Getting brunch with your friends can be expensive, but for U.S. consumers, one trendy dish is well worth the cost: avocado toast.
Americans were spending nearly $900,000 per month for avocado toast at restaurants in 2017, according to data from Square. That habit has drawn ire from some, with one Australian millionaire going so far as to say spending on avocado toast is the reason millennials can’t afford homes.
With avocado prices on the rise, buying your own bread and avocados can be far cheaper than eating out.
The trick is, it’s hard to buy the fruit at it’s peak. With 62.5 million tons of food wasted in the U.S. every year, it helps to know how to choose a good one.
To save money and pick perfect avocados at the store, there are only a handful of tricks you need to know, says Francesco Brachetti, the CEO of Avocaderia, a Brooklyn eatery that serves exclusively avocado dishes, and goes through 100 pounds of Mexican Hass avocados a day.
“There are a few basic rules when picking an avocado,” Brachetti, 30, says.
“Never pick an avocado that is too soft, because once you open it, it will be dark inside and there is nothing you can do about it. That avocado is not good,” Brachetti says.
Instead, the best method is to pick one that is hard and green, Brachetti suggests. Then, let it ripen at home over a few days.
“You can let it sit in your place for two to three days at 65 degrees, and [it] will ripen naturally,” he says.
When ready to eat, the avocado’s skin “will be tender but not too soft,” Food Network reports.
There are also a few hacks to speed up the ripening process. One strategy is putting the avocado with other fruit like bananas or apples, Brachetti says.
“Another good trick is to put it in newspaper and put it, for example, in your oven at night so that it stays in a warm and dark environment,” he suggests, adding that the oven should always be turned off. “This will accelerate the process one to two days compared to just leaving the avocado at room temperature.”
If you don’t have time to let an avocado ripen, pick based touch (tender) and on the color. Look for an avocado where the skin color is “turning brown, but it still has some shade of green,” Brachetti says.
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