How To Safely Cut An Avocado In 5 Simple Steps

Author: Chef Pati Jinich

I go through hundreds and hundreds of avocados every year taping my show and cooking for my family. Safe to say I cut into a couple thousand or more annually!

If you also like to slice and dice them for taco toppings and smoothies and more, you may have a favorite way to get past that bumpy green exterior to the good stuff inside. But I’d love to show you one easy, reliable way to cut into everyone’s favorite fruit from Mexico. It’s a method I recently showed my youngest son, Juju.

My three sons watch us tape “Pati’s Mexican Table” in my home kitchen, and they’ve all tried their hand at cooking on their own. But my youngest, Juju, eats more avocados a week than all of us combined and has become the most familiar with how to cut and de-pit an avocado. This guy has some kitchen skills and really enjoys the process. In fact, I almost fainted when he told me he’d rather stay home and practice cooking with me this summer than go off to camp. What fun we’re going to have!

I still don’t let him take hot dishes out of the oven, but he’s getting pretty independent. He makes quite a few cookies and cakes and performs some important tasks — among them, whipping up the batters and cutting his beloved avocados.

Before he even gets out the knife, I’ve taught him how to choose the freshest, ripest avocado by holding it in his palm and giving it a gentle squeeze. He knows which one to grab from the bowl we keep on our kitchen counter and if needed, he also knows how to speed up the ripening process by placing an avocado that is hard in a brown paper sack along with a banana and checking on it the next couple of days. It may go without saying but avocados are actually easier to cut when they’re ripe!

After Juju has grabbed the perfect avocado, I’ve taught him to follow these steps:

1. Place the fruit on a dish towel spread over the counter or cutting board. The towel will keep the avocado from slipping.
2. Hold the avocado still with one hand placed firmly on top of the fruit and cut around the middle of the avocado with a paring knife.
3. Put down the knife and twist the avocado with two hands so the halves come apart.
4. If using both halves right away, go head and remove the pit by holding the half with the pit in your hand and gently using a spoon to work out the pit, while gently squeezing from the bottom. If you want to preserve one half, leave the pit in the half, rub the fruit surface with lemon juice, cover with plastic wrap, and store in the fridge.
5. To remove the meat, rinse off a soup spoon and work the wet spoon between the green flesh of the avocado and the skin to scoop it out. Once you have that mastered, you can watch this video for more tips on how to slice and dice avocados before scooping out the meat.

There you go! Beautiful, fresh avocado to use any way you’d like! Whether it’s for a skewer with avocado, tomato and mozzarella and a balsamic dipping sauce, a smoothie, or guacamole , you’ll be all set to enjoy. Eat super yummy stuff, have fun and be safe.

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