How To Make Pico De Gallo (Salsa Fresca) - a healthy, fresh tomato salsa worthy of eating as a dip, sauce, and adding to tons of dishes. This recipe takes just minutes to prepare, using only 5 ingredients, and is easy to customize to personal taste!
Prepare the jalapeño by removing the stem, seeds, and ribs and then finely chopping it. Be careful when handling the jalapenos - it's best to use gloves when de-seeding any hot peppers.
To prepare the tomatoes, cut them in half and then core and de-seed the tomatoes before finely chopping.If you don't mind a more watery salsa, then feel free to skip the 'de-seeding' of the tomato.
Finely dice/chop the onion, tomato, and cilantro, and juice the lime.As you chop/prepare the ingredients (jalapeño, onion, lime juice, and salt), you could add them to a bowl and allow them to marinate before preparing the tomato. This helps to marinate the flavors quicker but isn't necessary.
Step 2: Combine all the ingredients
Add the tomatoes and chopped cilantro to the bowl along with the other ingredients and mix well to combine. Taste and adjust any ingredients/seasoning, if necessary (more lime, jalapeño, salt, etc.)
Step 3: Allow the tomato salsa to rest
Allow the pico de gallo to marinate for at least 30 minutes to allow the flavors to blend and marinate, then serve immediately or leave, covered, in the refrigerator until ready to use.Pico de gallo can be made ahead and stored, covered in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
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Notes
Use fresh, ripe ingredients: this homemade pico de gallo is made up of just 5 ingredients, so make sure they're all fresh and ripe.
To make tomatoes less watery (thus avoid watery pico de gallo!), you can salt them and allow them to sit in a strainer (with a bowl underneath) to draw out excess liquid.
Allow the pico de gallo to rest before serving: like several quick 'salad/salsa' type of dishes, giving the ingredients time to marinate really improved the dish's flavor and texture. I like to refrigerate the tomato salsa for at least an hour before serving.
Chop the ingredients based on your preferred texture - the finer you chop the ingredients, the more flavor you'll get in every bite - but feel free to make a chunkier salsa, if preferred (which I prefer).
Adjust the salsa amounts as you like: change the amount of jalapeño whether you want it mild or hot. Reduce the cilantro amount if you're not a fan, add more lime juice if wanted, etc.
If you're not a fan of chopping (at all), then you can chuck everything into a food processor and pulse a few times until you reach your desired consistency - done!