A Fresh Mexican Salsa
Pico de gallo is an uncooked salsa known as a salsa fresca, or “fresh salsa,” in Spanish. It is a delicious combination of plum (Roma) tomatoes, white onion, cilantro, serrano peppers and a splash of lime juice.
It is one of the best-loved Mexican dishes that you will find on every Mexican table. Did you know that pico de gallo translates as "rooster’s beak?"
In Mexico you may also hear it called salsa cruda (raw salsa) or salsa bandera (flag salsa), because the red tomatoes, white onion, and green chiles and cilantro are the colors of the Mexican flag.
What to Expect from this Recipe
You’ll learn the classic recipe as prepared throughout Mexico. Fresh plum tomatoes, white onion, fresh cilantro, serrano pepper, lime juice and salt. Nothing more. Nothing less. It’s a perfectly balanced dish that needs no substitutions or tweaks. It’s the best pico de gallo recipe.
What to Serve It With
Serve this authentic pico de gallo recipe with carne asada, chicken, fish tacos, beef tacos, chicken tacos, molletes, nachos, burritos, and of course chips. You get bonus points if you make your own tortilla chips. Use it as a topping for just about anything. Don’t limit yourself to using it for Mexican food.
How to Make Pico de Gallo
Choose Ripe Plum Tomatoes and Fresh Ingredients
You want to choose really ripe red plum tomatoes. The riper the better. The flavor is built around the tomatoes and enhanced by the other ingredients.
Unripe tomatoes will make your pico taste like cardboard. Only use slicing tomatoes, like beefsteak tomatoes, if plum tomatoes are not available. Fresh cilantro is important for its bright herbal taste.
The Right Ratio
Pico de gallo is all about the tomato. You want about three times as much tomato as onion. For 4 plum tomatoes, that’s about ½ cup of finely chopped white onion, or half of a medium onion. Too much onion will overpower the tomatoes.
Ingredients
- 4 plum tomatoes (Roma tomatoes)
- ½ cup finely chopped white onion (about ½ medium onion)
- ⅓ cup chopped cilantro leaves (about 12 sprigs)
- 2 serrano chiles
- 1 tbsp. lime juice (about the juice of 1 Mexican lime)
- Sea salt to taste (½ to 1 tsp.)
Preparing the Salsa
Cut the tops off the tomatoes then slice in half lengthwise. Use a teaspoon to scoop out the seeds and pulp. Save the pulp to use in another dish if desired.
With a paring knife, remove the tops of the chiles and then slice in half lengthwise. Use the tip of the paring knife to cut out the seeds and veins.
Remove the cilantro leaves from the stems and discard the stems.
Chop the tomato into ¼″ pieces. Finely chop the onion, cilantro, and serrano chile.
Put the chopped ingredients into a mixing bowl. Add the salt and fresh lime juice.
Stir until ingredients are mixed evenly.
You can eat your pico de gallo right away, but you will get the best flavor if you let it rest for about 15 minutes in the refrigerator so the flavors come together. Taste and adjust the salt.
Why Seed the Tomatoes?
Removing the seeds and pulp allows the tomato flavor to shine through. The seeds and watery pulp don’t add much flavor, and they make the pico de gallo a little runny and mushy. Seeded tomatoes give you firm pieces that hold their shape well. One of our readers, a University of California Master Gardener, put it well: it’s a taste issue, not a waste issue.
The pulp doesn’t have to go in the trash. You can blend it into a cooked salsa like this salsa roja to give it some extra body.
Serving the Salsa
Serve lightly chilled or at room temperature. If you serve it really cold it tastes flat. The subtle flavors of the ingredients don’t shine through. If you are not convinced, do a taste test. Eat a batch that is ice cold and then eat a batch that is at room temperature. You will see the difference. I guarantee it. Pico de gallo is best when eaten fresh.
Great for parties – It’s one of the best Mexican party dishes, along with guacamole. An easy recipe, quick to prepare, tasty, and loved by everyone. Serve it at your Cinco de Mayo party. You can make it year-round but it is especially delicious during summer when tomatoes are at their peak.
A Healthy Salsa Option
Mexican food has a reputation for being heavy and greasy, a reputation undeserved in my opinion. This dish is the complete opposite. All vegetables, low calories, and no fat. Totally guilt-free.
Eat with reckless abandon. It is vegetarian and vegan to boot. Kids will eat it too because it is “salsa”, not yucky vegetables and it works just as well with fussy adults who don’t like vegetables.
Pico de Gallo FAQ
Pico de gallo is a fresh salsa. The tomatoes, onion, chiles, and cilantro are chopped by hand and served raw so the ingredients keep their shape. Many other Mexican salsas are cooked or blended, like our salsa mexicana, which is charred and blended into a more typical salsa texture.
Yes. Removing the seeds and pulp allows the tomato flavor to shine through and keeps the salsa from getting watery. You can save the pulp to add it to a cooked salsa to add more body so nothing goes to waste.
Pico de gallo is best eaten fresh, but it will keep for one day in the refrigerator. If the tomatoes release water when it is stored, just give it a quick stir before serving. Take it out of the refrigerator a little while before you eat it, because if it is too cold it tastes flat.
Yes, but it’s best to prepare it when you want to eat it. To do some advance prep, you can chop the onion, chiles, and cilantro a few hours ahead and keep them covered in the refrigerator then chop the tomatoes and mix everything about 15 minutes before you serve it. Freshly cut tomatoes give you the best flavor and texture.
Two things can typically cause a watery pico de gallo: not seeding the tomatoes or using juicier slicing tomatoes instead of plum tomatoes. The salt you add also draws water out of the tomatoes if your pico de gallo sits too long.
