The Best & Worst Ways to Use Frozen Avocado

Photo: Welch's

Frozen avocados broke onto the scene last year and, since people are avo-obsessed, they started to take off. What millennial wouldn't want avocados always stocked in their kitchen? We love avocados. The average American eats 7.75 pounds of avocado per year (up from 1 pound in 1990). Avocados are antioxidant-packed, can help you lose weight and just plain taste delicious (learn more about avocado nutrition and health benefits).

Why buy frozen avocado? It's nice to always have avocado on hand if you're a fan of green smoothies and avocado toast. Plus, we've all purchased a fresh avocado and—despite our best efforts to select a perfectly ripe one—cut into a brownish, bruised fruit. Frozen avocado eliminates the risk of selecting a less-than-perfect avocado, and it's a way to always make sure you have some on hand.

Just like with other frozen produce, frozen avocado can't stand in for fresh every time. We're all for keeping frozen fruit on hand for smoothies, and frozen vegetables (like peas or spinach) to toss into soups or stir-fries, but they don't always work the same in baked goods or salads. To see how and if frozen avocados held up, we bought a couple bags and tested them out. Turns out we like them some ways and wouldn't recommend them in other culinary applications. We also did a little cost comparison to find out if they're a more budget-friendly option, and we dug into the nutrition. Here's what we found.

Best ways to use frozen avocado

Pictured recipe: Jason Mraz's Avocado Green Smoothie

In a smoothie

This feels like the most obvious way to use frozen avocado, and we found it tasted great. Adding avocado to smoothies is a nice way to boost the healthy fat and fiber content. It also helps make your smoothies creamy and dreamy. The frozen avocado was a great addition to green smoothies. No surprise here. If you're using all frozen produce, you may need to add a little more liquid to blend your smoothie. Frozen avocado also works great in milkshakes.

Try it: Avocado Smoothie Recipes

On toast

On toast by itself, this product tastes a little sour from the citric acid used as a preservative (more on that below). But mashed up with an egg and some Sriracha on top? We barely noticed a difference between fresh and thawed frozen. We say go for the thawed frozen avocado mashed on a sandwich or on toast with toppings. Get all our best healthy avocado toast recipes.

In guacamole

Mashed up with some lime juice and salt and scooped up with chips was a perfectly palatable way to use our thawed frozen avocado. Again, just like with toast-any frozen avocado taste or texture difference will be masked when the guacamole has a lot going on. Throw in some cheese, tomatoes, roasted garlic or onion. One food editor found his guacamole was just slightly watery, but still enjoyable, when he used frozen avocado.

Worst ways to use frozen avocado

On top of a salad or grain bowl

We found that thawing the chunks and using them to jazz up a salad or grain bowl just didn't work. Between the slight texture difference and the fact that they were standing on their own (not blended into anything), frozen just didn't cut it.

Best tips for thawing frozen avocado

While the bag has instructions for how to microwave, we found the best way was to let them thaw on the counter. Microwaving the avocado chunks just risks them getting too warm and ruining the texture. They only need to thaw at room temperature for about an hour (we found even less time works too sometimes). Welch's recommends serving them slightly frozen for best flavor and texture.

One other tip? Make sure your bag is sealed tight. While this product comes in resealable bags, you may want to add a bag clip or rubber band to make sure it's closed. Our bag opened up on us in the freezer (which may have been user error) and this led to some freezer-burned chunks.

Will frozen avocado save you money?

A 32-ounce bag of Welch's frozen avocado retails for around $11-12. One fresh avocado usually costs $1-2.

You get 3-5 ounces of flesh-let's call it 4 oz.-per whole avocado (we weighed multiple avocados after removing the pit and the skin).

You would have to buy about 8 avocados to get one bag's worth of frozen avocado. That would mean you'd spend $8-16 (again, this is variable depending on where you live and if avocados are on sale) to buy the same amount fresh, so the bag seems like a good deal. Especially considering that sometimes you buy an avocado, and despite your best efforts to pick a good one it's yucky inside, or there are literally no ripe avocados at the store and you need one today! Or you may only want to use half an avocado and the other half goes to waste before you get to eat it.

There are also 10-ounce bags for sale, and the smaller bag doesn't deliver quite the same value (it's about $5). It may be worth trying a smaller bag to see how you like the product before you commit to a bigger bag, though.

Frozen avocado nutrition

There is no added salt or sugar so this product delivers the same nutrition as fresh. The ingredients are avocados, citric acid and ascorbic acid. Ascorbic acid is vitamin C and helps maintain color and prevent spoilage. Citric acid also helps preserve color and is considered safe by both the FDA and CSPI.

A 1/4-cup serving of frozen avocado chunks has 50 calories, 4.5 grams fat, 2 grams fiber and 1 gram protein.

Bottom line

This product is a great addition to your freezer if you're a smoothie junkie or love avocado toast. It also works well for last-minute guacamole, so having a bag on hand means you're always ready for a party (just add chips). Just don't microwave it or expect it to be a star ingredient for your salads.

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