Avocado has three main uses: the first is avocado toast; the second is guacamole; the third is being held aloft as a totem for why millennials will never be able to afford their own homes. This is all rather unfair. The sheer number of air miles that it takes to reach your plate is often so vast that an avocado should be a treat. Thoughtlessly slapping one on a piece of toast simply won’t cut it. Here are some more distinctive uses for this ingredient.
Grilled peach and avocado salad
For the most part, avocado is best deployed as an addition to an existing dish. This makes it the ideal salad accompaniment, and by far the most summery combination I have seen is this grilled peach and avocado salad, as submitted by ColonialCravings in a Guardian Readers’ Recipe Swap. Throw in some torn-up mozzarella and slices of prosciutto, and you have the closest you’re likely to get to a foreign holiday this year.
Kohlrabi and avocado salad
Just as delicious, and just as “Instagrammable”, is Claire Ptak’s kohlrabi and avocado salad. The kohlrabi is one of the all-time greatest underrated salad ingredients, and its clean flavour instantly cuts through the sliminess of the avocado.
Avocado with curried prawns and lime
In another time, of course, avocado was the most exotic dish on the menu. Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipe for avocado with curried prawns and lime is a knowing nod to this era. It is half an avocado on a plate, albeit topped with a very thoughtful array of ingredients. Make it and pretend it’s the 1970s again.
Avocado with crab and mustard mayonnaise
Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering how Sylvia Plath liked to eat her avocados. Well, fear not, because Kate Young set out to recreate the avocado dish that Plath described in The Bell Jar. It’s another half-avocado-on-a-plate job, although here it’s topped with fresh crab meat and a homemade mustardy mayonnaise. Please ignore the fact that, in the book, this dish was responsible for a bout of food poisoning.
Horseradish latkes with avocado, gravadlax and poached egg
The real star of Cassie Best’s horseradish latkes with avocado, gravadlax and poached egg is the latke. This is the point from which you build a recipe outwards. But try to imagine what a miserable chore it would be to eat without the creaminess of the accompanying avocado. It doesn’t bear thinking about.
Avocado pastry quiche
Jamie Oliver’s avocado pastry quiche is a bit of an outlier since you cook the avocado. Stranger still, it is used as the fat in the quiche’s pastry. You mash an avocado, then fold in flour and water and that’s your dough. The rest of it is just a regular quiche, but the pastry is revolutionary.
Chicken avocado soup
The avocado in The Spruce Eats’s chicken avocado soup doesn’t quite count as cooked, because you tip it in raw at the end and let it reach room temperature, but don’t let that deter you. This Mexican dish, thick with chicken and alive with coriander and lime juice, is light enough to count as a summer dish. If you need to bulk it out, add a little cooked rice or some boiled eggs.
No-bake avocado lime cheesecake
Let’s not devote ourselves entirely to savoury food. Avocado is a fruit, and fruits make very good desserts. Chef Sheilla’s recipe for no-bake avocado lime cheesecake is the perfect place to begin. The avocado doesn’t necessarily add much in terms of flavour here, because the punchiness of the lime drowns it out. But don’t leave it out, either, because what it lacks in flavour it more than makes up for in texture.
Chocolate avocado peanut butter pudding
Minimalist Baker’s recipe for chocolate avocado peanut butter pudding sounds less like a recipe and more a five-ingredient shopping list. And, in fairness, there isn’t much more to it than the title suggests: throw everything into a blender with a banana, then tip it into a glass and you’re done. But, for something so relatively healthy, it is delicious.
Avocado ice-cream
And finally, avocado ice-cream, the best recipe here. Avocado already has the distinction of tasting like half-melted ice-cream, so it should come as no surprise that it can be used to make delicious, vegan, paleo ice-cream. As Feel Good Foodie states, you don’t even need an ice-cream maker. Just blend the ingredients, freeze for four hours and bingo.
