One of my most favorite things on earth is guacamole, made from one of the most perfect foods presented to us by nature, avocados. Being from California, I grew up with an avocado tree nearby, and for a while there was a massive Haas avocado tree in my mom’s garden (she started it as a seed). Citrus was everywhere when I was a kid too, so limes are important in any guac I’m gonna eat. While I made detailed instructions for those naive to Hispanic cuisine or prepping unique produce, this recipe is no fuss, just throw all the ingredients in a blender and put it on something (or eat it with a spoon). It’s easy! Makes about 8-10 cups of guacamole. PS I’ve fed this to professed guacamole haters and they LOVE it.

Here is the recipe I adapted from a friend of a friend. ¡Muchas gracias Elias y Hiram!

Ingredients:

• Flesh of 5 ripe, medium-sized avocados (the best are Haas avocados)
• 1 bunch of cilantro, rinsed and stems removed
• 1/2 a large white or yellow onion, chopped into a few big chunks
• Juice of 5-10 limes (I usually use 8)
• 2-3 Serrano or Jalapeño peppers (or none if you’re too delicate for heat)
• 2 peeled cloves of garlic (or as much as your ancestors deem necessary)
• Big pinch of salt (I think I usually use 1-2 teaspoons but just salt to taste)
• Ground black pepper, to taste
• Filtered water

Method:

1. Get your blender pitcher and set it by your workstation (cutting board, chef knife, spoon, citrus juicer if you like), where you’ll prep and cut up your produce. Everything will end up in the pitcher. You can halve this recipe if you don’t need a full pitcher of guacamole, which is 8-10 cups.
2. Avocado: If you’ve never cut up an avocado, start by cutting down to the pit, then circle your knife to complete the cut, which makes 2 halves lengthwise, twist each side to reveal the pit/flesh. Since you’re tossing it into a blender, remove the pit by gently squeezing the pit-half and remove the pit. Scoop the flesh of the avocados, with a spoon, into the blender and throw away the peels/pit (or compost them). PS, when choosing avocados, they should be firm with a slight give, but not mushy and not hard. I always check them by seeing if it’s easy to remove the little stem nub that’s on the top by rolling my thumb over it. If it’s hard to remove or doesn’t budge, it’s not ripe. Usually ripe avocados have a black peel, not green, but they can be greenish-black. If you struggle to cut an avocado because it’s too hard, it’s NOT ripe. Just stop, put it in a paper bag on the counter, and check daily for ripeness. Okay… anyway…
3. Cilantro: Rinse the whole bunch, shake it out a bit to remove excess water so it’s less of a mess, then grab both ends, gripping one hand just below where the leaves stop, and twist off the long stems. This doesn’t have to be perfect, but you want MOSTLY leaves and few stems. Toss/compost the stems and put the leaves into the blender pitcher. Be careful while shopping to get CILANTRO and not flat leaf parsley. They are insanely different herbs and you will bring shame upon your ancestors if you use parsley instead of cilantro. If you hate cilantro, just omit it. But for the love of guacamole, do not put parsley in it. You don’t want your ancestors haunting you.
4. Big onion chunks are fine to put into the pitcher, and you can use them to squish the other stuff down to make room.
5. Chili peppers: I like Serrano best. To prep them, just cut off the stem. If you want less heat but more chili flavor, you can remove the seeds by cutting the pepper and scraping out the seeds. I just remove the stems of 2 peppers and toss them into the blender pitcher.
6. Garlic: Remove the peels of your fresh garlic cloves in your favorite fashion and just toss the peeled cloves into the blender pitcher.
7. Lime Juice: I end up using the juice of about 8 limes, but I have to keep tasting after it’s mostly blended to make sure it’s as tangy as I like. When choosing limes, they should have a glossy peel and be heavy for their size. Little pro tip for choosing any citrus fruit.
8. Add your salt & pepper.
9. Now fill almost to the top with filtered water.
10. Cover your pitcher tightly and blend alternating between low and high, to get this monstrous amount of material to blend uniformly. You may need to stop, take the pitcher off your blender body, and push things down with a big wooden spoon or tamper, depending on the power of your blender. I use a VitaMix so I usually just have to tap the pitcher to pop the air pocket. If your mix is too thick to finish blending, just add some more water.
11. Once uniform, taste it. If you need more tanginess, add more lime juice. Want more salt? Add some. And so on. It’s tasting your food that makes you a better chef.
12. When you’re happy, you can put it in mason jars or big non-reactive glass containers and keep it in the fridge for about a week as long as it’s got no air pockets in the container. Don’t freeze it unless you want to aggravate your ancestors again. But, you can always give it away if you have too much. Sharing is caring.
13. You can put this on any Hispanic dish of course, but it’s so good, it goes well on bagels with cream cheese, scrambled eggs or cheese omelettes, burgers, sweet potato wedges, salads, and honestly it’s just so tasty I eat it with a spoon.
14. There’s no more steps. That was it.
15. Happy cooking!