Avocado Recipes
USA: Honey Vinegar & Avocado Oil
Mead, a drink made by fermenting honey in water, can quickly turn to vinegar if you’re not careful. But that’s OK because honey vinegar is delicious. Its acute flavors benefit from the smoothness of avocado oil—which doesn’t taste like avocados, though it’s definitely buttery. This pairing works well in savory grain bowls or on its own for dunking crusty bread.
Our favorite bottles:
Katz Late Harvest Viognier Honey Vinegar, $11 at store .katzfarm.com
La Tourangelle Avocado Oil, $9.50 at amazon.com
Use them in: Persimmon-and- endive salad
Spicy Avocado and Pea Tea Sandwiches
These vegetarian sandwiches from F&W’s Ben Mims feature avocado two ways—mashed and in a chunky salad. Both are tossed with a tangy chile-herb dressing.
Hearts of Palm and Avocado Salad
This Brazilian-style salad might taste a bit rich—with creamy avocado and a mayonnaise dressing—but it’s really quite healthy.
Avocado Chimichurri
Inspired by chimichurri, a classic Argentinean herb sauce for grilled meats, this chunky avocado salsa is seasoned with lots of parsley and oregano.
Avocado Hollandaise
Luscious, rich and lemony hollandaise gets completely re-imagined here in a light, supremely creamy puree of avocado, lemon juice and olive oil.
Avocado Toasts with Oaxacan Sesame Sauce
Food writer and stylist Karen Gillingham makes this spicy, fragrant sauce inspired by a version she discovered at a hole-in-the-wall café in Mexico. She likes spooning it over toasts topped with mashed avocado, but it’s also great with eggs and grilled fish.
Dips Guaranteed to Keep Everyone Happy
Chances are you’re eating outdoors on Labor Day. That means you definitely need dips and spreads to share at your backyard barbecue or picnic. Fortunately we're serving up incredible recipes like caramelized onion dip, spicy black bean dip with cotija cheese and easy hummus with tahini.
Avocado Pissaladière
This pizza-like tart, pissaladière, is a specialty of Nice, France. The traditional toppings include caramelized onions, anchovies and olives but here, creamy slices of avocado are added as well. Using store-bought pizza dough makes quick work of the crust.
Avocado-and-Shrimp Salad with Red Goddess Dressing
Chef Jonathan Waxman makes his tangy goddess dressing red instead of the classic green, using red bell peppers for color and flavor.
Avocado-Green Pea Salsa
This unusual, colorful salsa from chef Jose Enrique combines green peas and creamy diced avocado with a hit of lime. It’s outstanding with baked rice dishes like arroz con pollo.
Avocado, Feta and Cherry Tomato Salsa Flatbreads
Chef Charlie Hallowell—a Chez Panisse alum—makes the dough for his colorful flatbreads, topping them with a fresh tomato salsa instead of sauce. Store-bought pizza dough works perfectly well, too.
Avocado Tartare
This clever recipe treats avocados much like steak tartare, dicing them very fine and tossing them with capers, onion, mustard and Worcestershire sauce.
Avocado-Tarragon Dressing
This multipurpose dressing makes a perfect dip for crudités and a great go-with for grilled steak, or swap it for the mayonnaise in chicken salad.
Pink-Grapefruit-and-Avocado Salad
This pretty salad from the iconic Alice Waters is best in the winter, when grapefruit is at its prime.
Chunky Guacamole
Mexico City native Richard Sandoval makes his guacamole in a volcanic-rock molcajete (mortar and pestle) and serves it with hot, superthin corn tortilla chips and two kinds of salsa: avocado-and-tomatillo and fresh tomato.
Chilled Avocado Soup Topped with Crab
Here is one ingenious way to use Grace Parisi's smoky guacamole: in a cool, summery soup.
Fresh Tuna Salad with Avocado
Nan McEvoy created this salad after falling in love with the incredible olive oil-poached tuna prepared by her friend, chef Paul Bertolli. McEvoy uses albacore tuna here, but any fresh tuna will do. In addition to spooning the salad into avocado halves, she also uses it as a sandwich filling and a topping for crostini.
Crab-and-Avocado Toasts
Gerard Craft grew up in Washington, DC, eating lots of Maryland blue crab. Here, he creates a very simple and delicious starter by tossing sweet crabmeat with fresh mint and lime juice, then spooning it over mashed avocado on toast. You can make the toasts or buy store-bought ones to save time.
