Easy Pico de Gallo
7 ingredients · 10 minutes· 4-6 servings
Pico de Gallo: A Simple Way to Eat More Vegetables
We all know we’re “supposed” to eat more vegetables. But knowing that and actually doing it consistently are two very different things. Especially when you’re busy, groceries are expensive, you’re feeding other people AND you’re trying to support your health through your 40s, perimenopause and beyond.
So instead of making healthy eating more complicated, I like to ask a simpler question: How can we make eating more whole foods easier - and actually enjoyable?
One of my favourite answers during tomato season is a big batch of homemade pico de gallo.
Make the Supportive Choice the Easy Choice
If you want to eat more vegetables, you don’t necessarily need a more elaborate meal plan or another list of foods you “should” be eating. Start with foods you actually enjoy. Make them taste really good. And make the supportive choice easy to grab. Fresh tomatoes are perfect for this.
When tomatoes are in season, they’re inexpensive, bursting with flavour and require very little prep. Turn them into an easy pico de gallo and suddenly you have a fresh, flavour-packed addition you can use across several meals.
Spoon it onto:
scrambled eggs or omelettes
tacos or fajitas
burgers
burrito or taco bowls
grilled chicken or fish
salads
roasted potatoes
your favourite tortilla chips
One batch can make adding more fresh vegetables to your meals almost effortless.
“But I Just Don’t Crave Vegetables”
I hear this one a lot. If vegetables aren’t something you naturally crave right now, that doesn’t mean they never will be. Our food preferences aren’t completely set in stone.
What we eat regularly can help shape what we enjoy and reach for. If much of our diet is made up of highly processed, hyper-palatable foods, simpler whole foods may not initially feel quite as exciting in comparison. But as we gradually bring more whole, fibre-rich foods into our diet, our palate can adapt. Our habitual diet also helps shape our gut microbiome, and emerging research suggests the relationship between our gut microbes, appetite and food preferences may work in both directions.
And I see the practical side of this with my nutrition clients all the time. Foods they once had to consciously think about eating eventually become foods they genuinely WANT. That’s one of the reasons I’m much more interested in helping women build sustainable habits than handing them a list of foods they need to force themselves to eat.
Why Eating More Plants Matters in Your 40s and Beyond
Getting a greater variety of plant foods into your diet can help increase your intake of fibre, vitamins, minerals and beneficial plant compounds. Fibre is particularly important for supporting digestive health, regular bowel movements, blood sugar regulation, cholesterol management, satiety and a diverse gut microbiome.
And during perimenopause and menopause - when changes in hormones can overlap with changes in digestion, body composition, blood sugar regulation and cardiovascular health - building meals around nutrient-dense whole foods becomes even more valuable. But that doesn’t mean you need to overhaul your entire diet overnight.
In fact, trying to change everything at once is often exactly what makes healthy eating feel unsustainable.
Start With One Spoonful
You don’t have to wake up tomorrow and suddenly eat six cups of vegetables. Maybe you start by making pico de gallo and adding a spoonful to your tacos.
Then you put some on your eggs the next morning. Maybe it becomes part of a taco bowl for lunch later in the week. That might not sound revolutionary - and that’s the point. Small shifts, repeated often, are how we turn “I should eat more vegetables” into something we actually do.
Pico de Gallo is a great way to make the most of tomato season!
Directions for Fresh Pico de Gallo
Seed and finely dice the peppers. Finely dice the onion. Then add both to a medium glass or ceramic bowl.
Dice the seeded tomatoes and cilantro, add to the bowl and stir.
Add in 2 tbsp of fresh lime juice and the salt. Stir again.
Ingredients
1 jalapeno
¼ large sweet onion
½ red or orange bell pepper
2 medium tomatoes, seeded
¼ cup cilantro
1 lime
¼ tsp sea salt
