Food & Recipes, Kitchen Hacks
We love our Guacamole FRESH
Use this method to keep your guacamole fresh looking – even after you prepare it the night before!
You have guests coming at noon tomorrow, and you want to make a guacamole dip. But NOBODY wants to eat brown guacamole, right? So, you do what any expert home entertainer would do – you prep the guacamole just before guests arrive – right?
Wrong.
There is a way to make your guacamole the night before! Let’s face it. We love fresh and green guacamole that much. But it really is an incredible hassle trying to get your home ready for guests and be literally preparing food as they walk through the door.
Believe me when I say, chefs have been testing all sorts of different ideas for years. Over the years as a restaurant owner, I tested all sorts of tricks. There are a few that are “iffy” – they work, but only for a few hours.
The problem is an enzyme called “polyphenol oxidase” that occurs naturally in avocado. The first thing it wants to do is turn our favorite avocado dip into a bowl of unappetizing brownish muck as soon as it is exposed to air. So, what do you do?
VIDEO: a simple trick to keep guacamole green – even overnight!
Well, you can try adding citrus juice to the dip. It works, but only for a few hours. And what if you don’t want the lemon/lime taste? Adding the avocado pit in the dip does absolutely nothing once the pit has been separated from the fruit. You can add a fresh onion to the dip, and that seems to control the browning, but you’re back to the same taste problem as with the citrus juice.
The solution I learned is so easy that you’re going to laugh. This one goes back when I owned my restaurants – so you know this is a good one, right?
Place the guacamole in the bowl – could be the mixing bowl or the one you use for serving. Polyphenol oxidase is chemically “reactive” – and apparently metal makes it react faster. That’s why I always use glass, ceramic, or plastic where possible.
Smooth the top so that the surface of the guacamole is nice and flat. Then, very very gently (I recommend using a small measuring cup), pour enough water over the guacamole to cover the entire surface. Add enough water to give it a depth of about ½ inch. Then lay plastic wrap over the top of the water, press it gently across the surface of the water and around the edges to push out as much air as possible. Then place the bowl into the refrigerator.
Check out my video to watch me remove the plastic, and gently pour out the water. All you should do is “fluff up” the guacamole for serving. Amazingly, the dip does not absorb the water, and it’ll taste as great as when you made it.
Enjoy your fresh and green guacamole!
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