7 Avocado Gadgets Every Guacamole Lover Needs
Give your precious avocados the star treatment they deserve.
Avocados are perfect in just about any form. On avocado toast, as fries, and especially mashed into a great guacamole. However, avocados can be a temperamental fruit. Use them too early and they'll be hard and tasteless; wait a day too long and they'll be totally brown. Whether you've got a bunch stored in the freezer or have perfected the art if picking the best one, having the right avocado tools can help.
From pitters to slicers to choppers, there are dozens of products that promise to make your avocado prep as easy, and as quick, as possible. But they're not all created equal. Lucky for you, we've tested them out and rounded up the best of the best for mashing, spreading, slicing and saving. These are our top avocado tool picks.
If you're making guacamole in advance, a good storage vessel is just as importantas any other avocado tool. No one wants brown guac. In our tests, the ProKeeperkept guac fresh and green for two days. The secret is the lid, which is smaller than the bowl. You simply push it down into the bowl, expelling air as you go, until it sits directly on top of the dip.(It took me a couple tries to get the hang of it since you have to exert equal force on all sides.)The handy clear panel in the lid lets you monitor the color of the contents inside. The ProKeeper was also the easiest and least messy to seal back up again — not that you'll have many leftovers.
This handy little gadget is the only tool you need for slicing avocados, whether for a crowd or a single serving. On one end is a plastic serrated knife sharp enough to cleanly cut through the skin of an avocado without mutilating the flesh inside (a common flaw of other slicers). In the middle of the device is the avocado pitter — a circle studded with three bladesthat impale the pit — making it easy to remove without risking any injuries. Don't be surprised when you have perfect, thin avocado slices in less than 30 seconds.
Ever find that you have trouble getting the chunks of avocado to the middle of the bowl for mashing? The OXO Scoop and Mash tool is designed for just that. Begin by mashing your avocado and as it moves up the sides of your guac bowl, use the green scooper side to bring the chunks back down to where you want them. No spatula necessary!
This handy (see what we did there!) processor works double-time to give you smooth guac in minutes. We threw in half an onion, a tomato, 2 cloves of garlic and half a jalapeno and in what felt likeless than 15 seconds, everything was chopped! There's also a built-in suction cup at the bottom so you can place it on a countertop and still cheer your team on from the kitchen.
The key to keeping an avocado half from browning is to seal it off from air. This saver from Prepworks makes that easy. All you do is remove the pit from your halved avocado and place it flesh-side down in the avocado-shaped container. Make sure it's on a level surface to keep the air from entering the fleshy part and you'll have enough ripe avocado for a single serving of guac later on.
If you're making guacamole for a big crowd, this three-in-one pitter and masher is sure to be your savior. Use it to slice open your avocado, scoop out the creamy center and mash it to buttery perfection. The ridged edge pitter side works if you put enough force into it, but if that's too daunting, stick with lightly tapping a sharp chef's knife into the pit and twisting instead.
Although not ideal for large bowls of guacamole, this avocado knife works great for an individual serving. The small metal bladeserves three avocado purposes: pitting, scooping and mashing. Once the avocado is cut in half, use the smooth edge to hack into the pit and twist it out. Then use the curved end of the blade to easily scoop out the flesh. The holes at the tip are perfect for mashing small quantities, like half an avocado. Yes, you could use a fork, but the knife is handy, and its 3-in-1 functionality means less dishes, which is always a plus!
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