Get excited because you’re about to knock your party guests’ socks off with this 3-Ingredient Guacamole Recipe.
Whether you’re somewhere that prides itself in football sized burritos or a local taqueria, ordering guacamole is always a treat. Usually expensive, yes, but it always adds that extra pizazz to your dish. If you’d rate your taco bowl an 8, good guacamole can easily take it to a 10.
Many try their hand at creating the same punch of green goodness at home, but their homemade guacamole recipes usually fall short. Adding too many ingredients or trying to spice it up with hot sauce are common pitfalls.
So save your cherry tomatoes, fresh garlic, cilantro, sour cream (bleh!), and salt for another day, folks. With just 3 ingredients and a nifty technique, you’ll soon be known as “that guy/gal with the awesome guac recipe!”
⚡Navigation⚡
- What You Need for a 3-Ingredient Guacamole Recipe
- Use THIS Technique to 10x Your Homemade Guacamole Recipe
- What is a Molcajete?
- Don’t Have a Molcajete? Here’s What Can Be Used Instead
- How To Make Our 3-Ingredient Guacamole Recipe?
- The Best Ways to Serve Guacamole
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- 📺 Watch Me Make our 3-Ingredient Guacamole Recipe!
- 🍳 RECIPE
- More Recipes You Might Also Like
- Want to learn more about Functional Home Cooking?
What You Need for a 3-Ingredient Guacamole Recipe
- Ripe avocado
- Red onion
- Fresh lime juice
It’s important to use avocados that are ripe, meaning they’re not too hard and not too mushy. A perfectly ripe avocado will be slightly soft to the touch and will yield to gentle pressure. To check if an avocado is ripe, gently squeeze it in the palm of your hand. If it yields slightly, it’s ripe and ready to use. If it feels hard, it’s not quite ready, and if it feels mushy, it’s overripe. The avocado stem should be easy to remove with the flick of a finger and you should find green avocado flesh showing through the remaining hole.
I prefer to use red onions for their aesthetics, making for a beautiful contrast to the green avocado, and relatively mild flavor.
And to balance out the onion flavor, we’re adding in fresh lime juice. Your limes should be… fresh, duh. That looks like a green exterior and softer skin. If the lime skin is firm (i.e. it sounds like you’re knocking a golf ball against the counter), it’s exceeded its freshness mark.
Use THIS Technique to 10x Your Homemade Guacamole Recipe
Most people simply dice their onion and mix it in with their avocado, but they are missing out on so much flavor!
While over at a friend’s house and enjoying his amazing guac recipe (He’s “that” guy), he let me in on a little trick.
It turns out that incredible flavor in some restaurant guacamoles comes not from the garlic, hot sauce, cilantro, jalapeños, tomatoes, or other additives.
It’s from the liquid squeezed out of the onion with the help of a tool called a molcajete (mortar and pestle).
What is a Molcajete?
A molcajete is a traditional Mexican mortar and pestle that has been used for centuries to grind and mix spices, herbs, and other ingredients. It is made of volcanic rock, typically basalt or granite, which is carved and polished by hand.
The molcajete consists of two parts: the mortar, which is a large, bowl-shaped vessel with a rough interior, and the pestle, which is a cylindrical stone that is used to crush and grind the ingredients.
The rough surface of the mortar allows the ingredients to be ground into a fine paste or powder, while the weight of the pestle helps to crush and mix the ingredients evenly. Molcajetes are used in a variety of traditional Mexican dishes, such as guacamole, salsas, and moles.
I purchased my molcajete on Amazon for $20-25 dollars. A small investment, but it gets used a lot and makes for a great serving dish.
Don’t Have a Molcajete? Here’s What Can Be Used Instead
If you don’t have a molcajete or don’t want one – that’s totally okay.
Find a glass bowl, a sturdy glass (like a pint glass), and a fork.
After adding the onions and lime juice to the glass bowl, use the bottom of the pint glass to smash your onions.
Start with gentle pressure and you know you’re doing it right when you hear the crunch of the onion.
After adding in the avocado, use a fork to mash it into the desired texture.
It works great in a pinch!
Alright, that’s enough. Let’s get on with the goodness!
How To Make Our 3-Ingredient Guacamole Recipe?
Organize your ingredients: (1) avocados, (2) red onion, and (3) limes. I’m showing more in the image below as I share how to make this recipe two ways.
Cut your red onion in half, peel, and dice it. Add it to your molcajete or bowl. Cut your lime in half and squeeze lime juice from both halves over your diced red onion.
