Avocados are a popular fruit, often eaten for breakfast on toast or with some eggs. They’re filling and delicious, but they can be hard to pick in the supermarket. A perfectly ripe avocado is hard to find, and they’re often sold to ripen at home.
They don’t ripen on the tree and need to be picked to ripen, but even then, they can stay hard for days. While there is no instant way to ripen the fruit, you can speed up the ripening process to ensure they are soft and perfect the following day.
The experts at Good Food said: “Avocados are stimulated into ripening by the hormone ethylene, which is produced naturally by the fruit itself.”
Avocados, along with apples and bananas, release this gas as they ripen, but storing them together doesn’t guarantee they’ll ripen fast.
According to Good Food, the “best way” to ripen an avocado is to put the fruit in a paper or cloth bag along with a banana. The bag will concentrate the gas and will help to ripen the avocado.
Once your fruit is ripe, it will last for about two days on the counter or up to four days in the fridge before deteriorating.
The experts said: “There’s no quick fix, you can’t ripen them in the microwave or oven. Nothing will ripen an avocado at home except ethylene.”
If you’ve cut into the fruit only to realise it’s rock solid, there are three ways to save it. The first way is to put the halves back together and leave it to its own devices on the counter.
You can also blend it, ideally with a splash of liquid, or use it in cooking.
If your fruit has brown stripes in it, it has nothing to do with how you’ve treated it. Instead, this is often caused by imperfect storage and temperature issues.