Prep: 12 min • Cook: 0 min • Serves: 4 • Difficulty: Easy

The crab salad–simple and elegant–is delectable as is. But when a bit of flavor oomph is called for, add a generous squeeze of lime or lemon juice as well as a pinch of cayenne or a few shakes of your favorite hot sauce. For this recipe, look for a long and thin English seedless cucumber. It will usually come wrapped in plastic, which seals in the moisture and helps to prolong freshness, which means the cucumber doesn’t need to be waxed. Because its skin will be thinner than what you'd normally find with other cucumber varieties, there won’t be a need to peel it.