How To Store Avocados Properly: 4 Easy Ways

A healthy and nutritious avocado is often used to make salads, snacks, sauces. But it is not always possible to use an avocado on the day of purchase.

A healthy and nutritious avocado is often used to make salads, snacks, sauces. But it is not always possible to use an avocado on the day of purchase. It is important to know how to properly store an avocado so that by the time you need it, the fruit does not deteriorate and lose its beneficial qualities. 

 

1. Storing a Slightly Underripe Avocado

Often, a slightly unripe avocado is brought to the store. It's not a problem. It is just as useful as a ripe one, it’s just that there are certain features in its storage. 

If you need to speed up the ripening of an avocado, you just need to place it in a paper bag, close it and wait 3 to 5 days.

 

To speed up the process even more, you can put a ripe apple or banana in the same bag. Then the avocado will ripen in a couple of days. During the ripening process, fruits release ethylene gas into the environment. A ripe fruit will “share” it with an unripe avocado, and it will quickly reach its optimal condition. A paper bag will keep the gas from escaping. In addition, paper is a breathable material, so there will be no fogging, greenhouse effect and rotting.

2. How to save a whole, ripe avocado

If you are lucky enough to buy a 100% ripe avocado but don't plan to use it immediately, you can save the fruit for a while in the state you brought it from the supermarket.

It is necessary to limit the access of air to the avocado. This is easy to do if you wrap the fruit tightly with cling film or place it in a vacuum bag, then removing the air from it. By the way, in most stores, avocados are sold exactly wrapped in film. Do not violate its integrity if you do not intend to cook something with it now.

 

However, the fruit will still not be stored longer than a couple of days, the avocado will overripe, or even begin to rot. Both will make it unusable.

3. Saving avocado slices

It may be that after preparing the dish you have a few pieces of avocado left that need to be kept fresh and suitable for further use. It is necessary to make sure that the pulp does not turn sour and darken from interaction with air.

To prevent such a nuisance, you can sprinkle pieces of fruit with lemon or lime juice, apple cider vinegar. Suitable for this purpose and wine vinegar. Alternatively, you can brush them with olive oil. Both become a barrier between the avocado pulp and the air. Then the pieces need to be put in a plastic food container and sent to the refrigerator. You don't have to worry about them for a couple of days.

 

By the way, if exactly half of the avocado is used, then it is advisable to store the second part with a bone. You need to take it out just before cooking.

You can also put the pieces of the fruit in one container with the onion cut in half, close the lid and refrigerate. Onions release natural disinfectants into the air - phytoncides. They won't let the avocado rot. By the way, the fruit will not absorb the onion smell.

4. Freezing avocados

If the avocado does not need to be stored whole, freezing the fruit is one of the best options. You just need to first turn the pulp of the fruit into a puree. After defrosting, the product will be suitable for preparing various sauces and snacks. Both taste and nutritional properties of it will be the same as that of fresh.

 

To freeze, you need to wash and wipe the fruit dry, then cut it in half, remove the stone, peel both halves and put in a blender and turn into gruel. Add 1 tablespoon of lime or lemon juice to the gruel, mix thoroughly. Such a composition can be safely stored in the freezer for up to six months.

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