Should You Refrigerate Avocados?

Avocados are the perfect building block for any summer meal. They’re packed with nutrients, provide healthy fat, contain vitamins that can help reduce stress, and can be turned into the ideal snack with just a little lemon juice, salt, and a slice of good bread. The problem with avocados is that they can go from ripe to bad very quickly. 

After being picked, avocados can ripen in anywhere from a few days to about a week (or more) depending on a variety of factors. The environment they’re stored in is particularly important: Avocados ripen faster when exposed to heat, so you want to store them correctly to avoid a rotting fruit. 

Putting them in the refrigerator may seem like the obvious choice, but it depends on how ripe your avocado is and how quickly you want to use it. 

If Your Avocado Isn’t Ripe

If your avocado is rock hard, the last place you want to put it is in the fridge — the chilly temperatures will slow ripening significantly. Here’s what you should do instead. 

Natural Ripening

To allow your avocados to ripen naturally, simply leave them on your kitchen counter. Keep an eye on the ripeness: A slight give when you place it in your palm and apply gentle pressure means it’s ready. You can also determine ripeness based on the darkening of the skin of the avocado. Finally, if the avocado is ripe, you should be able to easily remove the nub of the stem at the top of the fruit. (Avoid squeezing them, though — you don’t want to bruise the avocado flesh and cause brown spots.)

Speedy Ripening

If you have hard avocados and need them to ripen a bit faster, you’ll want to place them alongside some other fruits such as bananas, apples, or tomatoes. Like avocados, these fruits all produce ethylene gas, which triggers ripening. Grouping them together on your counter will make your avocado soften more quickly. 

You can also try putting your avocados in a paper bag and closing it to trap the ethylene gas inside, which will help the avocados ripen fast. Putting a ripe banana in the paper bag can speed things up even further. The paper bag method is best if you need ripe avocados in 24 hours. 

Popular Ripening Hacks

There are hacks you can use to get avocados soft even more quickly than that. Food & Wine tested two popular ones — using the microwave and an oven — and reported that while both methods softened the avocados, the flavor of the fruits left a lot to be desired. If you’re still tempted to try them yourselves, here’s how:

• Microwave Method No. 1: Cut an avocado in half, remove the pit, wrap it in microwave-safe plastic, and then nuke it for two minutes. Finally, plunge it into ice water before consuming.
• Microwave Method No. 2: Pierce a whole fruit all over with a fork and microwave for two minutes on high. Wait for it to cool before eating. 
• The Oven Method: Tightly wrap the avocado in foil and pop it in the oven at 200 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 to 30 minutes.

If Your Avocado Is Ripe

If you want to slow the ripening process or keep avocado pieces fresh, the fridge is your best bet. 

Whole Avocados

You can keep a whole avocado at peak ripeness in the fridge for as long as five days. The crisper drawer or your fridge’s upper shelves are the best places to keep it, and don’t wash it — moisture could lead to spoilage. Only wash the avocado right before you intend to eat it. 

Cut Avocados

There are several methods you can use to preserve cut avocados and prevent them from browning. One is to cover the unused part of the avocado in plastic wrap and pop it in the fridge.  Drizzling citrus juice on the avocado before wrapping it in plastic or putting it in an airtight container will also help prevent browning for a couple of days. 

How Not To Store Your Avocados

A popular Internet hack advocates for putting avocados in a bowl of water in the fridge, but that’s a very bad idea: Moisture encourages bacterial growth, and bacteria such as listeria on the avocado skin can actually seep into the fruit’s flesh if you leave it in water. 

Putting avocados in the freezer can be done, but it negatively affects the fruit’s texture — once thawed, it will be mushy. The best way to freeze your avocado may be to blend two avocados with a tablespoon of lemon juice and put the purée in a sealed container. 

The Verdict

Ultimately, the best way to store avocados depends on how speedily you plan to consume them. A dry, cool spot in your kitchen is ideal for letting hard avocados ripen naturally, but you do need to keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t overripen. 

The fridge is the best bet for an avocado you’ve already cut open, but it will also extend the life of a ripe avocado when you can’t use it right away. Putting a whole avocado in the fridge to extend ripeness usually doesn’t negatively affect the taste of the avocado, but leaving it on the counter will lead to the most consistent texture. 

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