Guacamole: delicious on everything from fried eggs to tortilla chips, the green goddess of dips has become one of the most popular condiments in the United States. Like it’s slightly more popular cousin, salsa, the country’s obsession with even the most basic guacamole recipes has driven many home cooks to try their hand at making fresh guacamole dips at home.
Unfortunately, it’s the rare home cook who gets their classic guacamole recipes right the first time around. If you want to craft fresh guacamole dips that are worthy of being lumped together with the best guacs in the world, you need to avoid making the biggest mistakes cooks around the world make when first giving this delectable dip a go.
Nail Fresh Guacamole Dips by Avoiding These Common Cooking Mistakes
- You Buy Hard Avocados
- Only Giving the Finished Dip Half a Taste Test
- You Neglect to Add Lime or Lemon Juice
As Bon Appetit details, the classic mistake of the guacamole neophyte is buying the wrong avocados at the right time. In the best case scenario, you can buy perfectly ripened avocados on the same day as you plan to craft your guac; however, unless you live near the Mexican border or in California, your chances of finding avocados of such quality are not great. If the only thing you can find at the store is the rock hard variety of avocado, be sure you buy them ahead of time. By placing the avocados in a paper bag on the counter for a day, you let them sweat on themselves. That will help them ripen a lot faster.
As you no doubt realize, whether you’re working on recipes with guacamole or not, you need to taste your cooking as you go along. When it comes to guacamole and other dips, you need to keep in mind that simply tasting them is not going to do the job. You also have to taste your dip with the dipping medium, which is to say the chips, vegetables, or whatever else you plan to serve with your guac. This is the only way to be sure you’ve got the flavors just right for your needs.
Many home cooks assume that citrus juice can be added to their guacamole to taste. As Cooking Light so sagely suggests, nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, lemon and lime juice do play an important role in flavoring fresh guacamole dips, but the acid plays an even more important role. Citric acid has long been used as a natural preservative, and it’s these preservative qualities that make it essential to a good guacamole. The preservatives keep the avocados from turning to brown sludge. Pretty important, wouldn’t you agree?
What are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve made when making fresh spicy guacamole dip or other versions at home? Share your culinary misadventures with us in the comments below.
