Pickle de Gallo

Pickle de Gallo combines everything you love about garlicky dill pickles with the crunch of fresh cucumbers, red bell peppers, and onions, and the snackability of pico de gallo or salsa. It’s about to be your new favourite thing.

I didn’t know pickle de gallo existed until my sister served some store bought Grillo’s pickle de gallo at her son’s birthday party. My world. It was rocked.

This eminently snackable condiment takes garlicky dill pickles and the brine and adds some fresh cucumber, red bell peppers, and onions for crunch. If you’re into a little spice -as we are- a little minced fresh jalapeño and habanero pepper adds some tasty punch to your salsa.

Pickle Salsa

Pickle salsa is pretty darned easy to make. The process is simple: collect ingredients, do a little knife work, and mix everything together.

The crucial, as you can imagine, is picking a pickle you’d pick to eat ordinarily. Our homemade Claussen knock-off pickles are stellar in pickle de gallo, if you have them on hand.

If you don’t happen to have those, refrigerated style dill pickles are your best choice for pickle salsa. I love the aforementioned Grillo’s, Claussen, Wegman’s brand, and Bubbies, just to name a few.

Remember, you’re going to be using the pickles AND the brine, so you’d better like those pickles you choose! And for the love, please take a pass on bread and butter pickles or sweet pickles for this particular recipe.

Pickle Salsa Vegetables

You’ll want to use seedless English or Persian cucumbers along with your pickles. The skin on these cucumbers is thin and does not need to be removed before you chop it.

While the cucumbers are called seedless, there is often a center with fine seeds and a lot of liquid. You’ll want to slice your cucumber lengthwise and use the tip of a spoon to gently scrape out the seeds and liquid before you chop it.

You can opt for sweet onions like Vidalias or white onions for this pickle salsa. If you like more powerful onion oomph, feel free to change out the sweet onions for red onions or yellow onions.

Now, I like my pickle de gallo made with a very small dice, and I take pride in my ability to do that with my favourite chef’s knife, but you can really make this any texture you’d like. If you want it super fine, you can pulse it all in a food processor.

The key, really, is to keep everything a consistent size. You want some of everything in each bite.

You can whip up a batch of pickle de gallo and eat off of it for five days. Why would you want to do that? I’ll tell you!

What do I serve with Pickle de Gallo?

The most obvious thing to serve with pickle de gallo is tortilla chips. I mean, pico de gallo and chips are a natural pairing, so it stands to reason that pickle salsa is, too.

This is not just based on theory, though. I have eaten close to my own weight in pickle salsa with chips.

That said, man cannot live by chips and pickle salsa alone, and there are many more delicious ways to consume this crunch-tastic snack. Here’s a list of my favourite uses for pickle de gallo.

1. Serve with grilled, fried, broiled, or blackened fish.
2. Serve on burgers.
3. Stir together equal parts by volume with mayonnaise for a sandwich spread or chip dip.
4. Serve with grilled or fried chicken or pork chops.
5. Stir an equal amount of pickle salsa by volume into black beans or black eyed peas for an instant bean salad that goes with just about anything!

And once you’ve got that pickle salsa rocking, you’re going to want to have something refreshing to drink with it!

May I recommend a fabulous Berry Kombucha Margarita or a Watermelon Margarita??

Pickle de Gallo

Toss together your cucumbers, pickles, onions, bell peppers, hot peppers (if using), garlic, and salt. Drizzle the pickle brine over the mixture and toss again. Cover tightly and refrigerate for an hour before using to give the flavours a chance to mingle and marry.

Store your pickle de gallo tightly covered in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.