Easy Guacamole (Our Favorite)
This is our favorite homemade guacamole recipe! See how to make the very best guacamole at home. Our recipe is simple, fresh, and no matter what else we serve with it, it’s always the first to go. Jump to the Homemade Guacamole Recipe or watch our quick recipe video showing you how to make it.
Watch How We Make The Best Guacamole
What is Guacamole?
Guacamole is a dip made of avocados, lime, and other fresh ingredients. I like to serve it with tortilla chips or next to my 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 found a few secrets for making the very best guacamole at home and based on what our friends say when we make it for them, we have a winner!
Guacamole Recipe Ingredients
First, let’s talk about the ingredients. You only need six main ingredients for classic and authentic guacamole!
- Avocados (I’ve shared our best tips for choosing perfect avocados below)
- Onions that we “de-flame” in a little hot water so that the raw onion flavor is not too overpowering
- Cilantro
- Fresh lime juice
- Jalapeno or serrano pepper add some spice. I like to remove the seeds and membrane before mincing and adding to the bowl, but for spicy guacamole, leave them in.
- Salt
I do like adding two additional ingredients to our guacamole. First, I add chopped tomatoes. I know some recipes call for mixing salsa into guacamole, but for a cleaner flavor, simply chopped tomatoes will do it. We especially love adding tomatoes when they are in season.
Second, we add a tiny bit of ground cumin. It’s a little smokey, but mostly, the cumin just brings everything together and punches up the flavor.
How to Choose 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 yield and feels firm, it needs a day or two. If it gives easily, it’s probably overripe and possible brown inside.
- Check under the stem. Use your fingers to pull the stem at the top of the avocado gently. 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 that I’d like to admit. If you have some left over in your kitchen, consider making our guacamole-inspired pasta, this protein-packed avocado toast or try mixing avocado into egg salad.
Tips for Making the Best Guacamole
For the best guacamole, we try not to over mash or puree the avocados. We are looking for a chunky dip, not a completely smooth one. I gently mash things together with a fork, which helps to leave some texture.
As I mentioned above, we add onions to guacamole. You can add them raw or since raw onions can be overpowering, de-flame them. To do this, add diced onion to a bowl of warm water for 5 to 10 minutes. After 5 to 10 minutes, the raw onion flavor calms down, but you’re still left with crisp onions. Try this method for fresh salsas, as well.
If you are running low in ingredients, guacamole is amazing when you only use avocados, a pinch of salt, fresh lime, onion, and cilantro. (In fact, we’ve already shared our simple guacamole with you.)
What Our Readers are Saying
If you don’t believe that our recipe helps you make the best homemade guacamole, take a 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 recipe was very easy to follow and absolutely delicious!” – Megan
“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. – Adam and Joanne
Easy Guacamole (Our Favorite)
- PREP
For the best guacamole, use ripe avocados. You’ll know when an avocado is ripe when it gives just slightly when squeezed. Keep unripe avocados at room temperature until they are ready. For more about how to buy, cut and store avocados see our tutorial.
For spicy guacamole, leave the seeds and membrane in the peppers and add to taste.
Makes approximately 6 servings
You Will Need
1/4 cup finely minced onion
3 ripe Haas avocados
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lime juice (or lemon juice)
1 large Plum or Roma tomato, deseeded and diced
1/4 cup cilantro leaves and tender stems, chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin, optional
1/2 teaspoon salt, or more to taste
1 to 2 teaspoons minced jalapeño or serrano pepper, with seeds and membrane removed, optional
Directions
Add diced onion to a small bowl then cover with warm water, set aside for 5 minutes then drain. This “de-flames” the onions, making them less intense.
Cut avocados in half, lengthwise and remove the pit. Scoop out the flesh and add to a bowl.
Add lime juice then use a fork to mash until creamy, but still chunky.
Stir in the tomato, cilantro, cumin, drained de-flamed onions, salt, and diced peppers (if using).
Taste the guacamole and adjust with additional salt, peppers, or lime juice. Serve immediately or cover with plastic wrap by pushing the plastic wrap down onto the guacamole and refrigerate up to one day.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Nutrition facts: The nutrition facts provided below are estimates. We have used the USDA Supertracker recipe calculator to calculate approximate values.
If you make this recipe, snap a photo and hashtag it #inspiredtaste — We love to see your creations on Instagram and Facebook! Find us: @inspiredtaste
Nutrition Per Serving: Serving Size 1/6 of recipe / Calories 119 / Protein 2 g / Carbohydrate 8 g / Dietary Fiber 5 g / Total Sugars 2 g / Total Fat 10 g / Saturated Fat 1 g / Cholesterol 0 mg
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I’ve been searching high & low for that exact HAND held citrus squeezer!! Can you tell me the correct name/label of it and where I can find such a gadget??
Hi Terri, that is our handy dandy citrus reamer. We don’t remember where we bought it but they are available at almost any kitchen store or online.
I agree with you
Made this as per recipe with tomato and cumin but added a dash of a cayenne and garlic powder and only 1/2 tsp. salt. Easy and delicous.
just made this for mothers day and its a hit! Only bad thing about it is that it’s almost gone!!!
Excellent recipe!!
This was first time making guacamole. This is recipe is so simple & tasty.
Made it for family party, huge hit! We’ve already made it 2 times after the party! I only made 1 change & that was just a preference thing. I didn’t use cilantro.
Thank you so much for this recipe!! ?
As I find avocado a bit bland, I found 1 tsp. salt (kosher) was definitely needed. Also garlic. I grated a big fat clove and also put in 1 tsp. of Cumin. I prefer tomato in my guac so I finely chopped one good sized Roma. It was delicious! Guac is so easy to make and now there’a absolutely NO excuse not to enjoy it!!
I made some… with some minced roasted garlic, hit of cayenne, hit of cumin, cilantro, some red bell pepper powder,, lemon juice..was great… better the next day
I tried this recipe, it was a little bland so, I used red onions instead of white or yellow ones. I also added some minced garlic which really improved the taste. I will be making this again!!!
I absolutely love this recipe. My friends rave over my guacomole when they come over to the house. Only thing I did differently was add 1/4 cup of red onions to this recipe. I like the flavor of combining both brown and red onions.
So glad you liked it!
My roommates make guacamole ALL the time, so our kitchen always smells of fresh avocados, limes, lemons, and garlic salt! You can never go wrong with a delicious homemade guacamole. It always disappears by the end of a day, but realistically, at least in a few hours!
Looks like you have some neat recipes. I will try your guac recipe later.Thanks, Viv
My very first time making this recipe. Actually my first time ever eating a guacamole! I followed the recipe exactly and I LOVE IT! Thanks for introducing me to new fresh and delicious food.