
Most Ecuadorean main meals will be served with a small salad, and many times this salad will be a curtido or have some curtido added to it. The most basic form of curtido is a basic onion curtido, it is great nice and fresh, but sometimes it is even better the day after, I usually make a large batch and keep in the fridge, adding it to salads as needed.
This specific curtido of red onion and tomato is usually served as a side for hornado, encebollado de pescado, fritada, menestra con arroz, carne colorada, etc.
Ingredients:
2 small red onions
Juice of 3 limes
1 tablespoon oil (sunflower or canola)
3 tomatoes
1 tablespoon finely chopped cilantro
1 tablespoon salt + more to adjust taste
Preparation:
- Cut the onion in half, slice very finely and place in a bowl
- Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon salt and let rest for about 10 minutes
- Cover the onions with lukewarm water and let rest for another 10 minutes
- Rinse and drain the onions
- Add the lime juice and the oil, place in the fridge until about 30 minutes before serving
- Cut the tomatoes in half and slice very finely
- Mix the onions, sliced tomatoes and cilantro, taste and add salt if necessary.
Serving suggestion – for a more complete salad serve with chopped lettuce and avocado slices.




it makes me very happy to see not only this beautiful recipe, but to see that you are using salt and lime juice to make the curtido and allowing the natural lactic acids bring out the flavors. i much prefer this over using white vinegar. it’s just gorgeous!
Hi Rachel – I couldn’t imagine making this without lime juice and salt, thank you for stopping by!
Hola Laylita, this is great, muy rico. I-ve been to mexico where they eat this too its such a delicious flavour, simply incredible. I could eat it all day. Muchas gracias,
Saludos Simonito
Been to Ecuador 2 times, for a total of 10 weeks and can recall all of the local bowls of hot sauce, not knowing how long they had been on the table which did not matter. I always piled it on. Thanks for the great recipes. I remember eating the chancho from a corner market every morning for breakfast with some papas. We spent most of our time in the Tena and Baeza area sampling the rivers in our kayaks. I would love to return to my favorite Latin american country. Thanks for a quality blog.
Thank you for posting these recipes. My husband is from Ecuador and I like to provide Ecuadorian foods for our children. I have already made the Green dumpling soup and today, llapingachos. There are so many recipes here and I will be making most of them. Thanks again.
Me dispongo a preparar este encurtido que tiene los mismos ingredientes de nuestro PICO DE GALLO, una salsa fresca mexicana que acompaña a tacos y antojitos
Gracias!
Hello Laylita!
I came across your website looking for the pickled red onion recipe and I found this wonderful website…I’m loving it … well presented and explained…Thank you soo much! for sharing all these wonderful recipes and taking the time to put them on your website…
May god continue to bless you !
Thanks your new friend…
I love this! we call this “salsa” and we eat it with everything, its on the table with fish, beef, poultry anything!
great job posting this awesome recipe. my husband goes crazy when i make curtido with tostones – he likes to put the curtido on top of a toston and eat it like that. i usually also add a tiny bit of orange juice and some hot sauce to the mix
keep up the good work!
Cuando leo tus recetas y veo esas fotos se me hace agua la boca jajaja… me encanta tu página web. En South West Florida tienes una fan.
Love this, my exhusbands Tia would make a version of this called, Ahi ? just the onions and spcies and lime juice and we would use it almost as a salsa to top on all of our foods. I adore Ecuadorian food, fresh and tasty.