How You Can Make Sure Your Avocado Is Perfect Every Time
Don't you just love avocados? I know I do! But there's one part of eating avocados that can be frustrating.
It's when you're about to serve the avocado you just bought, and it's already over-ripened or not even the slightest ready at all.
Too many times I've been in the kitchen, battling with avocados.
When they’ve either destroyed themselves in what I call an avocado-melt-down
or even worse, they are resisting all attempts of cutting them.
Embarrassingly I have to admit that too many avocados have won those battles.
The avocados have either been turned into a smoothie (which isn't the perfect side-dish for steak btw..) or they've gone back to storage and I've had to eat my meal without that delicious, creamy, and satiating fruit.
So I decided to once and for all use my formidable
research skills and knowledge and answer one of the most important questions about eating avocados.
When buying avocados, how can I select the best one that will be just perfectly ripe when I want to eat it?
Table of Contents
Why Are Avocados So Hard To Time With Your Meal?
Avocados are commercially valuable and cultivated in tropical and Mediterranean climates throughout the world. Avocado is known as the Green Gold
.
Avocados ripen after harvesting.
That makes avocados a bit tricky to buy if you want to have them just right on a special occasion.
Read the tips we have gathered below if you are interested in identifying the best avocado.
How To Find The Best Avocado
A ripe avocado should be creamy, soft, and the right color green, but how do you tell if an avocado is ready? There are things to consider when selecting the best avocado.
Fresh avocados do not ripen on the tree. They ripen after harvests.
Fresh avocados are unique because they can change their color from a light-green skin after picking to dark-green color, leading to a deep purple almost black color when ripe.
Color can sometimes be misleading when you are about to select an avocado. So you can't just go on the color of the skin of the avocado. You need to investigate a bit further.
Selecting The Best Avocado In The Store
Color of the avocado can give you clues
The first thing you need to do is check the color of the skin of the avocados for any that are darker in color than the others. These may be riper than fresh avocados with lighter skin.
Is the skin undamaged?
Check the skin of the avocado for any large indentations, as this may be a sign that the fruit has been bruised.
Check the firmness
Then you place the avocado in the palm of your hand and gently squeeze without applying your fingertips as this can cause bruising. Check the firmness of the avocado.
If the avocado does not yield to gentle pressure, it's considered firm and will be ripe in a few days.
If the avocado does yield to gentle pressure, you know it’s ripe and ready-to-eat.
Overripe fruit will feel very mushy to touch. It may have deep indentations and have darker yellow or brownish-colored flesh throughout the inside of the fruit.
Never Do This To An Avocado
Many bloggers and others give the tip that you can check if the avocado is ripe by picking off the little stalk to check the color underneath.
Do not do that! The avocado is guaranteed to be destroyed. The stalk protects the avocado from oxygen. If you remove it on an unripe avocado, the oxygen goes into the avocado. It turns brown and quickly goes bad.
When You Come Home With Your Avocado
When you are home with your avocado, let it be lying on your kitchen bench. Do not store it in your fridge.
If you keep your avocado cold, the ripening process will take longer, and your avocado will become stringy. The texture will not be that smooth and creamy that avocados can be.
If you need tips on how you best store your avocado, read How-To Store Avocado With Ease [7 Tips]
Plan Ahead For Your Avocado Use
A tip is to plan ahead. Firm avocados are perfect to purchase a few days before you plan to serve them. This way you can ensure that they will be perfectly ripe and ready to eat for your event.
Avocados that need to ripe should be stored at room temperature about 18-23°C or 65-75°F.
Speed up the ripening process
If you missed planning and your avocado is still rock-hard when you want to use it. There are two different ways to speed up the ripening process. One takes about 10 minutes, and one takes one or two days.
Trick number one of ripening an avocado
You can place your avocado in the oven.
Wrap the avocado in aluminum foil and put it on an oven-safe tray. Put it in the oven at low temperature, about 90 degrees, for just under ten minutes. And your avocado will become soft.
The reason is that avocados emit ethylene gas into the oven, a gas that causes fruits to ripen faster.
The downside of this procedure is that the avocado might change its flavor a bit. So if you were about to eat your avocado as is, this might not be the best way. But if you were about to make something with it, like guacamole, or have it in your cooking, this is the perfect way to ripen it faster.
Trick number two of ripening an avocado
Use a paper bag and other fruits.
Put your avocado in a paper bag. To get the best result, you can put other fruits in there. Preferably fruits that like avocado releases ethylene gas, such as bananas or apples.
This method usually works very well, but it is not that fast. You need one or two days for this process, depending on how hard your avocado is.
Conclusion
There are a few ways that you can investigate your avocado, to figure out if it's good to eat or not. Remember, never take off the stem unless you are sure to use it.
There are also a few ways that you might be able to speed up the ripening process if you are in a hurry. I like the paper bag idea. It works like a charm!
Good luck with your avocados!
