Making great Pico de Gallo only requires six ingredients plus a little water. Here’s exactly what you need:
Ingredient quantities are detailed in the printable recipe card below.
Tomatoes
The subtly sweet, slightly acidic flavor and fleshy texture of plum tomatoes make them optimal for this recipe. But, as we stated above, red plum tomatoes aren’t mandatory. However, that being said, you should choose tomatoes that are ripe and sweet.
It’s best to finely dice the tomatoes to create an even yet slightly rustic texture. While you can use special equipment, like a vegetable dicer, to slice a large volume of tomatoes, anything you gain in speed will probably be lost in price and kitchen space utilization.
Pro Tip
Don’t use a blender or food processor to dice the tomatoes. If you do, you’ll most likely end up with a watery mess.
Onion
While we recommend using a white onion for this recipe, you can use a yellow onions instead. You can also use a red onion if that’s the only onion you have available. In some ways, a red onion may look better if you opt to use a yellow or even green tomato.
In other words, it’s best to use whatever onion you have on hand as opposed to making a special trip to the store.
Pro Tip
You can either dice the onion fine with a sharp knife or chop it coarser if that’s what you prefer.
Serrano Chili Pepper
Serrano chili peppers BRING THE HEAT.
Living in Portugal, we miss the ubiquity of serranos and are grateful any time we find them at our local Mexican market. Serranos bring a unique combination of heat and verdant zip that we adore.
Depending on where you live, you may only find serrano peppers at limited times of the year. Freezing them is a good option if this is your situation too.
Pro Tip
Freeze serrano peppers in an airtight bag and use them as needed. Once you remove them from the freezer, let the peppers sit for about a minute at room temperature and dice them as needed. (Don’t let them defrost totally or they’ll get mushy.) You can freeze them for up to year.
Lime
Lime brings acidity to the party, especially when it comes to Tex-Mex and Mexican cuisines. The tart fruit is to Mexico almost what the tomatoes are to Italy. Both fruits are relatively recent arrivals to the culinary arena but they’ve each gained a foothold in so many dishes. This is especially true in salsa where the gentle acidity of tomatoes is pumped up by lime’s unique yet flavorful citrus bite.
We like to add a generous squeeze of lime when mixing our salsa and then, like salt, compensate for taste at the end by squeezing in more juice as needed. We recommend that you do the same.
Salt
Have you ever tasted unsalted tomatoes? They’re generally void of flavor. As a notable chef once succinctly stated to Daryl, “Tomatoes take a lot of salt.”
Accordingly, our best advice is to start with a 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of table salt and adjust for flavor before serving.
Cilantro
We love cilantro and consider it to be a necessary component to many Mexican dishes. However, some unlucky people have tastebuds that are cilantro hostile. (Those people liken cilantro’s flavor to soap.)
Pro Tip
Feel free to omit the trans-Asian herb if you’re one of these unlucky people.
Water
Once your salsa is mixed, depending on the water content of the tomatoes, you’ll probably want to add a tablespoon or two water to give the salsa a more viscous consistency.