Take your tejolote, pint glass, or other blunt object and thoroughly smash the diced red onion. You’ll notice the lime juice will start to take on a purple hue. And if you have any patience, set these aside for 5-10 minutes and let the onion marinate in the citrus juice to let the pickling process start.
Cut your ripe avocados in half, remove the pit, and scoop the avocado into the molcajete or bowl with the onions and lime juice.
Use your tejolote, pint glass, or other blunt object to smash the avocado into a green paste. You can go chunky or more smooth – dealer’s choice.
Use a spoon to mix the guacamole and ensure all ingredients are homogeneous.
Grab your desired scooping vessel (tortilla chips, pork rinds, etc.) and stuff your face!
The Best Ways to Serve Guacamole
This guacamole recipe is incredibly versatile and there are a variety of ways to use it:
- Dip – the most traditional, of course. Use tortilla chips or pork rinds as your vessel and scoop guacamole right out of the bowl
- Appetizer – a little known fact, but guacamole and bacon are quite the combo! Bake your bacon in the oven so that each piece is nice and flat. Set them out on a tray and layer a dollop of this guacamole recipe on each. It’s the perfect finger food!
- Topping – improve any dish with a dollop of guacamole. Add it to tacos, burritos, nachos, rice bowls, on a sandwich, atop of meat, alongside eggs… you name it, this homemade guacamole can do it.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
I want to make this guacamole recipe now and save it for a party later. Any storage tips to avoid it going brown?
Avoid oxygen. When avocado flesh meets oxygen, it will immediately start to oxidize and eventually (30+ min.) turn brown. To prevent that, take a piece of plastic wrap and layer it directly into the bowl on top of your guacamole. Gently press the plastic wrap down to squeeze out any pockets of trapped oxygen. Move your bowl to the refrigerator until you’re ready to serve
How do I store guacamole leftovers?
Leftovers? We’re making game changing guacamole and you wanna talk about leftovers? Okay, while unlikely, in the event you do have leftover guacamole, follow the plastic wrap instructions outlined above – apply the plastic wrap directly over the guacamole and avoid it touching oxygen like the plague. Seal and store in the refrigerator overnight. It should keep for 1-2 days.
I don’t have limes. Can I substitute it with lemon juice?
It’s not my favorite substitution, but it is definitely doable. I’d recommend starting with a light amount of lemon juice, just enough to macerate the onions (like 2 Tbsp), taste, and add more as desired.
I don’t have red onions. Can I substitute it with yellow, white, or sweet onion?
Absolutely. Red onion offers a visual appeal, contrasting the avocado green nicely, and a sweet and mild taste, but using a yellow or white onion would certainly check the box taste wise. Go easy on the yellow onion as it can be fairly pungent. On the other hand, white onion is incredibly common in guacamole and salsa dishes given its slightly milder and sweet notes making it an easy 1:1 substitution.
📺 Watch Me Make our 3-Ingredient Guacamole Recipe!
🍳 RECIPE
3-Ingredient Guacamole
Equipment
- Molcajete (alt: bowl and pint glass)
- Citrus squeezer (alt: fork)
Ingredients
- 2 Avocado (ripe)
- 1/2 Red Onion (diced)
- 2 Lime (juiced)
Instructions
- Halve the red onion and dice half of it. Add to the molcajete (or bowl).1/2 Red Onion
- Cut the limes in two and squeeze lime juice from all 4 halves over the diced onions in the molcajete (or bowl).2 Lime
- Use the tejolote (or pint glass) to smash the onions until you’ve formed a mush (<–technical term) of onion and lime juice. Optional: Set aside for 5-10 minutes to allow the lime juice to start pickling the onions.
- Cut the avocados in half, remove the pit, and scoop the green avocado goodness out of the skin. Add the avocado to the molcajete (or bowl).2 Avocado
- Use the tejolote (or pint glass) to smash the avocado into a thick paste, as chunky or smooth as you would like. In doing so, the onions and lime juice will naturally start to incorporate.
- Grab a spoon and give everything a thorough mix until the onions and lime juice is completely incorporated.
- Grab your favorite scooping vessel (tortilla chip, pork rind, etc.) and stuff your face!
Notes
- Serve this guacamole as:
- Dip (tortilla chips, pork rinds)
- Appetizer (add to bacon)
- Topping (tacos, burritos, nachos, sandwich, etc.)
- Substitutions
- Red Onion for White Onion (1:1)
- Lime for Lemon (1:1/2)
- Storing Leftovers
- Add plastic wrap to the top of the avocado to avoid anymore exposure to oxygen. Keep in an airtight container and refrigerate for 1-2 days. You won’t likely have leftovers, but eat it as soon as possible otherwise.
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