Chicken-and-Avocado Soup with Fried Tortillas
Here's a silky soup that doesn';t rely on cream for its creamy texture; pureed avocados do the job nicely. It doesn't rely on long cooking for its full flavor, either—the soup's in the pot for less than ten minutes.
Roasted-Beet-and-Avocado Salad
A surprise ingredient—a puree of the squat Italian cipollini onion—thickens and sweetens the mustard dressing on this wintry salad of earthy roasted red beets and chunks of silky avocado.
Cumin-Glazed Ribs with Avocado-Pineapple Salsa
Cheese-Topped Guacamole
In this play on nachos, chef Gonzalo Martinez of Casa de Sierra Nevada tops a chunky guacamole with gooey melted cheese. Tip: Mild queso oaxaca is the best cheese for melting.
Avocado-and-Onion Salad
Since people in Cuba don't usually have ready access to salad greens, Lourdes Castro says, many will start a meal with this simple avocado salad instead. Cubans tend to use Florida avocados, which are widely available in the Caribbean.
Guacamole with Charred Jalape?o and Scallions
F&W's Grace Parisi invented this smoky guacamole.
King Crab and Avocado Shooters
Zapallar, the small Chilean beach town where the Huneeus's family villa is located, has a wonderful fish market where Valeria Huneeus buys excellent fresh crab. She loves tossing it with sweet and soft avocados, a little coconut milk and fresh ginger, then serving it in a glass, shooter-style, with a thick slice of avocado on top.
Curried Tofu-and-Avocado Dip with Rosemary Pita Chips
To create this tasty dip, Lee Anne Wong blends soft or silken tofu (which has an especially custardy texture) with high-potassium avocado and a little bit of low-fat sour cream and yogurt. For extra fiber, she serves the dip with raw vegetables and rosemary whole wheat pita chips.
Fried Chicken Tacos
“Right in Tijuana’s red-light district sits Kentucky Fried Buches, where cooks fry chicken necks, skin on, to fill soft corn tortillas. I can’t stop eating them,” says Andrew Zimmern. “At home, I fry skin-on chicken thighs until they’re supercrisp, then eat them with avocado-tomatillo salsa, my family’s favorite.”
Chilled Cucumber-Avocado Soup with Spicy Glazed Shrimp
Douglas Keane is such a fan of chilled soups that he puts at least one on his menu every season including winter. The combination of cucumber and red wine vinegar in this recipe reminds him of the wonderful Greek salads he had growing up outside of Detroit, Michigan, home to a huge Greek community.
Mexican Shrimp-and-Avocado Salad with Tortilla Chips
This recipe is loosely based on fattoush, a Middle Eastern salad in which toasted bread is moistened by other ingredients, like tomatoes and cucumbers. Here, tortilla chips soak up the delicious salad juices.
Chunky Guacamole with Cumin
Marcia Kiesel's take on everyone's favorite dip has subtle tartness, balanced heat and a creamy-chunky texture.
Bacon-Wrapped Hot Dogs with Avocado
The late-night hot dog spot Crif Dogs is locally famous for its franks. This one, which goes by the name The Chihuahua, is wrapped in bacon and topped with sour cream and avocado. It's also available at the adjoining cocktail lounge, PDT.
Avocado, Orange and Jicama Salad
Feta is a fun, briny addition to this salad's Mexican mix of jicama, avocado and cilantro.
Spicy Avocado-Cucumber Soup
This tangy, luscious soup is an excellent make-ahead dish: Simply puree everything except the garnish, then chill. For a milder version, scale back on the serrano.
Potatoes, Corn and Avocado with Horseradish Dressing
At Noma restaurant in Copenhagen, Garrett Weber-Gale tried a horseradish “snow,” and the flavor stuck with him. Here, he blends fresh horseradish with rice milk and lemon juice to make a creamy, dairy-free dressing for very simply cooked vegetables.
Avocado Crostini Two Ways
Cookbook author Katie Workman adds salty, briny anchovies to her parsley pesto for adult guests. For kids, she leaves the avocado crostini plain.
These delicious recipes include gooey cheese-topped guacamole and chilled avocado soup with crab.