This Pico de Gallo Recipe is made with just 6 simple ingredients. It is fresh, easy to make, and the perfect topping for all your favorite Mexican dishes.
Pico de Gallo is a classic Mexican tomato sauce that instantly brightens up any Mexican dish like chickpea tacos or potato tacos. It is one of the easiest recipes to make because there is no cooking involved. All you have to do is chop 5 ingredients and mix them together.
It is simply irresistible with fresh and vibrant flavors, that we often find ourselves doubling or tripling the batch for all Vegetarian Taco Tuesday recipes.
What is pico de gallo? Also known as "salsa fresca" or "salsa cruda", it is a popular Mexican salsa. It literally translates to “rooster’s beak” in Spanish, we are not sure for the reason.
It is made with finely chopped tomatoes, onion, cilantro, jalapeños pepper, and lime juice. I was intrigued by Kenji Lopez's method of salting and draining the tomatoes, to concentrate the flavor and also remove excess water. This recipe is a slight modification from his and it works well without having to deal with leaky tacos.
Let's chat about onions. There are four general types of onions found in grocery stores - red, white, yellow, and sweet Vidalia onion. White is extremely mild in flavor and yellow onion boasts a good balance of sweetness and savoriness. Sweet Vidalia is less mild and sweet, and more suited to salad preparations. Red onion is slightly more pungent than white or sweet variety and is better in raw preparations.
Switching over to tomatoes, the best-tasting tomatoes are the ones with thinner walls, which leaves more room for the seeds and jelly. It contains as much as three times more glutamate than the flesh.
When shopping for tomatoes, go for a locally grown one for the best taste, because they are usually left longer on the vine to fully ripe and develop flavor than the machine-harvested ones. Vine-ripened varieties are sweet and juicy, whereas Roma has a firm texture and is fleshier.
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Ingredients
Scroll down to the recipe card below for full information on ingredients and amounts.
- Tomato - Use the ripest tomatoes you can find.
- Onion - White or red onions are more suited for the recipe.
- Jalapeno - Most of the heat in all chili peppers is concentrated in the inner white pith. I remove the seeds and the ribs from the jalapeno and then mince the fleshy portion.
- Lime - Brightens things up.
- Cilantro - Adds freshness and a pop of green color.
Variations
You can add any of the following ingredients to change the flavor.
- Swap tomatoes for fresh fruits like peaches, mangoes, watermelon or strawberries.
- Garlic
- Cucumber
- Corn
- A mix of corn and black beans
- Avocado
- Use white, yellow, or even shallots instead of red onions.
How to make?
You can find full printable recipe below, but here is a quick overview of the procedure along with step-by-step photos.
1. Cut the tomatoes into ¼ to ½ inch dice, and toss with 1 teaspoon salt. Transfer to a fine mesh strainer, set in a bowl, and allow to drain for 20 minutes. Discard liquid. Toss the drained tomatoes with chopped onion, jalapeno, and cilantro.
Pro tip: Chopped tomatoes can exude too much juice and make your recipe watery. The salting and draining remove some of the excess liquid without draining away flavor.
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2 & 3. Chop tomato, onion, jalapeño and cilantro finely. You can remove the seeds and vein from the jalapeño pepper if you like it less spicy. Squeeze fresh lime juice and mix together with some salt.
How to serve?
Serve it with all your tacos, spoon over your nachos or top your quesadillas. It even tastes fabulous in this ground chicken rice bowl or Mexican chicken burrito bowl.
Storage instructions
It keeps for up to 3 days in the refrigerator in a tightly sealed container. When frozen, the taste remains the same, but the texture changes since the tomatoes get much softer.
Helpful tips
- Chop ingredients into small dice.
- Let it rest before serving - This ensures that the flavors come together and the salt brings out the moisture and concentrates the flavor. Rest for about 15 minutes at room temperature or for several hours in the refrigerator.
- Adjust based on your preference - Add more onion or jalapeños to make it more spicy.
- Use gloves for your hands when cutting spicy peppers, if preferred.
- Use fresh ingredients - Since this is a very simple recipe, the quality of ingredients will dictate the final product.
- Chop using a knife to get the best texture. Do not use a food processor.
- Make it spicier - Use serrano pepper instead of jalapenos.
Recipe FAQs
Pico de gallo always uses only fresh, raw diced ingredients, and is less watery and chunky in texture. Salsa is more of a saucy consistency and is more wet. Salsas sometimes are made with cooked ingredients like flame-broiled or roasted tomatoes, but pico de gallo is always made only with raw ingredients.
The best type is the white or red variety. White onions have a crisp texture, mild flavor, and a slightly sweeter taste, and the flavor blends well with the other ingredients in the recipe. Red onions offer a slightly stronger and more pungent onion flavor. However, white onions are the most commonly used in a pico de Gallo recipe.
Pico de gallo literally means “beak of the rooster.” Although there's no concrete reasoning behind this, some believe this is because it was originally eaten by pinching between the thumb and a finger, which makes the shape of a rooster's beak.
More Mexican sauces
Pico De Gallo Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 ½ pounds ripe tomatoes, cherry, Roma or heirloom (about 3 cups)
- ½ large onion, finely chopped (about ¾ cup)
- ½ cup chopped cilantro
- 1 to 2 jalapeño pepper, finely chopped remove pith and seeds, to make less spicy
- 1 tablespoon lime juice, from 1 lime
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- Cut the tomatoes into ¼ to ½ inch dice, and toss with 1 teaspoon salt. Transfer to a fine mesh stariner set in a bowl and allow to drain for 20 minutes. Discard liquid.Pro tip: Chopped tomatoes can exude too much juice and make your pico de gallo recipe watery. The salting and draining remove some of the excess liquid without draining away flavor.
- Toss the drained toamtoes with chopped onion, jalapeno, culantro and lime juice. Season to taste with salt. Tip: Most of the heat in all chili peppers is concentrated in the inner white pith. I remove the seeds and the ribs from the jalapeno and then mince the fleshy portion.
- Store in the refrigeartor, until serving.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information, based on third-party calculations, should be seen as estimates, not guarantees, as various factors like product types, brands, processing methods, and more can alter the nutritional content in recipes.
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