Personally, I don’t ever find the need to freeze salsa, but there is one expensive food that seems to go bad very quickly. Avocadoes. If you’re thinking about freezing an avocado (or a few of them), you definitely need to know how to freeze it to get the best possible results. There are at least two popular ways of freezing avocados and we will cover both in this article. If you’re interested, read along.
How to freeze avocado – Prep
Not much to do here, really. Just wash avocados under running water, dry them and you’re ready to go.
Freezing pureed or mashed avocado
This method is recommended by many people as it gives you the best possible results. Try it first before trying other ones. We start off by peeling and cutting the fruits, then transferring the pieces into a food processor or a blender to puree them. Before doing so, we need to add some lemon or lime juice that will prevent the avocado from becoming brown because of freezing. Half tbsp of lime/lemon juice per avocado. If you’re not concerned about the color change, you can omit to add juice. Now it’s time to puree the fruits until they become smooth. Adding juice before using the food processor has one huge advantage – the device makes sure the acidic juice is distributed evenly throughout the mash.
Now it’s time to make a choice – you can either transfer the mash into an airtight container/freezer bag right away or decide to freeze it using an ice-cube tray and then package. It’s up to you. If you’ll take the second choice, the things you need to do are pretty simple. Take an ice-cube tray, pour the mash into those little cubes, and put the tray into the freezer until the cubes have frozen. Then take it out and transfer the cubes into a freezer bag.
Regardless of whether you’ve ice-cubed the mash or not, make sure you leave no headspace in the bag/container (sometimes it means choosing a smaller container). Seal the bag/container tightly, label it, and put it into the freezer. Done.
Freezing halved or chunked avocado
This method is preferred by many people, so it’s definitely worth a shot. We start out pretty similarly – peel the avocados and cut them into halves, quarters, or chunks, depending on your needs. Now sprinkle them with lemon/lime juice, for the same reasons mentioned above. Remember that in certain situations (e.g. you plan to use the avocado in guacamole) brown avocado flesh isn’t an issue at all, so you can omit it.
Now it’s pre-freezing time. Transfer the slices onto a cookie sheet and make sure slices don’t touch each other. Put the tray into the freezer until fruits have frozen. Then take from the freezer – they are ready for packaging.
When it comes to packaging, it’s pretty much the same as in the earlier method – you can choose freezer bags or airtight containers. After pre-freezing avocado slices won’t glue to each other when put into the freezer, so you’ll be able to scoop a few slices from the bag/container when needed. You can omit pre-freezing (sometimes called flash-freezing), but then avocados will freeze into a clump and you’ll probably have to thaw all of them at once. If that’s fine with you (or you’ve simply decided to freeze the fruit in few small bags), then you’re good to go without pre-freezing. Leave no headspace in the bag/container, seal it tightly, label, and put it into the freezer.
Summary of Freezing Avocadoes
As you can see, the whole process of freezing avocados isn’t that complicated. I’ve shared with you two common ways to do that, but you’re the one who has to test them out and pick one that works the best for you. When it comes to thawing, the refrigerator seems to be the best place.
Bonus: How To Tell If An Avocado Is Ripe
Is it really possible to pick ripe avocados? How do you check an avocado for ripeness? Like many people, do you squeeze the sides of it? Do not do this as this only tends to make them a lot mushier, as a result of so many people doing just the same thing as you are.
Here is one way of picking a ripe avocado. Remember, avocado is like an egg. As such, it has a kind of a pointy end and another end which is rounder and bigger.
Now, you need to examine the bigger end of the avocado, to find out if you are picking a ripe one. You then need to use your thumb and gently apply pressure, to this bigger end. If you notice that there is even the slightest of “give”, it means that it is ripe.
Of course, in the process of selecting the ripe ones, you also have to use common sense. And common sense should clearly tell you that if the sides cave in with your fingers, you don’t want the thing! It’s bad!
