Fresh Pico de Gallo

There are times, quite often actually, when fresh salsa is so relevant to a meal.

For those times, I call upon my trusty Pico de Gallo recipe.

So easy, so fresh, and the perfect way to add tons of visual appeal to the top of your meal

Like a lot of my recipes, I don’t have exact measurements, I’m more of an eyeball the amount, taste and then readjust if necessary kind of girl.

I prefer to use cherry tomatoes for just about anything involving tomatoes because I find they burst with more flavor than most other tomatoes and they rarely have that mealy texture that can be quite common with larger tomato varieties. But, to each their own, if you love tomatoes on the vine, have at it!

That being said dice up some multicolored cherry tomatoes

Then throw in equal parts green and yellow onion

And TONS of cilantro, for good measure

Toss together with a fork

Salt and Pepper to taste

Oh, and don’t forget the citrus zest! I usually like using lime better, but I only had a lemon, so I used it, and it was still delicious!

I love putting this on a multitude of meals; any kind of South of the Border type meal requires this, but also pretty much any light dish that includes white fish or shrimp or chicken. This salsa is the perfect sidekick!

Chicken Tacos and Fresh Pico de Gallo

Remember how I love Mexican food? Well, sometimes I like to try to make my own Mexican food – because hey, I am ambitious. I wanted to do something relatively simple and abundantly fresh so chicken tacos with a fresh pico de gallo was just the ticket.

I started with the pico de gallo first to allow the flavors to marry before topping my taco. Although you can use a variety of tomatoes I prefer to use cherry tomatoes because of their tart bite and generally they burst because they are so plump. The perfect way to start my pico. I diced them into fairly small pieces and placed them in a bowl. Next I took red onion. Now again, this is totally up to you. You can use a yellow or white onion as well. I just chose red because its vibrant color contrasts nicely with the bright red tomatoes. I diced it the same size as the tomatoes.

It looks like this

Some pico de gallo recipes stop at this point. I say no, I must forge on. The best way to do this is by adding my favorite herb, cilantro. Chopped up thinly – stems and all and into the bowl.  It goes great in just about anything because of its distinct fragrance and the freshness it brings to every dish it accompanies.  I have loved cilantro since I was a little girl and though there have been others (parsley mostly, sometimes basil), no herb can push cilantro from my its top spot in my heart.

What’s not to love?

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