Ingredients:
1 cucumber
1 cup dill pickles, diced
1/2 cup red onion, diced
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1 clove garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup pickle brine
Directions:
- Finely dice the cucumber, pickles, red onion, bell pepper, and garlic clove.
- Toss the vegetables together, adding the salt and pickle brine until well-mixed.
- Serve with tortilla chips or as a topping on burgers, sandwiches, etc.
Notes:
I added the pickle juice gradually rather than adding the entire half-cup at once in order to avoid having too much liquid in the final product.
Review:
Between rigorous academic coursework and intense athletic training, UW’s student-athletes have a lot on their plates. Proper nutrition is essential to fueling their ever-active brains and bodies, and the UW Performance Nutrition Department makes it easy for individuals to get the nutrients they need to succeed in the classroom and as competitors.
Jensen Skinner ’18 is a performance dietitian with UW athletics. She shared some of the recipes she offers student-athletes for simple, healthy, and delicious foods they can whip up at home to continue eating mindfully when they’re not noshing in the Jack Link’s Protein Performance Centers.
One of these recipes is an American twist on a Mexican staple: pickle de gallo, which replaces the tomatoes in the classic condiment with fresh cucumbers and briny pickles. As a lover of anything pickled, I was immediately intrigued by this dish. The preparation couldn’t be simpler: chop, toss, enjoy. Preparing this in the middle of July, as I did, also made perfect use of the abundance of cucumbers I harvested from the garden.
I plated my pickle de gallo with tortilla chips, and what I thought would be a light snack to enjoy over a few days became my dinner — I ate the whole thing. The finely diced mixture of crisp, fresh veggies and salty pickles was the perfect complement to thin, crunchy tortilla chips. Even after clearing the plate — which definitely could have been shared — I felt comfortably sated.
Jensen’s instructions state that this recipe yields eight servings, and that one serving contains four grams of carbohydrates, one gram of protein, and one gram of fat. (I imagine my tortilla chips boosted those numbers considerably.) I could absolutely see this condiment, with all its flavor and texture, substituting for queso dip or for heavy, oily toppings on a burger or sandwich.
Even if you’re not interested in the nutritional details of this dish, it comes together in a snap with common kitchen ingredients, and it’s an inventive take on a familiar favorite. In short, everybody wins — Badger athletes and amateur cooks alike.