How To Make Guacamole At Home

No snack beats fresh guacamole made at home from perfectly ripe avocados. Add in chunks of ripe tomatoes, chopped white onions and loads of fresh cilantro, and this dip becomes perfection on a corn chip.

Powdered mixes and purchased specimens of guac-in-a-jar simply cannot measure up. These kinds of guacamole come in unnaturally pale shades of green, and they taste more of cream and cornstarch than of an exciting mix of fresh produce.

Making your own guacamole is simple and satisfying. Here's how.

Ingredients

• 2 ripe avocados
• 1 ripe tomato
• 1/2 white onion
• 1/2 bunch of fresh cilantro
• Juice of 1 lemon or lime
  
  

Kitchen Supplies

• Small bowl
• Fork for mashing the avocado
• Sharp knife and cutting surface
  
  

What to do

1. Quarter the avocados, remove the seeds and peel off the skin.
   
2. Place the avocado flesh in a bowl and mash it until it has a smooth and creamy texture.
3. Squeeze in a generous amount of citrus juice — either from a lime or from a lemon.
4. Finely dice the tomato and onion and stir it into the avocado mix.
5. Roughly chop cilantro leaves and add them to the mix. Add a few sprigs of cilantro leaves for garnish. Serve the guacamole chilled.
   
   

Serving size

This recipe makes a small bowl of guacamole. It's enough to allow four people to sample some chips and guacamole before dinner. Make more — much more — it you anticipate a crowd of guacamole fanatics.

• Keep it green: The flesh of an avocado turns brown quickly when exposed to oxygen in the air.
• Keep it smooth: Use the ripest avocados you can find. Not only is the taste much better, ripe avocados are much softer and easier to mash into a smooth, creamy dipping sauce.
• Don't skip the cilantro: The flavor of cilantro is essential to good guacamole. Don't substitute flat leaf parsley or another kind of green as a garnish. That will throw the flavor off entirely. It's true that not everyone is a cilantro fan, but when making guacamole, assume that it can be an acquired taste.
  
  At the very least, if you leave out cilantro from your main batch, leave a tray of the chopped cilantro leaves to the side as an optional mix-in.
  
  

Ripe avocados are key to a good guacamole. Yet the exteriors of the avocados piled in the store give few hints about ripeness. You'll have to pick up the avocados and test their firmness. They should give a little with a gentle squeeze. Rock hard avocados are unripe avocados.

If in doubt, let the avocados ripen several days on the counter at home before attempting to make guacamole.

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