This post was sponsored by the Hass Avocado Board as part of an Influencer Activation for Influence Central and all opinions expressed in my post are my own.
I love avocados with an almost unnatural love. It didn’t used to be this way. I grew up under the impression that avocados were gross – almost evil.
Not that I ever tasted them, I just thought they looked gross.
Then I had baby number one, and read that avocados made a great first baby food, so I bought a few to mash up for him.
But I still couldn’t bring myself to taste one until baby number two was going through the same phase. She loved them, and I finally decided to get brave and try a bite for myself.
I was instantly hooked, but tried to downplay it because I didn’t want to admit that all these years, all those times I’d said I didn’t like avocados, I just hadn’t ever tried them.
That first bite of avocado was almost four years ago, and since then, they’ve grown to be a fairly big part of my diet.
At first, it was just adding them to tacos, salads, and salsa, or even eating them with a spoon.
Then it got more serious. That one time I ran out of mayonnaise and didn’t feel like making more? Mashed avocado. And suddenly, I had a spread that was not just creamy, but nutrient dense to boot!
That’s when I went from hooked to an almost unnatural love.
But there are SO many ways to use them!
Avocado contributes nearly 20 vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients, making it a good choice to help meet nutrient needs.
Use Mashed avocado in place of mayonnaise in tuna salad, chicken salad, or on sandwiches. Several weeks ago, I mashed half and avocado into my can of (drained) tuna, and haven’t looked back since! It was the best tuna salad I’ve ever had, and it was completely guilt-free. Mashed avocado is perfect in other meat-based salads, and as a sandwich spread too. We even use it in dairy-free tortilla pinwheels for the kids!
Avocados contain naturally good monounsaturated fat and are cholesterol free. Naturally good fats are an important part of a healthy diet.
Mash avocado with some lemon juice to make a simple sour cream substitution. My husband loved to top his tacos with sour cream, I love to top my baked potatoes with sour cream. However, neither of us love the heavy dairy aspect of sour cream. Instead, we’ve started mashing avocado with some lemon juice for a tangy, creamy, sour cream substitute!
Use avocado in place of nut butter in smoothies to make your smoothie creamy, filling, and nutrient dense. If you know me, you know that I’m fanatical about getting my daily dose of green, and half an avocado not only gets me there, it fills me up with healthy fat.
Use mashed avocado in place of butter for your eggs and toast breakfast. You’ve probably heard of avocado toast, but have you tried topping it with a fried egg? Heaven!
Make guacamole your go-to chip dip instead of nacho cheese or ranch dip. It’s still creamy and satisfying, with the added bonus of being nutrient dense, without being calorie dense.
Replace mashed avocado for mayonnaise in homemade salad dressing! As I mentioned earlier, I sometimes get lazy about making mayonnaise, and since discovering how easily I can substitute mashed avocado in so many things, those incidents are getting more and more frequent, and I don’t even feel bad about it. Try making avocado-lime ranch dressing, and making it even more avocado-y by replacing the mayo with avocado!
These six healthy fat substitutions are such an easy way to make your diet more healthy, and it’s not just the nutrients in the avocados themselves. Did you know? Avocados act as a “nutrient booster” by helping the body to better absorb fat-soluble nutrients, such as alpha- and beta-carotene and lutein, from foods that are eaten with the fruit.
I don’t know about you, but I’m always looking fro quick hacks to make my meals healthier, and avocados fit the bill perfectly!
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Lisa Lind says
Hi Elise,
I love this article on Avocados. I am Vegan and I either use Vegan Mayo or Avocado on everything. My challenge is, I can’t usually eat the whole avocado, so I try to keep the other half until the next day, but usually end up throwing it out because it gets brown and icky. I’ve tried putting press-n-seal wrap on it, carefully trying to get all the air out, i’ve tried putting lemon juice on it 1st before I do this and all sorts of other ways, but they don’t work very well. What’s the best way to preserve opened and unopened avocados? Also,
if you use avocado in a salad of some kind, doesn’t it go bad that day? – unlike if you use mayo – it will keep a few days. Thanks!
Elise says
To your first question, I’ve found the best way to keep cut avocados from browning is to seal the air out with, well, I use butter, but I assume coconut oil, or another type of solid oil/shortening would work just as well. It just seals out the air to keep the fruit from oxidizing.
As for using it in salad or salad dressing, it does start to go brown within a day or so. With salad dressing, I usually am able to just scrape the thin brown layer off the top, with chicken or tuna salad, I’m pretty lucky with gauging how much we’ll need for a meal without having leftovers, so I don’t really know.
Hope that helps! 🙂