The Secret To The Creamiest Guacamole Is Already In Your Kitchen

There are a lot of classic two-sided food debates: Beans or no beans in chili, crispy or soft chocolate chip cookies, and for guacamole, that choice is between chunky and creamy. Like any of these arguments, there is no right answer, but whichever side people find themselves on, they tend to be locked into their own idea of the "perfect" guacamole recipe. For the chunky crowd, making guacamole is a little less complicated. Just give those avocados a mash with the mix-ins of your choice and dig in. For the creamy side, there are more questions. What do you mash it with? Or are you better off using a food processor to get it extra smooth? Well, it's actually a lot less complicated than that once you know a little secret: You can make creamy guac with nothing but a plastic bag and your hands.

It almost sounds absurd, until you try it. If you don't want to spend time cleaning a food processor, the toughest part of creamy guacamole is keeping everything in place to get a nice even smash. But by putting pitted and peeled avocado halves in a sealable Ziploc plastic bag, you trap everything in a malleable contained space. Then you just need to squeeze and press with your hands to easily crush your avocados into the perfect smooth guacamole with no concerns that you are missing any chunks. In fact, using your hands actually makes it easier to feel when your creamy guac hits the perfect texture.

Crushing your guacamole like this isn't just beneficial from an ease-of-use standpoint; it's also going to make it more flavorful. You can use a machine to slice avocados until creamy, but smashing vegetables releases a lot more of the flavor compounds trapped inside the cells than cutting does, even when using a mechanical device. The traditional way this is done with guacamole is in a Mexican mortar-and-pestle tool called a molcajete, but most American cooks probably don't have one on hand. Using a plastic bag also means less effort and less cleanup.

As for those other common guacamole ingredients, like onions, cilantro, hot chiles, and lime juice, you can choose when to add them. If you like the crispness of those small diced veggies as a contrast to the smooth guac, you can wait and add them to the bag at the end before folding them in. But you can also add some right at the beginning and crush everything together. Like with the avocado, this will help release more flavor. Some other additions like tomatoes are best left for the end, but cilantro, onions, and sliced serranoes or jalapeños will all benefit from a little smashing. Then, once everything is combined, you can even snip the end of the bag and pipe out your guacamole for a nice presentation. It's not totally necessary, but why not make your best-tasting guac look good too?