Can you freeze avocados? Since avocados only keep for a few days when ripe, there may be times when you have too many on hand. Is there anything you can do with the avocados so you can eat them at a later date?
In fact, there is — you can freeze avocados. You can keep frozen avocados in the freezer for at least a few months, so that should solve the problem. Read on to learn how to freeze avocados.
Freezing Avocados
No matter how you choose to freeze your avocados, the first thing you should do is to wash any avocados you have on the outside under running water. After that, you have a few options, which are described below. When it comes to thawing, most people choose to thaw avocados in the fridge.
The recommended way: Freeze mashed avocados
For best results, it is recommended to freeze mashed avocados. To do this, you should cut the avocados after washing them, peel them and put them in a food processor. Then it’s time to add some lemon or lime juice, preferably half a tablespoon of juice for each avocado. Lemon and lime juices are very acidic, which prevents avocados from turning brown.
After adding the juice, puree the avocados until smooth. It’s pretty important to do this with a food processor or blender so you can be sure the juice is distributed fairly evenly. Now all you have to do is pour the porridge into an airtight container. Be sure to leave some headroom. Seal tightly, label and place in the freezer. It is recommended not to freeze the porridge for more than half a year so that it retains its best quality.
Freezing mashed avocados with an ice cube tray
This way is similar to the recommended way. Once the avocados and juice are pureed, pour the mash into an ice cube tray and place in the freezer. Once frozen, remove the shell and place the cubes in a freezer bag. You can easily defrost just a small amount of avocado this way. Freezing them is probably the best way to go if you need avocado for meal prep for a kid.
Read Also: How to Freeze and Defrost Bread
Freezing crushed or halved avocados
Once you have washed the avocados, peel them and cut them in half or into chunks as needed. Now sprinkle them with lime or lemon juice. If you skip this step, you risk freezing the avocados and turning them brown. If you’re planning on using them in a smoothie or in guacamole, I don’t think it matters if they’re brown or not, so you can skip this step if that’s the case.
Now it’s time to place them on a baking sheet (making sure they don’t touch each other) and pop them in the freezer for a few hours. Once frozen, you can transfer them to a ziplock bag, label them, and put them back in the freezer. This way you can easily scoop just one or two pieces (or halves), depending on how much you need at a time. You can skip quick-freezing with the cookie sheet, but the pieces will be lumpy and you’ll have to thaw the whole package (or at least a few pieces) at once.
Freeze whole avocados
Most people say that whole avocados don’t freeze well, but few people do, and it seems to work well for them. If you’re not sure if it works for your needs, do a test run. Freeze an avocado for a week or two, thaw it, and decide if its quality is good enough for your needs. When defrosting, you don’t need to wait for the whole avocado to thaw completely, you can cut it in half and scoop out the pieces with a spoon.
summary
As you can see, you can freeze avocados to store them for a longer period of time. So don’t hesitate the next time you see a large supply of avocados – buy as many as you really want. You can use some of them over the next few days and freeze the rest for later use. You can also make guacamole and freeze it instead .