Ripening Avocados

Cooking Discussions Cooking, Cookbooks, Ingredients
1

Please elaborate on how you get avocados to ripen at different times if they’re all the same hardness to begin with. :thinking:

2

Maybe a couple in the basement, a couple on the counter, and a couple on top of the refrigerator for different temperature zones?

3

Not sure about Presunto, but when I buy avocados (or get them from a friend – we are in SoCal after all), I get ones of differing hardness. So I get a couple to be used within a couple days, a couple that can be used in 4-5 days, and then some that will ripen after a week or so. If you buy them all of the same hardness, they will all ripen around the same time, so I vary what I buy.

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4

Exactly what Boogiebaby says. Otherwise it’s too much to eat in a short time.

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5

Lucky you. I use the same selection method when there ARE avocados of varying ripeness. Usually, though, they either all rock hard or all soft. I don’t have a basement to use the location-ripening method, but our garage is often warmer than the house so I might try that next time. Seems like more subtle variances in the kitchen (counter, paper bag, pantry) don’t really get results.

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6

There was an oven ripening tutorial that went around last year. I was very suspicious of it.

The Kitchn

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7

You can throw a couple in the fridge and that will retard the ripening a few days.

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8

I don’t have any special methods. I have a fruit basket on my kitchen counter. They go in there. If I notice they are ripe and I don’t need them yet, I throw them into the fridge, which slows the ripening process down.

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9

I use @boogiebaby’s technique too. And, to minimize bruising, i test for ripeness by pushing in the stem.

10

Same process here, including transferring to the fridge. Would like to mention that if you do use the fridge, I find it’s a lot easier to mash on toast if you let it come to room temp first.

11

I do it by putting some in the fridge and some on the counter.

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12

Other than setting them in the window sill… is there a faster way to ripen them?

13

If they’re all the same firmness sort them thusly:

  • In a closed paper bag with a banana or apple (ripen fastest)
  • In a closed paper bag by itself (ripen quickly but not as quickly as with a banana/apple)
  • On the counter (you could consider this your control avocado)
  • In the refrigerator (ripen the slowest - if at all!)

Avocadoes (nearly all fruits, TBH) ripen faster in the presence of ethylene gas, which bananas and apples emit fairly prodigiously. The riper the banana/apple, the more ethylene they produce, and rotten bananas or apples are veritable ethylene gas bombs. That’s why one bad apple can make an entire bag of apples go bad seemingly overnight.

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14

Thanks. What if I don’t have a paper bag (I have plastic, wax paper, alum foil)?

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I’d go with plastic, but don’t close it up completely. Just kind of loosely fold the top so it can breathe a bit.

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16

Free association frequently turns up goofball results. Rather than full assault with youtube link, here’s an unmistakable guidepost:

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17

I’ll be thanking you most profanely for probably the rest of the day for that earworm!

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(post deleted by author)

19

All part of the service.

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20

Speaking of free association, I’ve always thought that that song was more reminiscent of The Jackson Five. I’ve read it was offered to, but rejected by Motown.

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