When it comes to tasty guacamole, rich avocados provide the essential rich mouthful in guacamole while the other ingredients serve as the sauce’s foundation. Ingredients like onions, chili, lime (along with salt and optional cilantro) provide a flavor platform that’s comparable to a soffrito.
These are the ingredients we use in our four ingredient guacamole recipe:
Ingredient quantities are detailed in the printable recipe card below.
We know what you’re thinking – salt and cilantro bring the ingredient count over four. To us, salt is like water – everybody has it and it’s practically as ubiquitous as water. As for cilantro, it’s a finishing herb that’s totally optional. Our recipe – our rules.
Avocado
To make great guacamole, you need one non-negotiable item and that ingredient is ripe avocados.
To those who don’t use the black skinned fruit every day, ripeness can be a bit of a mystery. But don’t worry – gauging avocado ripeness is actually easy. Just feel the bottom of the fruit. If you press your fingers and the resistance feels like putty, the avocado is ripe.
Finding ripe avocados can be a bit of a challenge depending on the season and where you live. If that’s the case, it’s best to leave avocados out in a sunny space in or near your kitchen for 5 to 7 days.
Pro Tip
We’ve found that ripe hass avocados keep in the refrigerator for up to one week or on the counter for three days.
Chili Pepper
You can use any variety of fresh green Mexican chilis so long as they bring a little heat. We use serrano peppers because of their intense piquancy and bright, biting flavor.
Pro Tip
Wear a rubber glove on your non knife hand when you mince serrano peppers. This will prevent you from getting too much capsaicin on your hands and burning your eyes.
Lime Juice
The goal is for guacamole is for it to have an acidic zip. Lime provides that zip.
Our recipe starts its flavor base with half of a lime (about 1/4 oz or 1/2 a tablespoon of lime juice). You may want to add more lime juice to the finished guacamole depending on the size of your lime.
Onion
A small amount of minced onion brings additional bite and a slight vegetal crunch to guacamole. A quarter cup of onion should be good for two to three medium avocados.
