Save Avocado Skins For The Ultimate Mini Guacamole Bowls

There are plenty of easy ways to  to reduce food waste in the kitchen — from clever uses for leftover lemon peels to turning chicken bones into flavorful homemade stock. However, there are notably fewer suggestions for using avocado peels in the kitchen. If you're making a big batch of homemade guacamole and have a ton of leftover avocado skins, fear not. You can actually use them as cups for your guac — kind of like a Tex-Mex spin on deviled eggs, just don't eat the avocado skins.

All you need to do is scoop the avocado half out carefully, making sure not to damage or split the thin skin. When you're ready to serve, simply spoon your guacamole back into the awaiting skins, garnish with cilantro, and serve with chips. When your guests have finished their boats, simply toss the leftover skins into the trash or compost bin. It's a low-mess snacking solution that will give this common scrap new life. 

Avocados are loved for their flavorful interior, but their exterior skin usually gets the short end of the stick. Besides using avocado skins for convenient guacamole bowls, they're also the unexpected key to richer corn on the cob. After scooping the flesh out of the fruit, there is usually a little fat left on the inside. Simply invert the skin and rub it on your warm corn to extract any leftover fat and fresh avocado flavor. It's tasty with a sprinkle of salt or Tajín. 

Avocado skins also have non-culinary uses too. Since they are biodegradable, you can use them to start seedlings in. Add your choice of soil to the skin, plant your seeds, and put them by a sunny window or under a plastic tin to simulate a greenhouse. You can also use the skins as a natural plant fertilizer; blend them with water and pour the nitrogen-spiked concoction all over your plants to help them grow.