Julie Clark
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Pico de Gallo Recipe
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The best pico de gallo recipe around. Learn how to make this fresh salsa with tomatoes, onions, peppers, cilantro, garlic and a splash of lime. It’s delicious on top of our crockpot chicken tacos.
We are so crazy for fresh salsa around our house. Especially homemade salsa! Whether it is salsa verde, mango salsa or pineapple salsa, you can bet when a bag of chips come out in our house, these salsas get DEVOURED.
Why do they call it pico de gallo?
Pico de gallo literally translates as “Rooster’s Beak” or “pecked from a rooster”. So how in the world did this delicious vegetable dip get its name? I’m really not sure! It could be that people ate it with their finger and thumb, or that it is little pieces of vegetables that resemble minced food a rooster might eat. Or that the poblano pepper is shaped like a rooster’s beak.
Wikipedia has many different options on what it means and even different names (such as salsa cruda), but if you know the real reason, let me know. 🙂
Difference Between Pico de Gallo and Salsa
There is really not much difference as far as flavor goes. It is more of a texture difference. Pico de gallo is diced vegetables, almost like a salad that you can eat with fork or spoon.
Salsa tends to be smoother and “soupier”, meaning you’ll have to spoon it on top of your favorite burritos or enchiladas…or scoop it up with chips! In fact, try our favorite blender salsa!
What is in pico de gallo?
This Pico de Gallo recipe has onions, tomatoes, garlic, cilantro and peppers, salt, pepper and a touch of lime juice.
We use two types of peppers for our fresh salsa recipe: both poblano peppers and jalapeño peppers. Poblano peppers aren’t quite as spicy as jalapeño peppers but give the pico de gallo great flavor.
Recipe Variations
- Want more heat? Add diced serrano peppers.
- Have lots of garden cherry tomatoes? Cut them in half or quarters and use them up in this recipe.
- Add avocado to make a creamier sauce. It will be similar to our corn tomato avocado salsa.
- Add black beans for protein!
What to Serve Pico de Gallo On
This fresh salsa recipe will go great on just about any Mexican dish, but try one of these first!
Storage Instructions
The flavors will blend and become stronger if you make this salsa fresca in advance. We prefer eating it the day we make it, but do let it refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.
I prefer to keep my fresh pico de gallo in a sealed container in the refrigerator for not more than 3 days. I’ve found that the tomatoes soften and get “mushy” after awhile. We never have a problem using this up though.
Love Mexican food? Take a peek at our Mexican appetizers!
Pico de Gallo Recipe
The best pico de gallo recipe around. Fresh tomato, onion, peppers, cilantro and garlic with a splash of lime.
Servings 8 servings
Prep Time 15 minutes
Total Time 15 minutes
Ingredients
- 2 cups finely chopped Roma tomatoes
- 1 cup finely chopped onion red onion or white onion
- 1 small jalapeño pepper finely chopped
- 1/4 cup finely chopped Poblano pepper
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic
- 4 tablespoons lime juice
Instructions
- Add all of the ingredients in a bowl and mix.
- This can be eaten right away, but it is best if you let it marinate for at least an hour in the refrigerator. Serve with tortilla chips, on tacos, burritos, or anything else you can think of!
Video
Notes
Experiment with the peppers if you’d like. For more spice & heat, use more jalapeno peppers.You can use whatever kind of tomatoes you may have on hand.
The calories shown are based on the recipe being divided 8 ways, with 1 serving being ⅛ of the recipe. Since different brands of ingredients have different nutritional information, the calories shown are just an estimate.
Nutrition
Serving: 66g | Calories: 15kcal | Carbohydrates: 3g | Sodium: 147mg | Potassium: 82mg | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 200IU | Vitamin C: 12mg | Calcium: 8mg | Iron: 0.1mg
Do you roast your poblano peppers first?
You are almost right. The name comes from the serrano pepper which is shaped like a roosters beak and authenic pico is made with the serrano pepper.
Do you remove the seeds and inside core from the tomatoes?
THE BEST! I made it last night, just tasted it this morning on breakfast tacos and it is amazing!!! Thanks for posting this
Hi Julie,
Wonderful recipe for Pico de Gallo… fast, easy & tasty!! One observation, question: the Nutritional Values presented just don’t seem complete, nor add up. Only 4g of Carbs are list & 4g Carbs = 4 Cals, not 17 as stated. Further there is no Sodium value given despite salt in the ingredients. A correct Sodium value would be ~150mg per serving. As I expect Fats & Proteins to be ~0g, total Cals should be in the neighborhood of ~4… certainly not 17. Could you reexamin / recalculate
Thank you.
Stu
the only thing i would add to this is a nice pinch of mexican oregano and maybe a drizzle of olive oil mm! im so making your pico today 😀
We love Mexican food and ADORE chips & salsa especially….! This pico de gallo looks awesome!
Pico de Gallo is a favorite at our house! We use it on so many things and it’s great as a dip for chips! I agree the colors are pretty! 🙂
Yum Yum!!!
Looks great to me!
I just printed it out.
Love ya!
Grandma Clark