Guacamole Recipe {Step by Step Photos} - Cooking Classy (2024)

Homemade Guacamole! Here you’ll learn how to make this easy, flavorful, avocado based dip that’s perfect as a chip dip or adding as topping to all your favorite Mexican food. Everyone will love this at your next gathering or in your Super Bowl party food spread!

The BEST Guacamole Recipe

Everyone in my family has a weak spot for homemade guacamole. I make a batch, and you wouldn’t believe how quickly we polish it off!

I mean, microwave nachos (tortilla chips with Mexican cheese melted in the microwave) with a batch of this easy guacamole is frequently a weekend lunch at our house. It’s pretty much the fanciest meal you’ll ever have the pleasure of enjoying.

Honestly though, it’s straight up comfort food at its best. This humble dip doesn’t require much but there’s a reason it’s become world famous!

Fresh Guacamole Ingredients

• Avocados – good guacamole starts with good avocados so use the best you can find. Hass are best, most likely you’ll be getting Hass if in the US, they make up 95% of what’s sold.
• Roma tomato– this adds little bits of sweet tomato-y flavor that pairs perfect with the avocado and lime.
• Red onion– a little goes a long way, and don’t forget to rinse to remove the harsh bite first.
• Jalapeño – this adds a nice spicy kick. You could try it with another type of pepper such as Serrano (they’re spicier) or in a pinch use some cayenne.
• Cilantro– you won’t always find cilantro in guacamole but it really adds such a great background flavor.
• Garlic – use fresh garlic not bottled.
• Salt and pepper – as always, this brings out the flavors and keeps it from tasting one dimensional.
• Lime– if you don’t have lime you could substitute lemon in a pinch.

How to Make Guacamole

• Prepare avocados:first, cut the avocados into halves and remove the seed. Place them into a large bowl.

Mash avocado: Using a pastry cutter or fork cut into avocados and keep cutting until it’s about the texture you want (I like mine like mine to have a bit chunky with texture).

Add in remaining ingredients: next add in tomatoes, red onion, cilantro, garlic, jalapeño, salt, pepper and lime juice.

Toss: toss mixture together and serve with tortilla chips and all your favorite Mexican food!

How do You Choose the Best Avocados for Guacamole?

It seems that picking good avocados is a fine art but it’s much easier with a few helpful tips:

• Check the color: Avocados with a darker green or blackish shade are more ripe, vibrantly green avocados are underripe and still need a few days (or even a week or so) to ripen.
• Gently press the avocado: hard solid avocados aren’t ripe yet, mushy avocados are overripe (or overly bruised). They should have some give when gently pressed.
• Avoid those with patchy dark spots on the skin, these can be signs of bruising inside. Also avoid those with random soft spots as that is usually another sign of bruising.

How Can I Ripen Avocados Faster?

• Store them in a warm place, this will speed up ripening (sometimes I put them in a sunny window).If you want to slow ripening store them in the fridge.
• Put them in a paper bag with a banana, kiwi or apple (fold top of bag over). This will increase the amount of ethylene gas produced (which is a gas released by some produce that causes fruits and vegetables to ripen).

Can I Omit the Jalapeño?

If you don’t like your guac spicy, feel free to leave out the jalapeño pepper. But if you’ve never had homemade guacamole withjalapeño in it, I recommend trying it!

If you don’t like spicy foods, take out the seeds in the pepper and finely dice it before adding it to the guac.

Can I Double This Guacamole Dip Recipe?

Very easily! You can also halve this recipe if you’ll be feeding a smaller crowd.

How do You Store Guacamole?

To my knowledge, there’s no perfect way to store homemade guacamole to prevent it from browning. But I have found that storing fresh guacamole in an airtight container with a piece of plastic wrap pressed directly on top of it slows the browning somewhat.

If you’re worried about your guac browning before you eat it, my advice is to wait to make it until you’re ready to serve. But believe it or not, this batch didn’t brown all day sometimes you’ll just get lucky.

Every now and then I’ll get great avocados that hold their color, but it’s not common so prep everything else earlier if you wan’t, but wait to cut up those avocados.

Helpful Tips for the Best Guacamole:

• Use a pastry cutter to cut up the avocados. It’s the fastest, and it leaves you with some texture rather than guacamole mush or paste. A long pronged fork works great too.
• Use the best, ripe avocados. I can’t stress this one enough. It makes or breaks the guacamole. Avoid bruised and mushy avocados.
• Only use fresh lime juice. Bottled juice just won’t give it near as good of a flavor.
• Add garlic for flavor. Some people might say authentic Mexican guacamole doesn’t have garlic, I say I don’t know what’s official but I do know the garlic makes it taste better, so go with it.
• Rinse red onions to remove harsh bite of the onion. Rick Bayless suggests this, and I think it really does help. If you want a milder onion flavor, go with green onions instead.
• Dice everything (other than avocados) small. It’s just better this way, trust me.
• Make more than you think you’ll need. Somehow this is a tip for the best guacamole :). No, it’s just a little word of advice. This goes fast, so double up the batch for a party.

More Homemade Dips You’ll Love:

• 3-Ingredient Queso Cheese Dip
• 7-Layer Bean Dip
• Cowboy Caviar (aka Texas Caviar)
• Avocado Salsa

More Mexican Recipes to Try:

• Sheet Pan Chicken Fajitas
• Oven Roasted Chicken Tacos
• Slow Cooker Shredded Beef Tacos
• Carne Asada Tacos
• Grilled Chicken Tortilla Soup (yes stir big spoonfuls right into each serving of the soup, so good!)