How to make guacamole

The main ingredient in the Mexican dip or salad guacamole is avocado. Avocado is, contrary to popular belief, actually a fruit! It doesn’t taste fruity because of its nutty qualities, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a fruit. Not just that, it’s also classified as a berry. Isn’t that weird? When we say “berry,” your mind might go to strawberries or other small berries, but avocados fulfill all the criteria of a berry: it has a (big) seed and mushy pulp. If you want to learn how to make the most out of avocados, however, you’re going to want to hold onto this guacamole recipe:

Ingredients for guacamole

You’re going to need:

• At least 2 ripe avocados, but if you’re making guacamole for more than two people you should probably add some more avocados.
• Half an onion. This onion can be red, but our personal preference goes out to sweet white onions. Shallots go great with guacamole!
• 1 Minced jalapeno pepper, although this can be substituted with a serrano pepper or any other pepper. It’s not vital to a guacamole, so you could even leave it out.
• A little bit of salt and pepper to taste.
• Cilantro is something you absolutely cannot leave out of your guacamole. Aim for 1 to 2 teaspoons of fresh cilantro. Don’t substitute fresh for dried, because you and your guests WILL be able to tell the difference. It just doesn’t taste right.
• A squeeze of lime or lemon will be the perfect finishing touch.

Preparing the guacamole

Step 1: Dice your onion. If you would leave it up to us, we’d suggest making the onion as small as possible, but that’s a personal preference. For a guacamole that’s a little chunkier, simply dice the onion. If you don’t like the taste of completely raw onions (it’s understandable, they are pretty strong tasting), run them under cold water for a while. This will wash off the sulfuric acid on its surface (sulfuric acid is the stuff in onions that makes you cry) and will take the edge off of the onion.

Step 2: Mince your jalapeno, serrano or other pepper of your choice. Once again, we like to cut ours up really small, but if you like a bit more bite in your “guac,” leave them somewhat chunky. Depending on how spicy your pepper is, we recommend wearing gloves. There are very few things less painful than accidentally rubbing your hands in your eyes after cutting up a pepper. If you don’t want your pepper to have a big kick, remove seeds and veins from it right before you start mincing. The veins and seeds are what make peppers really spicy.

Step 3: Start chopping up your cilantro. Cilantro is a small herb, so be careful not to cut yourself. Bunch up the cilantro with one hand and go slow when you start chopping it up. Don’t bother picking off the leaves; unlike parsley, cilantro stems go really well with avocados and will blend in just fine in your guacamole.

Step 4: Combine your onions, cilantro, and peppers. This might sound a little weird, but if you mash these together with a fork (really pressing down!), you’ll make your guacamole stand out from all of the other guacamoles. Mashing them a little released their natural flavors and helps everything blend together. It’s not essential, of course, but it could make the difference between a good guacamole, and a great guacamole.

Step 5: Start preparing your avocados. The reason this step is so far below, is because you’re going to want your avocados to be as fresh as possible. If you start off by slicing your avocados, they might brown and be less flavorful. There’s a trick to slicing avocados; slice them in half lengthwise. This way you can twist the two sides and they should come apart just like that. Pull out the big seed in the middle of your avocado (you could use a knife for this if it’s really stuck in there) and check if any seed bits are left in your nutty fruit. Cut a grid-like pattern into the avocado mush so it’ll be easier to mash later on, or scoop it out with a spoon.

Step 5: Mix everything together and garnish. Use a spoon to mix everything together and to marry the flavors of every ingredient. You could serve it with a slice of lime and some fresh cilantro on top, or just leave out the garnish and dive straight in with some tortilla chips. Don’t forget to season your guacamole! Salt, especially sea salt will give it a nice crunch and brings out the flavor of the avocados. Pepper is also important.