Why Pico De Gallo Is The Ultimate Salad Dressing

Pico de gallo is a Mexican dish traditionally enjoyed with a solid helping of salty, crispy tortilla chips or on top of tacos. We love to use it as a salad dressing and highly recommend giving it a try. Freshly made pico de gallo salsa has a lot of the core ingredients that make up a vinaigrette dressing; you have plenty of acid from the lime and tomatoes, cilantro hits the herby elements, white onion acts as the shallot, and they share salt in common. If you're missing the oil that typically makes up salad dressings, feel free to drizzle a little on top of your salad, it won't change the integrity of the pico de gallo.

Pico de gallo makes an excellent salad dressing for the same reason it makes for an excellent salsa: It's an infusion of fresh, intense flavors that elevate every single bite of salad. We recommend taking the extra time to make your pico de gallo from scratch. Not only is the recipe incredibly easy — it only takes about 15 minutes — but it has fewer preservatives than the store-bought stuff and you can really taste the difference.

Pico de gallo dressing can work on a variety of different salads. Any salad that already has Southwestern ingredients like corn, squash, and beans plus chicken or beef as your protein will pair beautifully with a pico de gallo salsa. The acid from the tomato-heavy condiment works particularly well with steak salads by providing a tangy contrast to the fatty steak. We also like to use pico de gallo to spice up salmon salads. Salmon, while delicious, needs a little more oomph in the flavor department and the pico de gallo does exactly that.

Pico de gallo, which loosely translates to "rooster's beak" in Spanish, is rooted in Mexican cuisine. So of course, we couldn't finish our favorites list without mentioning taco salad, the Tex-Mex dish featuring meat, veggies, and cheese. (Although many will vehemently argue that aside from the word "taco" the taco salad has nothing to do with Mexican culture.) Regardless of what's in your favorite taco salad recipe, pico de gallo, which isn't typically used as a dressing, is a great enhancer to the already bold and delicious flavors.