Take my advice this winter season; Travel to Baja California for the Baja-Style Pickled Red Onions; Stay for the wild-caught fresh lobster and oceanview accommodations at a fraction of what you will pay in California.
When we spent seven days in Baja California last November, I’ll admit, I expected to gain weight on that little getaway. Baja lobster fresh from the sea! Tortilla chips galore! Chilaquiles for breakfast! Carnitas tacos! Oh and did I mention so many homemade tortillas? Baja California is not somewhere you typically go for healthy foods. I also expected our inclusive resort I booked with ten jacuzzis, spas and saunas to be like a week at a relaxing health spa (With margaritas of course) But unfortunately for me, every single attraction at our luxury Airbnb was out of order. What the actual fuck, right? We had a great Baja California getaway even though the “luxury resort” was a total bait and switch. When life gives you lemons, well if you are in Baja California, make margaritas! But saying this, just because we had a bad experience with an Airbnb stay, we love traveling to Baja and can’t wait to go back!
In the meantime, I had to learn how to create Baja-Style Pickled Red Onions at home!
Fermented foods are so amazingly good for your gut. Heaping a forkful of Baja-Style Pickled Red Onions onto absolutely any savory dish helps me get in all those gut-happy pickled veggies. Fermented foods are chock full of natural probiotics. I personally have so many food allergies. One would think a week of consuming nothing but Mexican food would have me crying on the bathroom floor but the opposite happened! It was a Baja miracle! I actually lost weight and felt great! I’m sure a lot of that had to do with the pickled red onions and pickled radishes I consumed each and every day. I think another huge part of that reasoning is that even though I had, carbs and gluten (tortillas) every single day, the tortillas you find in Baja are man-made fresh every morning. They are not full of preservatives like all those store-bought breads you buy at American supermarkets.
This is how I like to start my morning in Baja California; I piled some Baja-Style Pickled Red Onions on my tacos at this little taco stand we like to frequent in Popotla for brunch one morning. The abuela who has run this kitchen for the last ten years that we have been stopping in Popotla brings you out a plastic tray of these zesty Baja-Style Pickled Red Onions. You can add as many as you want to your taco.
I’ve been pickling my own onions for years. For so many years I’ve always pickled them in lime juice. However, it can be a giant pain to juice twenty limes. So after our little journey down to Baja California, I decided to create these Baja-style. It is so much easier to create these using vinegar instead of the lime juice! It’s a time saver for sure and I don’t make more mess in my kitchen juicing a bag of limes.
These stay good in the fridge for about a month. Just be careful to always use a clean fork when fishing them out so as not to cross-contaminate.
Baja-Style Pickled Red Onions
A large mason jar
1 red onion
1/2 a cup of white vinegar
1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 garlic clove
1 teaspoon of pink sea salt
Slice your red onions as thin as you can and jam them all tight into a mason jar. Add the peppercorns, cumin seeds, garlic clove and the salt. Add the vinegar to the rim of the mason jar. Close the jar thoroughly. Shake the jar well and store in the fridge.
These need to sit in the fridge for at least one full day to ferment properly. Give them a shack a few times throughout this process.
