How to Ripen an Avocado in the Oven or Microwave
Avocados are exceptional fruit. They are brilliant for many savory dishes, either as the main or complimentary ingredient. Not only are they delicious, but they are full of fiber and healthy monounsaturated fats. This helps us to fight cholesterol and triglycerides, as well as help improve brain function. Its texture is unique and lends itself to versatility. Guacamole is so delicious because the avocado's healthy fattiness makes it so rich and creamy.
However, the avocado can also be a temperamental fruit. It can seem like one day it is too hard to eat and the next it has imploded like a black hole. We may buy them when they are hard in the hope they will ripen at home, but the process sometimes needs sped up. That is why oneHOWTO brings you these techniques on how to ripen an avocado in the oven or microwave, as well as other techniques to do it quickly and effectively.
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How to ripen an avocado in the oven
If you want a fast way to ripen an avocado, the oven is a great way to speed up this natural process. This way you can make it palatable and use it for your favorite avocado recipe. To ripen an avocado in the oven, you will need to follow this guide:
Equipment
- Oven
- Knife
- Baking paper/parchment
Method to ripen an avocado in the oven
- Make a few cuts on the skin of the avocado.
- Wrap it neatly in the baking paper.
- Put it in the oven at about 150 º C/302 ºF for 10 minutes.
- When you take it out, let it cool (you can even keep it in the freezer for a few minutes to cool it down more quickly) and you will see that it is ready to make guacamole, a delicious salad or whatever it is you need.
Don't leave the avocado in the oven too long or with too much heat, otherwise it will bake. This is unless you are wanting to make baked avocado.
How to ripen an avocado in the microwave
An even quicker way to ripen an avocado is to use a microwave. This can be done in only a few minutes since microwaves are one of the fastest kitchen appliances. To ripen an avocado in the microwave you will need:
Equipment
- Knife
- Clingfilm
- Microwave oven
- Bowl with cold water
Method to ripen an avocado in the microwave
- The first thing you have to do is cut the avocado in half vertically and extract the stone.
- Wrap each part in plastic wrap (make sure it's microwave safe).
- Microwave both halves wrapped in plastic for 2 minutes on medium.
- After this time, let them rest.
- Then place them in a bowl with cold water for a few minutes.
- Unwrap them and you will notice that they are more tender and you will have a fresh avocado ready to eat.
This trick should work on medium heat, but if your microwave is not very powerful, you may need to use medium-high or high.
How to ripen an avocado with aluminum foil
In this other method we will show you how to easily ripen avocados with aluminum foil. This trick also uses an oven. All you will need:
Equipment
- Very fine needle or knife
- Oven
- A clay tray or plate
- Foil
Method to ripen an avocado with aluminum foil
- With a disinfected sewing needle, or a similar utensil which can poke a hole, make small stitches in the avocado's rind. Don't make them too deep and make sure they are spread evenly over the surface.
- Wrap the avocado in aluminum foil and place it on a baking tray. Put the tray in the oven and heat it to 150 ºC/302 ºF for 10 minutes .
- After this time, turn off the oven and remove the avocado to rest. The resting time will depend on how hard the avocado is. Usually, leaving it for about 5 minutes should be sufficient.
- After resting, take it out of the foil and let it cool down to room temperature.
How to ripen an avocado with newspaper
This is one of the oldest tricks to ripen fruit, but it will not ripen the fruit as quickly as the oven or microwave. To ripen an avocado with newspaper you will need:
Material
- Newspaper
- Cardboard box
Steps to ripen an avocado with newspaper
- Take the avocados and wrap them well with individual sheets of newspaper.
- Once you have them all wrapped, put them neatly into the cardboard box (a shoebox works ideally in this situation).
- Place them in a cabinet where there is no humidity and leave them for 2 days.
- After this time, unwrap the avocados and pinch them to check to see they have matured enough to use.
You can check them before the two days is up to see if they have ripened even more quickly.
How to ripen a very hard avocado
When you don't have an oven or microwave, but you want a way to ripen an avocado quickly, our last trick works well. This method uses the natural ripening process of other fruits to help speed up the ripening process. This is because most fruits give off a gas called ethylene when they ripen. By using the ethylene of other fruits, we can help the avocado to ripen more quickly.
Here is how you use this last trick to ripen an avocado fast:
Equipment
- Paper bag
- Other fruits
Method to ripen a very hard avocado
- Put the avocado in a brown paper bag. What we are looking for is to retain the ethylene gas that will ripen the avocado, so check that the bag does not have holes to retain the gas well.
- Place an apple, tomato, or banana in the bag next to the avocado. Of these three fruits, the ideal would be the banana. You can put more than one avocado in the bag, but you should put more of the other fruit in if you do.
- Close the bag and place it in a place where it is kept at room temperature away from sunlight.
How fast the avocados ripen will depend on different factors. Firstly, if the avocado is very hard, it could take a couple of days. Also, how much the other fruit has ripened will be a factor. The best fruit to put in the bag is a banana, but apples, tomatoes, pears, nectarines, plums and even more ripe avocados give off more ethylene than other fruits.
Now that you know how to ripen an avocado quickly, perhaps you would like to know more? This article on how to tell if an avocado is bad shows you what happens when they are too ripe.
If you want to read similar articles to How to Ripen an Avocado in the Oven or Microwave, we recommend you visit our Food & drink category.
