The Best 5 Minute Guacamole

Deliciously tangy and smooth, this recipe for the well-loved classic guacamole takes only 5 short minutes to make!

Is there anything more delicious in this world than a crispy salted tortilla chip loaded up with a generous scoop of creamy, tangy and downright gorgeous guacamole?!

This classic Mexican dip packs a delicious punch that is also super healthy and extremely quick to make! This is why you’ll find me creating batches of it on a regular basis to feed my hungry troupe at home. It makes a fantastic light lunch but also stands up well at parties for friends and family to indulge in.

Guacamole was first documented as early as 1697 by English explorers visiting Central America, as a dish made by mashing together avocados, sugar and lime juice. This basic combination of ingredients has evolved over the centuries into the delicious dip that we all know and love the world over!

Avocados for the win!

Avocados naturally form the basis of any decent guacamole. These pear-shaped fruits are naturally rich in many nutrients including vitamin E and monounsaturated fats – which have been found to protect against high blood pressure and heart disease. A true wonder food!

Once a rarity on the supermarket shelves of Northwest Europe, avocados are thankfully very widely available these days in shops. A key aspect to making your perfect 5 minute guacamole is ensuring the avocados are perfectly ripe. If they’re too firm, then won’t mash together well and you’ll lose that beautiful creaminess that a guacamole needs.

You know when an avocado is perfectly ripe when it ‘gives’ a bit when pressing on it’s dark, bumpy skin. Another telltale sign of ripeness is when the little ‘nib’ from the stem on top comes away easily when pushed aside, revealing a slightly darkened colour underneath.

The ‘Avocado Hand’ – a 21st Century Curse!

One important thing to remember when preparing your 5 minute guacamole is not to become another victim of that fearsome 21st-century plague – the ‘avocado hand’! A well-known presentation in the ER, this is where a person holds half an avocado in one hand and tries to remove the stone with a sharp knife held in the other hand. They whack down hard on the stone and miss it entirely, whilst stabbing their own palm in the process. Ouch!!

Please don’t let this happen to you! By far the best way to remove an avocado stone quickly and easily is to slice the fruit in half, place one half a chopping board stoneside up, then whack down hard in the centre of the stone with a sharp knife. The knife will become stuck in the stone and all you need to do is twist and lift it up to remove the stone safely and easily. If you happen to miss the avocado stone or that will happen is that your knife lands in the chopping board and not in your own delicate flesh!

To make the best 5 minute guacamole, a few other essential ingredients are needed.

Tomatoes are another key element in your guacamole. Pretty much any variety of tomato is fine to use but if possible, use cherry or baby plum tomatoes. These varieties both tend to be firmer and less watery than larger tomatoes. They also have a sweeter more delicate flavour which I think pairs beautifully with the finished dip. Cherry tomatoes work well in a huge variety of recipes which means I’m a big fan. Check out my 10 Minute Cherry Tomato and Basil Spaghetti if you get the chance – so quick and so yummy!

So it goes without saying that tomatoes are a super delicious and super healthy addition to sooo many types of savoury dish! They contain a fantastic array of different essential nutrients including the all-important Vitamin C. As they can be eaten raw or just lightly cooked they are perfect for many different types of quick recipe. As I’m all about quick cooking, this means the humble tomato is centre stage in many of my creations.

Onions, onions, onions!

Like tomatoes, onions form the basis of a so many different types of savoury recipe. Red onions are especially brilliant as they’re sweeter and milder than some other onion varieties, and the beautiful deep purple colour adds a fantastic pop of colour to your guacamole. They add a beautiful, crunch and zing that pairs so well with the creamy, sweetness of the avocado. Only a small amount is needed though -this guacamole recipe calls for just one small red onion. Too much and the flavour would be overpowering. So as with many things in life, the key is moderation!

Fantastic flavourings

The other key ingredients in this best 5 minute guacamole work together in harmony to make the final dip really sing! Coriander – a.k.a cilantro – is the quintessential herb used in a huge variety of Mexican dishes. It adds a gorgeously rich, almost ‘floral’ flavour to the guacamole and I can’t get enough of it! However, some people seem to find the flavour to be unpleasant. Some friends tell me that to them, it tastes like soap – which I find utterly bizarre! But it goes without saying, if you aren’t coriander fans in your household, you can feel free to leave out this particular ingredient. You’ll still end up with a super-tasty dip at the end.

Lime juice adds the all-important tangy taste to your 5 minute guacamole and is yet another ingredient so classic and ubiquitous with Mexican faire. Some people like the sour taste of lime juice more than others, so it’s totally fine to ‘add to taste’. I’m a huge fan so I’ve recommended using the juice from one whole lime in this guacamole recipe, however a little less (or more!) is fine too, if that floats your boat!

Salt is another ingredient that adds some much needed flavour to your guacamole. Again, a little more or a little less is totally fine – whatever pleases your particular tastebuds. But omitting the salt entirely means the flavour would fall rather flat, so don’t feel guilty about adding a generous pinch!

Red chilli is the final ingredient in this best 5 minute guacamole recipe. And yes, you’ve guessed it… this is entirely optional! Some people just hate anything spicy so you absolutely don’t have to add it if you don’t want to. Other people are huge chilli fans so although this recipe calls for adding just one, feel free to pop in 2 or 3 to really pack a punch if you’d like to. Feeling hot, hot, hot !!

Blending Blissfully

As with so many of my quick recipes, this 5 minute guacamole calls for an essential bit of kit… The food processor! Food processors (or blenders) a fantastic things when it comes to creating so many different types of quick recipe including pates, soups and dips. They save you valuable time that you’d otherwise be spending laboriously and repetitively chopping up stuff by hand. I use mine on a near daily basis!

If you fancy, check out some of my other recipes which would not be possible in such a short space of time without my beloved food processor; such as my 5 Minute Dairy-Free Smoked Salmon Pate and my 5 Minute Smoked Mackerel and Beetroot Pate. Both incredibly quick and perfect for light meals!

Ok, so I will admit that sometimes, there is no substitute for doing things by hand. In this five minute guacamole recipe, nearly all of of the ingredients are blitzed beautifully by the food processor but you will still need to mash up the avocado by hand, using a fork. I find if you put the avocado in a food processor, it ends up being chopped into pieces rather than creating a lovely smooth texture. The good news though is that mashing the avacado by hand generally only takes about 20 seconds, so not too much of your valuable time will be used up on this particular step.

So if you don’t have one already, I fully recommend investing in a decent food processor to make cooking (and indeed your life) sooo much easier!

A final word on what to serve your 5 minute guacamole with! You can’t beat the classic tortilla chip and this is what I would usually recommend. Dunk it in and scoop out that creamy, green deliciousness sitting atop its satisfyingly crunchy base, mmm. If you’d prefer something a bit more filling (and perhaps a little less salty), some freshly baked crusty bread works well. I’m rather partial to breaking off hunks of an oven-fresh baguette and spreading the guacamole on top. Soooo good!