Chunky Mango Guacamole
Costco (I know, I’m obsessed) sells bags of 6 avocados and 8 pound boxes of mangoes, and they are a really good deal so I was always tempted by them, except for what on earth would I do with all those avocados and mangoes before they go bad? So I’m sitting at my parents’ one afternoon, flipping through a Taste of Home magazine they kept, just in case I wanted it (they don’t cook), and I see this recipe for chunky mango guacamole. Perfect. Now I have a use for both avocados and mangoes, and it is fabulously delicious and even good for you. So I was off to Costco…
This really isn’t so much a recipe as it is a list of ingredients. Basically it is “dice ingredients and mix in a bowl.” To make this post a little more interesting, I thought I’d share some tips on how to peel and cut avocados and mangoes.
First, avocados. I slice the avocado in half vertically, letting the knife roll around the pit and down the other side. Then turn it 90 degrees and cut in half vertically again, so that you have vertical quarters.
Then you can rotate two halves and separate them, then break it into quarters, the pit should just pop out.
Now you can peel the skin off each quarter, just like peeling a banana.
Now you have perfectly peeled avocado just waiting to be sliced or diced.
Mangoes are a bit trickier. Mangoes have a big flat pit in the middle. You want to cut off each side right up against the pit, basically leaving the pit in a disk shaped center section.
Now taking the “halves” you cut off, make cuts going through the fruit, but not quite through the skin. Make a series of cut one direction and then the other, in a grid. The closer the cuts, the smaller your end pieces. Here, I think a picture will help.
Okay, now the fun part. Slide a spoon under the fruit along the inside of the skin. Your cut “cubes” of mango will just fall out.
There, cut and peeled in one fell swoop. Repeat on the other half, then cut the bit of fruit from around the pit and you are finished.
Now back to the guac.
The recipe as written calls for avocado, mango, tomato, red onion, cilantro and lime juice. Dice it all up and mix it in a bowl. Easy enough.
Except for it was…. bland. Tasteless. Unexciting. What I really think it needed was a diced up jalapeno. But alas, I didn’t have one, and I was at home with a napping toddler and no car. No jalapeno for me. And I wasn’t waiting until Ryan came home to enjoy my guacamole. That’s crazy talk. I needed to kick this up a notch with what I had on hand. So I added fresh ground black pepper, a couple of cloves of minced garlic, and a few shakes of Tabasco. The result was much better. It was creamy and sweet with just a hint of heat. It was perfect with tortilla chips, and delicious on the tacos we had for dinner. I made it Thursday afternoon and finished it off on Saturday and it was just starting to get a bit brown, but the lime juice really kept the avocado from turning brown too quickly. I should also mentioned that my avocados were really ripe, and the more I stirred it the less chunky it ended up, but it didn’t matter. It was still fabulous. I had to stop myself from eating the whole bowl.
- 3 medium ripe avocados, peeled and chopped
- 1 large mango, peeled and chopped
- 1 large tomato, chopped
- 1 small red onion, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced (optional)
- 1 jalapeno, minced (optional)
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
- 3 tablespoons lime juice
- salt and pepper
- Tabasco sauce
- Combine avocados, mango, tomato, onion, garlic, jalapeno (if using) and cilantro in a large bowl. Add lime juice and salt and pepper to taste. If you like it spicier, add a few shakes of Tabasco. Stir.