Authentic Pico de Gallo (Salsa Fresca)
Equipment
- Kitchen knife
- Cutting board
- Medium-sized serving bowl
Ingredients
- 4 plum tomatoes seeded and diced (Roma tomatoes)
- ½ cup white onion finely chopped (about ½ medium onion)
- ⅓ cup cilantro leaves finely chopped (about 12 sprigs)
- 2 serrano chiles seeded and finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon lime juice about the juice of 1 Mexican lime (see notes)
- Sea salt to taste ½ to 1 tsp.
Instructions
- Cut the tops off the tomatoes and slice them in half lengthwise. Scoop out the seeds and pulp with a teaspoon.
- Cut the tops off the serrano chiles, slice them in half lengthwise, and cut out the seeds and veins with the tip of a paring knife.
- Remove the cilantro leaves and discard the stems.
- Finely chop the chiles, cilantro leaves, and onion.
- Chop the tomatoes into ¼" pieces.
- Add all the ingredients to a bowl including the lime juice and salt. Gently mix until the ingredients are evenly dispersed.
- For the best flavor, let the pico de gallo rest for about 15 minutes in the refrigerator so the flavors come together. Taste and adjust the salt. Serve lightly chilled or at room temperature.
Notes
- Pico de gallo is best eaten fresh but will keep for one day in the refrigerator.
- Presentation counts. It’s such a simple dish, so make sure that the ingredients are chopped evenly.
- The juice of one lime brightens the flavor of the pico de gallo. If you add too much lime it overpowers the flavor of the other ingredients. You want to maintain a nice balance between the flavors of all of the ingredients.
- Choose the Mexican lime, also called the Key lime when making pico de gallo. It is the traditional lime for making Mexican food. Standard lime doesn’t add the same bright flavor. Purdue University has some in-depth information on the Mexican Lime which is quite interesting if you want to geek out on limes.
- You can substitute jalapeño peppers for the serranos. The taste will be similar but the salsa won’t be as hot.
- Many recipes call for red onion but white onion is traditional.
kevin says
How Odd. I lived in Phoenix AZ for a year and ate Mexican food because it was the most economical. I bought food from taberna grills to ferias to taco trucks to food sold from the tailgate of a pickup; and I never found out I was allergic to cilantro until I moved to Minnesota! Why? Because the Mexicans never used cilantro in the food they sold.
I think cilantro is put into mexican foods to punish gringos that don’t know better.
Doc says
Your are funny – dude. I have eaten both Tex-Mex and authentic Mexican food, both in North and South America most of the dishes had cilantro in the dish.
Lisa Langston says
Hello.. I Live In Southeast Texas And EVERY Mexican And Mexican Restaurant That I Know Of Uses Cilantro In Their Food.. Cilantro IS A Staple In Their Kitchens..
HW says
Fermented pico de gallo is “da bomb”.
Connie Yarema says
I was invited to a birthday party. As a good jesture, I made PICO DE GALLO and brought it to the party. Guess what? All went well. Thank you for the recipe.
Angel says
Wish you would not recommend wasting tomato pulp. Instead of saying ‘discard’, please suggest use in other recipes. We can all use less food wastage.
low and slow says
Most of the tomatoes flavor lies in the pulp,throwing it out makes no sense and is wasteful.All credibility lost,too bad.
Mike says
The comments should be for the recipe itself which is delicious. The recipe didn’t say to wash the veggies, use a clean bowl, or clean up when completed either. I personally don’t need to be told everything. As an adult, if you want to keep something someone says to discard,,,keep it! I would not want the seeds in my pico and I’m sure not taking the time to remove them from the pulp.
Jason says
Great recipe. Thank you. I am finding that adults are in short supply at the moment.
Durgon says
I would have to disagree with you. Pulp is nothing but water and seeds. @Mike down below, good job.
Bill says
I live in Chicago, and love Mexican food. When friends come over we order pizza, I make Pico de Gallo and tell everyone to try it. Once they try it their hooked. It even makes a bad pizza taste good.
Linda Eden says
This is so easy to make. I can’t keep it in the house when I make it! We eat it as a dip or over steak or chicken.
lorena olga buniel says
Useful info
Sasha says
This is a super recipe. I probably make a double quantity a couple of times a month. I’ve come up with 2 items of kitchen equipment that help me make it easier and faster.
After I cut the chilies lengthwise, I use my potato peeler to scrape out the seeds.
After I cut the plum tomatoes in half, I use my grapefruit knife to cut out the soft insides.
Bartek Svaberg says
I just stumbled in here by accident and haven’t tried the recipe out just yet. I did however note that you wrote that it’s good with pretty much anything and I thought I should pitch in. A while back I had quite the odd combination of leftovers in my fridge including pico de gallo and shrimps (Pandalus borealis in my case). I can not describe the joy my mouth felt when those two flavors were combined. Absolutely fantastic. Do give it a try!
J Hamersley says
Wonderful recipe, thank you! It is almost identical to the one we have used for 30+ years, which is much loved by all who taste it. My son used your recipe recently when he was making dinner and didn’t have access to *our* recipe on my computer and didn’t want to ask me, LOL. Other than this recipe being a little “zippier” than our usual, it was a hit (I normally use 1 jalapeno and 1 small serrano, for “capsaicin-sensitive” people like myself & daughter).
As well, I usually dice about 1/2 the tomatoes smaller than your recipe and let it marinate in the fridge for at least 4 hours before bringing out to room temp before serving.
It was a little eye-watering for me and my daughter, but we all agreed it was just fabulous in flavor and presentation. Thanks for helping my son make an authentic pico when he refused to ask me for my recipe ;)