I love guacamole and I mean LOVE IT! I’ve been known to make a batch of guac for lunch and eat the whole thing.
The funny thing is I wouldn’t touch guacamole until I was in my early twenties. As kid growing up in a small town at the ‘end of the road’, we didn’t have any Mexican restaurants and I’m not even sure you could buy an avocado (although that has changed and the local grocery stores offer a lot more ‘exotic’ ingredients today)! I had my first opportunity to try guacamole when I was 16 at a friend’s house whose family had a summer cabin in Ely. I wouldn’t even taste it – it had a weird green color and I couldn’t imagine how it would taste good. I didn’t try guac until a Cinco de Mayo potluck at work. A co-worker was making it before the potluck started and convinced me to give it a taste – it was AWESOME! He told me his basic recipe and I’ve since adapted it to my tastes.
The key thing to remember when you make guac is to make it to your taste – a little more onion – fine, a little less jalepeno – no problem, want to add tomatoes – go for it!
Here’s how I make my basic recipe. Start with a ripe avacado, cilantro, red onion, garlic, lime, jalapeno, and salt.
Essentially you’re going to throw everything into a bowl and mix it all together. I’ll show you a few of my tricks for making it.
Start by putting one avocado into a bowl, a pinch of salt, and the juice of half a lime. I like to mash it together at this point before adding the rest of my ingredients but that’s totally up to you.
Grate the garlic using a microplane grater. This way you won’t get any big harsh chunks of garlic. Before I bought a microplane, I used to chop the garlic finely and the sprinkle it with a pinch of salt and paste it by scraping it with the flat side of a chef’s knife.
For a single avocado, I use about half a jalapeno, seeded and finely chopped.
Finely diced red onion.
Then the cilantro, about a handful, chopped.
Toss all the chopped ingredients in with the mashed avocado mixture.
And stir it all together.
Now comes the most important part – taste it! It’s important to taste it like you will eat it. If you’re going to be eating it with chips, taste it on a chip. Chips are usually salted, so you want to adjust the salt in the guac so it’s perfect with the chips you have.
Be sure to control yourself and eat only enough to taste it so you have some remaining to serve.
At this point, I typically add the juice of the 2nd half of the lime and a little more salt.
Serve it up with some tortilla chips, as a topper for tacos or fajitas, inside burritos or on top of a burrito bowl – or even on top of a burger!
If you won’t eat the guac right away it can stay in the fridge for a few hours but is best enjoyed the day you make it. To prevent it from turning brown, smooth out the top, squeeze on a little extra lime juice, and cover with plastic wrap – pressing right on to the surface of the guac.
- 1 ripe avocado
- 1 lime
- salt
- 1 clove of garlic
- ½ a jalapeno, seeded & finely diced
- red onion, finely diced
- handful cilantro, chopped.
- Remove pit from avocado and skin from the avocado and place into a bowl.
- Squeeze in the juice of half the lime, add a pinch of salt, and mash the avocado with a spoon until your desired consistency.
- Grate in one clove of garlic (or finely chop)
- Add the jalapeno, red onion, and cilantro.
- Stir everything together.
- Adjust the seasoning, adding more salt or lime juice as needed.
- Serve with chips.
[…] You also want some sauteed onions and homemade guac. […]