I have to say, it appears to work lilke a champ. I’m amazed. I have avocados that have been in a jug of water in the fridge for probably a month, and they’re still just like I bought them.
That’s for whole avocados, BTW, I wouldn’t drown a cut one, I’d just eat it, having put lemon or lime juice on it before putting it in the fridge
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Same for me re water. Most effective has been a slice of onion - almost no oxidizing.
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I have not tried the immersion method but it was the first thing that came to mind. Will it absorb water and get mushy? Well worth a try the next time I pick up a few avocados
LOL, maybe - that’s probably the price I pay for skimming rather than reading carefully. However, I find that non-cut avocados stay good for a long time in the fridge WITHOUT being submerged - not sure why I would bother submerging one when I can already leave it for a couple of weeks no problem.
Update- I opened up that first avocado I put in a jug of water last night and used it in tacos. It was perfectly ripe, but the taste wasn’t as good as I hoped. Could easily be the avocado, which I got at Trader Joe’s. But it was so long ago. It’s kind of miraculous, in my opinion
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I just bought a bag at Costco and hope I manage to do a better job of control group this time.
Note to self: Don’t eat control group.
Taste is a hard one control group wise. Does it taste as good is a hard call because memory is flawed in so many ways. I guess what I am after is do I have to throw it away? Is this technique any better than freezing?
Oh for the days I came home from school with no snacks to speak of so I resorted to picking an avocado from one of our trees to spread on a saltine cracker. Little did I know how lucky I was. Had I known then I could have put it on toast and charged $11 I might have enjoyed it more. ETA: No, I enjoyed it then too.
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I am not so thrilled with this technique on my second try. Once again, the control avocado got eaten too quickly to tell how bad of shape it would be in if I held it as long as the one in the water. Sorry, my sandwich was calling out for avocado and I could not help myself. Experience tells me that it would have been in pretty bad shape after being put ripe in frig for three weeks.
Anyway, the reason I don’t like this method is the flavor. It was muddy and off. I should have changed the water more often. That might have helped with the flavor. The texture is also not great. Better than freezing but soft. The other reason I don’t like the method is that after cutting the avocado open, it browned pretty fast. I rarely use more than half at a time. I wrap in plastic wrap and eat the next day, The next day the avocado half was brown all the way through. I am not the type of person to toss fruit with a few spots but this is undeniable brown. I might use this method to extend for a few days but it has its limits. It is better than letting it rot and composting it but not much better than freezing. If I do it again I will try to change the water ever day or two.
It is sort of like that packaged meat that has a very long shelf life. It looks fresh but when you open it, it has that nasty smell. I know it is perfectly safe but I can help feeling that I am eating rotten meat. A sort of suspended animation, if that makes sense. Suspended in color but then when exposed to air, instant rot.
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You couldn’t have described it any more perfectly. I’m thinking it probably works short term, but no longer than a week, I’ve come to find out.
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Only a year and a quarter later, I finally tried this. Two avocados submerged in water in a jar, in the fridge for over 4 weeks iirc.
Turns out the top one wasn’t fully submerged, and there was a film of something fungusy on top of the water where the avocado was peeping out. No matter, I washed it off, and the avocado still felt firm so I tried it. Not bad! It was 75% usable, which might have been its condition going in. The second (fully submerged) avocado is still to be used, maybe tomorrow, and I’ll report back.
Still, for many, many weeks after they were ready to use, that’s a stark difference from the alternative!
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Here’s the second one that was completely submerged — looks pristine, several weeks later.
I did notice a slight flavor difference, like the peel taste had seeped in somewhat, so I’m not advocating for long-term storage, but what a great way to extend the life of a ripe avocado for a few days or a week instead of having it go bad in the blink of an eye!
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I buy green avocados to ripen on the kitchen window sill. Once they are ripe they last a good week in the fridge, no water submersion needed (or change in flavor). Just gotta make sure to take it out early so it actually tastes like something.
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That’s great, but it hasn’t been my experience, so I’m glad that this method worked.
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Wow. Interesting.
Right? I used to try my darndest to buy the perfectly ripe avocado, but now I just get the greenest, most unripe ones possible. And no avocado would linger longer than a week in my fridge anyway. I don’t buy them by the pound - usually just 2-3 at a time 
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I get mine mostly at TJ’s. They’re never ripe, but I usually want to make something with the avocado on a specified date. So it’s a bit of a guessing game - will this one be ripe in two days? three? twenty-seven? If I could reliably preserve a ripe one, that would be really cool. The best luck I’ve had is with storing a cut avocado in a ziplock and squishing as much air out as I can.
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Give the fridge thing a try, then. I also store half avos in a ziplock bag, but usually no longer than a day.
I find that the green ones take about 3-5 days to reach perfect ripeness. And then I either use one that day or keep them in the fridge for up to a week.
Oh, the fridge thing works okay. I want to save a cut avocado.
Oooh. I totes misread, then. My bad. The formerly submerged 1/2 avo looks a bit too mushy for my taste (I mostly use it diced or sliced), but I suppose it would work well for guac or other, softer uses.
Well, since we are on a thread titled “storing avocados - the water hack” 
I have tried the half avocado in water thing and it works fine for a day or two before the surface gets a bit mushy (though you can scrape off a thin layer and it’s fine).
I have had good success with thinly sliced onion applied to the cut surface as well, which surprised me (I don’t know why, but it did.
Lemon has been least successful in my case.
My issue at the moment is that the avocados go from unripe to perfectly ripe to not great in a much faster window, so I’m glad the whole thing in a jar of water is working. (I’m hoping that with a shorter window to consumption, the flavor will be better than the probably 6-8 week old avocado tasted even though it looked perfect. But - I mean that’s an insane amount of time.)
I wrap ripe avocados tightly in cling wrap. They last about a week in the fridge. And wrapped halves last a day or two, with some oxidation to scrap off.
