Easy Guacamole (Our Favorite)

Our favorite homemade guacamole recipe! See how to make the very best guacamole with avocados, lime, and onion. Our recipe is quick, simple, and fresh. Jump to the Homemade Guacamole Recipe

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What is Guacamole?

Guacamole is a dip made of gently mashed avocados, lime, onion, and other fresh ingredients. It’s perfect served next to a big bowl of tortilla chips or with your favorite fajitas or tacos — I especially love spreading a little onto the bottom of these chili lime shrimp tacos.

After making guacamole over and over again (not complaining), we’ve nailed down a few secrets for making the best guacamole at home, and based on what our friends say when we make it for them, we have a winner!

More easy dip recipes: Try serving guacamole alongside our easy red salsa and this homemade queso.

What You Need for Guacamole

This is our favorite homemade guacamole recipe. You only need a few main ingredients for incredible, authentic Mexican guacamole.

Watch our recipe video below to see me make the guacamole. I also share a genius trick for toning down the flavor of the onions so that they are crisp and sweet. No onion breath here! The full recipe and video are below this article.

• Avocado: Scroll down for how we choose perfect avocados.
• Onions: I love onion in guacamole but don’t love an overpowering onion flavor. See our tip below for toning down the raw taste of the onion.
• Cilantro: Like when I make salsa, I’m heavy-handed with my cilantro.
• Lime: Fresh lime juice is best, but I’ll be honest with you: I’ve swapped it for lemon juice when I’m out of lime. It’s slightly different from what you might be used to, but still quite delicious.
• Jalapeño: I love adding diced jalapeño to my guacamole, but since I prefer it on the milder side, I remove all of the seeds and white membrane inside the pepper (you can see me do this in the video). If you love spicier guacamole, add the whole pepper — seeds and all. Serrano peppers are a good substitute, but remember that they can be hotter than jalapeño peppers.
• Salt: Takes your guacamole to the next level, and don’t be afraid to season the avocado generously.

The six ingredients above guarantee delicious, authentic guacamole. Depending on who you ask, there are two more ingredients you can add to take it to the next level.

First, you can add a small amount of tomato. For three medium avocados, I use one small tomato (Roma or a small vine-ripened tomato is perfect). The tomato adds color and a bit more fresh flavor.

Second, you can add a hint of smoky spice with ground cumin or try a smoky hot spice like ground chipotle peppers. You don’t need much. Start with 1/4 teaspoon and then go from there based on your taste.

How to Pick Avocados for Guacamole

Ripe avocados are essential for the best guacamole. Here’s how to tell whether or not an avocado is ready:

• Gently squeeze the avocado with the palm of your hand (don’t use your fingertips, they will bruise it). If it yields slightly, it’s ready to eat. If it doesn’t give a little and feels firm, it needs a day or two. If it gives easily, it’s probably overripe and possibly brown inside.
• Check under the stem. Use your fingers gently pull the stem at the top of the avocado. If, when you remove it, it’s green underneath, you’ve found an avocado that’s ready to eat. If it’s hard to remove, it needs a couple of days. If it’s brown underneath, the avocado is overripe.

We buy more avocados than I’d like to admit. So if you are like me and have extra avocados in your kitchen, consider making our cucumber avocado salad, this highly-rated guacamole-inspired pasta, this protein-packed avocado toast, or try mixing avocado into egg salad.

Tips for Making the Best Guacamole

For genuinely excellent guacamole, try not to over-mash the avocados. We are looking for a chunky dip, not an entirely smooth one. I’ve found a fork to be the best tool when mashing avocados for guacamole. You can see me using one in our video below.

I already mentioned my distaste for an oppressive onion flavor in guacamole. So we use a simple trick to tone down onion rawness. After dicing the onion, add it to a bowl of cold water. Leave the onion to soak for 5 to 10 minutes, then drain and rinse them.

The intense flavor of the onion will calm down, but you will still have crisp onion. We use this trick often. See us use it in this easy shrimp ceviche and this potato salad.

What Our Readers are Saying

If you don’t believe that our recipe helps you make the best homemade guacamole, look at what our readers are saying about the recipe! More reviews are in the comments section below.

“This guacamole recipe was delicious and easy to make plus knowing that all my ingredients were fresh made it all the more appealing. Never going back to store bought guacamole!” – JoAnn

“This is the easiest and best guacamole recipe I have ever come across. Easy to make and delicious!!” – Carol

“This is the best guacamole that I have ever made!” – Emma

More Avocado Recipes

We buy more avocados that I’d like to admit. If you have some leftover in your kitchen, consider making one of these easy recipes:

• This is the very best avocado salad! I eat it by itself, add it to larger salads, and even use it as a chunky salsa.
• Try our guacamole-inspired pasta. It only takes 15 minutes and is naturally dairy-free.
• I love this protein-packed avocado toast. You can keep it simple with just avocado or add an egg like me.
• We also love swapping some of the mayonnaise in our regular egg salad recipe with avocado for this easy avocado egg salad.

Recipe updated, originally posted January 2013. Since posting this in 2013, we have tweaked the recipe to be more clear and added a quick recipe video. Video updated in 2022, here is a link to the older video on YouTube. – Adam and Joanne