Nothing is worse than trying to prepare a healthy breakfast only to discover that the avocado is still firm and unripe — but there is a simple way to store them and speed the process up.
Avocados only begin to ripen after being picked from a tree, so they often need more time to become soft and flavourful once you bring them home from a supermarket.
However, Heidi, a baker and founder of Heidi’s Home Cooking, has shared there is an easy way to ripen avocados quickly without affecting their taste and all you need are a few items in your fruit bowl.
She said: “There is a way to speed up the ripening process, and it comes with help from other fruit. As bananas, apples, and oranges ripen, they give off ethylene gas that triggers the ripening process.”
Ethylene gas is a natural plant hormone that many fruits such as bananas, oranges and apples release to help them ripen to become more flavourful.
Most fruits only produce a little of this odourless and colourless gas, but once it becomes trapped in enclosed space it becomes more concentrated and can ripen avocados.
All you need to do is place your avocados in a paper bag along with a banana, apple or orange, then store the bag somewhere dark and cool in your kitchen.
Paper bags are the best to ripen avocados as they are a breathable material which allows some air to circulate so moisture cannot build up inside the bag.
Do not use plastic bags or lidded containers as most fruits naturally release moisture and if it is allowed to build up it will cause avocados to rot or spoil rather than become ripe.
If you do not have any paper bags, then simply place the avocado in a small bowl along with your fruit of choice and cover with a clean tea towel.
Place the stored avocado in a cupboard or on a shelf far away from a window, and it should ripen overnight to be ready to eat in the morning.
If your avocados take longer to ripen then add more apples to the bowl or paper bag as they tend to produce the most ethylene gas.
Keep your unripened avocados away from sunlight or any hot appliances in the kitchen like the oven as heat can break down the nutrients in avocados.
It is a very popular hack online to cook avocados in the oven to ripen them but this does not work as it only softens a hard avocado and does not allow the fruit to develop properly.
This will result in a rubbery and mushy avocado that tastes awful, rather than the creamy and buttery flavour that avocados are known for.
Storing avocados in a closed space with ethylene producing fruit is the natural and quickest way to get them ripe without spoiling their flavour.