How to Make Guacamole

Guacamole is one healthy side dish that is hard to find in good form at a local grocery store. Believe it or not, some brands of prepackaged guacamole don't even contain avocados.

It takes about 3 minutes to whip up a super healthy and tasty side of guacamole. All you need are ripe avocados, a red onion, half a lemon, and sea salt.

Here's how we do it...

Start by cutting a ripe avocado in half, taking the seed out, then cutting through the creamy flesh vertically and horizontally to create even chunks, just like this:

Use a spoon to scoop out avocado chunks and deposit them into a bowl.

Next, add some finely chopped red onion - we usually a good couple of tablespoons per avocado.

Drizzle fresh lemon juice - enough to just touch all avocado chunks - and add a pinch of sea salt (about a quarter teaspoon per avocado works well for us).

Now use a fork to mash things up until you reach your desired consistency. We like our guacamole chunky, so just a few gentle folds are all we need to make this:

The lemon juice adds freshness to each mouthful, while the red onion bits impart sweetness and a bit of welcome texture. And of course, a bit of sea salt makes everything more flavorful.

As with most dishes, you can add any number of ingredients to guacamole to make it a new experience each time. Chives or green onions combine nicely with creamy avocado, as do cilantro and parsley.

Sometimes, we don't mash with a fork at all, leave everything in chunks, and add fresh, ripe mango and tomato chunks to the mix for a filling salsa-like guacamole.

Of course, it's best to enjoy guacamole with fresh vegetables like carrots, celery, and cucumber, but every once in a while, as a special treat, we have ours with the healthiest corn chips we can find at our local grocery store. Not a bad "cheat" in my book - I hope you agree.

If you're worried about the fat content of avocados, please know that all of the fatty acids in avocados are good for your health, and most importantly, are easily digested by and assimilated into your body.

Avocados are rich in vitamin E, vitamin C, and magnesium. They're also an excellent source of lutein and carotenoids, nutrients that are essential to maintaining healthy vision.

One final note for now: because avocados are low in sugar, they're an excellent food choice for type 1 or type 2 diabetics.

If you have any favorite guacamole-making ideas that you'd like to share with our community, please use the comments section below. Thank you.

Update on April 11, 2011

These days, I've been mincing purple onion a lot finer than it's shown above. I've also been adding finely minced garlic, about one small clove for every avocado.

A sample of my latest batch with these modifications, sans cilantro:

Our boys wolf this down with baked corn or rice chips - a great way to nourish the body with plenty of healthy fatty acids.