My family LOVES guacamole. My husband and I will gladly get table-side guacamole for $8 and then just eat it as lunch (sometimes we each get our own). But I really hated making guacamole at home. I didn’t like dulling my knives, or risking a cut, by slamming the blade into the avocado pit. It was a pain in the neck to get it that right consistency of chunk and mush combo with a big spoon. But I decided to keep at it. Mainly because I got some home-grown avocados from a Florida friend and then Kroger began selling them for 69 to 79 cents a piece. And I have now found the EASIEST way ever to make guacamole. It’s so easy, I’m making it about once a week.

Alton Brown said it best that you should never have a uni-tasker in your kitchen. So I started to look for tools I already had that would make my guacamole experience less of a pain. I came up with two. Here they are.

Yep, these two things make doing guacamole way easier. So here’s the recipe.

What you need:

• 4-5 avocados (if you have the big Florida ones, 1-2)
• 1 small “on the vine” tomato
• 1/3 onion (red or sweet)
• 1/2 green pepper
• 1-2 jalapeño peppers
• 1 lime (I use the juice from the whole lime)
• Cilantro (if desired)
• Sea salt and pepper to taste

Note, You won’t see cilantro in the image above because it’s too much of a pain to wash, dry and chop for me. I love it in restaurant guacamole, but am too lazy to do it in my homemade guac. I don’t think I’m missing much.

Chop the onion, peppers, and tomato first and set aside. I’ve been told to squeeze the lime juice into the onion to pickle it prior to putting it into the mashed avocado. I really don’t see a big difference in taste, but there’s a tip for you.

Slice around the entire avocado and then twist to open it so you have two halves. Use the ice cream scoop to scoop out the pit.

Then, use the ice cream scoop to scoop out the avocado. If you’re careful, you get a really pretty avocado half and the

skin looks good too.

Once you have all the avocados out of the skin, put them in a bowl and get ready to mash.

You don’t want to mash these much. I find just putting the masher through each piece once or twice gives me the consistency I like. But do it however you prefer. You can see that I leave mine pretty chunky.

When you stir all the veggies in, it will get a bit more mushed, so keep that in mind. After you’ve mashed it, add in your other veggies and lime juice. Then sea salt and pepper to taste. And yes, you do need to taste it multiple times to make sure it’s ok.

And this is how the guacamole looks after it’s mixed all together. You can see that it does end up a bit less chunky with all the stirring. As for eating, this makes a pretty large helping. Guacamole does not refrigerate well. It is still edible the next day, but it gets brown. So plan on eating it all at once. You can also divide this recipe in half and have enough for sides.