A simple and versatile method to realize optical generation of microwave signal using carrier polarization‐suppressed double sideband modulation and no optical filtering is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. By simply adjusting the polarization direction of the polarizer, the optical carrier generated by the single‐drive intensity modulator along one polarization direction is polarization‐suppressed by the pure optical carrier along another orthogonal polarization direction. A high spectrum purity 20 GHz electrical signal with more than 36 dB optical harmonic distortion suppression ratio is generated when the driving signal is 10 GHz. The system is simple, cost‐effective and fast frequency tuned as no optical filtering technique is required, which may be attractive to the radio over fiber system. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 59:840–843, 2017