Speed Up Avocado Prep For Guacamole With A Tool Collecting Dust In Your Drawer

There's a very good chance you already own this tool — in fact it's probably buried in a drawer somewhere, tangled up in whisks, garlic presses, and spatulas. But it's high time to bring it back into your rotation, because this single-purpose utensil (at least by its namesake) is actually the perfect guacamole prepping gadget. We are, if you hadn't already guessed, talking about the humble potato masher.

Lose the flimsy fork, because a potato masher can do in five seconds what would otherwise cost you a few minutes (and a sore wrist). All you have to do is drop peeled and pitted avocados into a bowl and give them some strong presses with a potato masher, and just like that you have creamy, chunky, avocado perfection. Don't go overboard, unless you're trying to make baby food, keep some texture in there by using the curved wires of the masher to control your movement until you have found the sweet spot.

It's a tactic that not only saves you time mashing, it saves you time cleaning: less avocado bits flying around the room as you get overly aggressive with a fork, plus the bowl is more likely to stay in place. The masher is literally designed to mash, its broad base can keep the bowl grounded as you work. And it washes up fast too, no blenders to take apart, just a quick rinse and you can get back to assembling the rest of your dip.

Using a potato masher for guac is just the beginning of its potential — the same move could speed up breakfast, lunch, and snack prep in much the same way. Avocado toast is way faster, you could even mash the avocado right onto your toast with way more satisfying ease than a fork could ever achieve. And if you're doing your weekly ingredient prepping for salads and bowls, like a colorful avocado and salmon poke bowl, simply mash three or four avocados at once, stir them in an airtight container, and portion them out as and when you need. Just mash, season, and then forget about it until it's time to eat.

So clearly, that random little tool that you only bring out once a year to make a big portion of mashed potatoes might be worth fishing out more often. It may even be time to move it from the drawer to somewhere where the action is. You'll thank us for it.