When I buy an avocado at the grocery store, I make sure that it is a little firm prior to buying it (especially if I know that I might not eat it right away)! However, I have arrived home and decide I did want to eat it and/or prep a dip/dish with it—only to find it hard as a rock! Maybe even too firm two days later….
So I was intrigued when I read, “Can I make an avocado ripen faster?” in my current issue of Fitness Magazine (March 2014).
The answer: When you are craving guac and the avocado is like a rock, here’s a fruity fact that will help: Apples produce ethylene gas, a hormone that triggers ripening. Putting the avocado in a loosely closed brown bag with two apples traps the gas, so the avocado will soften in a couple of days. “Heat also speeds up the process,” says Shirley O. Corriher, a food chemist and the author of CookWise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Cooking. “If I’m in a terrible hurry, I put the bag on the kitchen windowsill in the sun for even quicker ripening.”
Sounds like it’s almost guac time!?!
If your avocado selections are super firm and you want to use them soon:
- Don’t refrigerate the avocado(s).
- Place your avocado(s) in the kitchen window sill.
- Try the apple/bag trick noted above if more speed time is desired!
Don’t miss the post on How to Cut & Peel an Avocado!
Fitness Magazine March 2014 Credit
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