Easy Ways to Prevent Avocado Ripening

The avocado is one of the fruits that is notorious for getting overripe at breakneck speed. Almost everyone who uses avocados in their recipes has experienced the frustration of checking on avocados purchased only the day before only to discover that they had gotten too ripe to use.

Although you cannot definitely stop the ripening process, there are techniques to slow it down enough that you won’t have to worry about their ripening too quickly.

The method you use to preserve your avocados from ripening will be determined by the avocado’s state. In certain circumstances, buying an unripe avocado and then waiting it out might significantly extend the period of time you can keep it.

Other times, if you have already bought the avocado, you may work with it to extend its shelf life. If you’re cautious, you can keep a cut avocado fresh for another day or two, which is a long time in the realm of avocado ripeness.

Since there are so many various methods to preserve your avocado from ripening, the strategy you pick will be nearly completely dependent on your avocado.

To begin learning how to keep your avocado as fresh as possible, you need first understand how to test for maturity without hurting the avocado.

Checking the Ripeness of the Avocado

Avocados are very fragile fruits, which may make them challenging to deal with when determining their maturity. Although most people will judge an avocado by its color, this is not always correct and may cause complications when you begin to make your meals.

First and foremost, everyone understands that properly ripe avocados are extremely dark green, nearly black in hue. Yet, since some immature avocados are naturally this black, color alone is not a reliable indicator.

Color can only tell you whether some avocados are immature since they are brilliant melon-green.

Besides from the color, you should also inspect the suppleness of the avocado. This is the greatest technique to estimate the maturity of the fruit without breaking it up and inspecting it.

Unripe avocados, especially those that are almost black in color, will not have much give when squeezed gently. Careful not to grasp the avocado with your fingers while squeezing it, or you can bruise it.

A ripe avocado will have some give to it, suggesting that it should be utilized as soon as possible, particularly given how fast avocados change from ripe to rotten.

Another method to verify is using the stem of the avocado, assuming the one you bought still has one connected to it. If the avocado has the classic brilliant green hue that you would see in guacamole under the stem, it is ripe and ready to be utilized in your next meal.

Now that you know how to identify the maturity of an avocado, you can start learning about the best methods to keep it as fresh as possible by delaying the ripening process as much as possible, starting with avocados that were acquired at a young, unripe stage.

Working with Young Avocados

When it comes to keeping young, firm avocados as fresh as possible, the simplest thing to do is to place them in the fridge. Because of how much the atmosphere of the fridge may slow down the ripening process, putting them in the fridge while they are young and not quite ripe is much more effective.

In some ways, eliminating the issue early gives you a lot more time to wait for the avocado to completely mature, enabling you to consume other items first. Young avocados may often be stored in the refrigerator for up to two weeks before being used.

In fact, if the avocados are still a light green on the skin and firm to the touch, you may keep them on the counter for up to five days, providing your home is not very humid or hot.

This is the most natural method to ripen your avocados, resulting in the finest flavor, but it also involves going out of your way to obtain avocados that haven’t started to ripen at all.

Obtaining avocados at this point of development might be challenging since most retailers do not offer avocados at this age. If you cultivate avocados or have a local farmers market, you may be able to get avocados at this stage, but otherwise, you may have to deal with avocados that are at danger of turning overripe in one or two days.

Working with Standard Avocados

The majority of avocados sold in stores are overripe within two days or less. If you don’t have a recipe planned for the near future, this isn’t a lot of time to use up the avocado.

However, there are still ways to utilize your swiftly ripening avocados to give yourself a little more time to prepare the ideal dish for them. Blanching the avocado is one method for preventing it from ripening.

Blanching an avocado physically kills the enzymes that cause it to become dark and overripe as quickly as it does. Polyphenol oxidase is the enzyme responsible for the brown coloration that appears within hours after cutting an avocado open.

By blanching the avocado, you will be able to utilize it for a longer period of time before it turns brown. You’ll still want to work fast, but if you need some more time to thoroughly prepare your avocado dish, blanching the avocado may be the solution.

If you’re unfamiliar with blanching, it’s the procedure of briefly immersing the fruit or vegetable in boiling water for a few seconds to a few minutes before swiftly placing it on ice to stop the cooking process.

The aim behind this procedure is to heat the product just enough to remove something, such as water content or a certain enzyme, and then place it on ice to prevent it from heating up further and cooking.

This will then enable you to do other things with the food, such as storing it in the freezer (for items that cannot withstand the harsh environment of the freezer) or preserving the food and extending its shelf life.

When dipping avocados into boiling water, you don’t want to keep them immersed for more than 10 seconds at a time, but you also don’t want to soak them for less than 10 seconds.

If you wait more than 10 seconds, the avocado will start to cook, changing the texture and flavor, which might throw off your recipe plans. If fewer than 10 seconds pass, the enzymes you are attempting to kill will not perish, making the whole operation ineffective.

You’ll want to place the avocado on ice as soon as the 10 seconds are up. Since avocados have substance, both the real flesh of the avocado and the pit, it will continue to cook even if it is not immediately in boiling water, which is not what you want.

By immediately placing them on ice after removing them from the water, you may interrupt the internal cooking process, enabling the avocado to attain the appropriate condition without continuing to cook.

Now that you’ve successfully blanched the avocado, you can either keep it for later, knowing that it will survive a little longer before turning brown, or you may start using it right away.

A newly blanched avocado may be sliced open and placed on the counter for up to four hours before browning, which is much longer than an unblanched avocado in the same location.

In certain circumstances, browning may occur sooner, which is generally owing to the avocado having already reached an overripe stage before you started blanching.

Working with avocados at the right time is critical to getting the most out of them. Once you know what to do with your avocados and when to start working with them, you can be certain that you will not have to deal with an overripe avocado for a long time.