Environmental stresses such as chilling temperatures can decrease germination, emergence, flower and fruit development, marketable yield, and postharvest fruit storage longevity in cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.). While response to chilling injury in cucumber is controlled by simple plastidic (maternal) and nuclear (paternal) factors, no chilling tolerant U.S. processing varieties are commercially available. Furthermore, even though three single nucleotide polymorphic sites have been identified as plastid components associated with chilling tolerance in cucumber, it is not known how these factors interact with nuclear factors controlling economically important traits. Therefore, an experiment was designed to evaluate the rate of recovery of the chilling susceptible (cytoplasm) genotype during introgression backcrossing (IB), where it was used as a recurrent parent after the initial mating to a line possessing chilling tolerant cytoplasm (donor parent). Phenotypic yield and quality trait data were collected on processing type backcross progeny (BC1–5 and BC2S3) derived from an initial ‘Chipper’ (tolerant) × line M 29 (susceptible) mating, and rate of progression to the recurrent parent was determined by simple sequence repeat marker and morphological trait analyses. Substantial degrees of the recurrent parent phenotype and nuclear genome were recovered by the BC2 generation (P = 0.001), with nearly complete recovery of recurrent parental traits and its nuclear genome occurring by the BC3. General combining ability (GCA) of derived BC2S3 lines was significant for yield, yield/plant, length (L), diameter (D), and L:D ratios. The BC2S3 line GCA and rate of progression towards the recurrent parent for economically important traits suggests that elite chilling tolerant cucumber germplasm can be developed rapidly through IB and marker genotyping.