Pico de gallo – looks like salsa but isn’t. In my opinion, pico is easier to make, fresher and also doesn’t sit around in your fridge for as long as a jar of salsa does.
The Ninja loves pico de gallo. He can easily eat a quart of it in one setting, which is why I put so much time into gardening because buying tomatoes, onions and cilantro twice a week from June-September can get costly. So I toil away tending my onions, peppers and tomatoes until I finally have some that will yield this summer snack.
Full disclosure: This year’s garden isn’t producing enough goods yet. It’s mid-July. WTH is taking so long?! Generally, the ingredients for pico do come out of my garden but I’ve had to buy them for awhile now since I have about 50 green tomatoes and the onions just aren’t quite there. Maybe next week?? Please??
Anyway, for this super simple recipe you’ll need:
Pico De Gallo
Tomatoes
White onion
Cilantro
Lime juice
Optional: cherry bomb peppers, jalapeno peppers
You’ll notice there are not measurements on how many to use for two reasons: 1) I don’t measure things all the time 2) You can make this recipe as large or as small as you wish! Also, in regards to the optional peppers, I like to throw in a few of these from the garden to add some more ZING! Some years I don’t grow cherry bombs but I have an abundancy of jalapenos (hello, 2016) so to keep things fun and fresh, I will use what I have on hand but in small amounts.
For example, last night I had three large tomatoes. You want your tomato/onion ratio to be about 3:1. So I used three large tomatoes, one small/medium white onion, about a 1/3 of a bunch of cilantro and five jalapenos. If you LOVE an ingredient, add more. Pretty simple.
Ok on to the steps:
De-juice and de-seed your tomatoes and then dice. I work really hard to get all the juice and seeds out because I don’t like lots of liquid standing in the bowl but tomayto, tomahto.
Dice your onion up to desired size and toss in with the tomatoes. Peel off cilantro leaves (I use about 1/3 of a bunch per batch) and dice/chop as best you can (seriously, so hard to chop cilantro) – add to onions and tomato mix. At this point, find your peppers and get to chopping. My latest batch consisted of about five medium sized jalapenos, which I deseeded before including. I drizzled the whole batch with lime juice, then stirred it up and stuck it in the fridge to marinate. You’ll want to let it set and allow the juices and flavors to combine for about an hour before you eat it. Your hands, fridge and kitchen are going to small like onion and cilantro for a few days, just as an FYI.
Again, tweak this to your liking. I’ve never had someone try this and not like it, so it’s a relatively fool-proof party recipe or just for snacking at night on the couch during Netflix binge watching. Not that I have any experience with that.
Give it a try and let me know if you like it below!
Until next time,
~ Buzzard ~
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