Cucumber Pico De Gallo

Cucumber Pico de Gallo is a tantalizing vegetable appetizer recipe! Made with cucumbers, tomatoes, bell peppers, and jalapeños, to name a few, you’ll wow your tastebuds and liven up all sorts of tried and true dishes! {Vegan + Paleo}

Friends, I think I found us another way to enjoy our vegetables. This Cucumber Pico de Gallo is the stuff of which dreams are made. And if you aren’t big on vegetables, don’t fret. There is nothing even remotely boring, bland, or blah about vegetables mixed with lime and cumin. I’m not joking when I say:

• This is my new favorite way to eat my daily servings of vegetables
• We have made this every week for the last six weeks
• It goes with everything including chicken, beef, salads, chips, and spoons

I’ve tried a lot of pico recipes and pretty much loved them all. But I had never made one with cucumbers. And it was because of a fluke that this recipe even happened. On our trip to Northwest Arkansas, we stayed with a friend who made his own salsa. It was delicious and different than other salsas I had tried. So when we got home, I tried to make it from memory. Convinced his had been made with cucumbers, I sent K-Hubs to Aldi for fresh cucumbers. Turns out, I remembered the recipe wrong. No cucumbers in our friend’s recipe. But by then, we were hooked, and the cucumbers stayed.

So you’ll find lots of colors and lots of flavors in this easy pico de gallo recipe. And it stores well. You can keep it refrigerated for at least at week. And you’ll find that the flavors just continue to infuse the longer the recipe sits. Honestly, you can’t go wrong.

So grab a cutting board, and let’s start chopping!

CUCUMBER PICO DE GALLO INGREDIENTS:

For the most part you can mix and match the ingredients as you like. So, for example, it won’t matter much whether you dice up some Roma tomatoes or cherry tomatoes. Same with bell peppers. Pick a color and chop away. Below is a list of the colors and variations of each that I like best in this recipe. But there is no need to get super-technical. This is a hard recipe to mess up.

• Cucumbers. The fresher the better.
• Tomatoes. I like Roma tomatoes. And I say, the more, the merrier.
• Bell peppers. Any color will do, however I typically go with yellow.
• Jalapeños. For a stronger flavor, add two (that’s what I do), and for a milder flavor, add only one. Make sure to remove as many of the seeds as possible.
• Carrots. Baby carrots work really well in this recipe because they are easy to slice down to size so no one ingredient overpowers any other.
• Red onion. While I gravitate to red onions in my pico recipes, the truth is you can use any color of onion you want and still end up with a mouthwatering vegan appetizer.
• Cilantro. Fresh cilantro is a must here.
• Cumin, lime juice, and sea salt. These I do mostly to taste, and the amount I use depends largely on how fresh the other ingredients are (I usually use MORE if the ingredients end up not being as fresh as I first thought).

HOW TO MAKE CUCUMBER PICO DE GALLO:

This is mostly a chop-and-throw-into-the-bowl kind of recipe. 

1. Chop up the cucumbers, tomatoes, bell pepper, jalapeños, carrots, and red onion. Transfer them to a large bowl and stir until well mixed.
2. Mince the cilantro and stir it into the pico mixture.
3. Then add the cumin, lime juice, and sea salt.
4. Store covered in the refrigerator for up to one week.

BEST PRACTICES FOR THE BEST FLAVOR:

This is a super-easy pico de gallo recipe to make. However, there are a few hacks so you get the best flavor!

• Use fresh cilantro. This is not a recipe to use up leftover herbs. Even the other flavors in the recipe won’t make up for spoiled cilantro.
• Add more sea salt and/or cumin for extra flavor. If the ingredients just aren’t as ripened as you’d like, then add more seasonings.
• You can also add more lime juice, however add it in sparingly so as not to douse the pico and make it mushy. As the recipe sets, the juices from the other ingredients will release and pool at the bottom. Depending on your preferred consistency, more liquid (from the lime juice, in this case) may or may not be desired.

If you are new to pico de gallo recipes and want to expand your repertoire, then you might also enjoy 

• Hot ‘n Spicy Pico de Gallo
• Homemade Pico de Gallo

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