Starters
Guacamole
Fresh, chunky guacamole made the Mexican way: onion, chilli and coriander mashed with salt into a juicy paste first, then ripe avocado folded in roughly and finished with tomato and lime to taste.
- Serves 4
- Ready in 10 min
- Vegan
- No cooking
- Mexican
Method
Put the onion (30 g), chilli, half the coriander (15 g) and the salt (½ tsp) in a mortar or a sturdy bowl. Pound or mash with a pestle or fork for about a minute until it turns into a rough, juicy paste. This releases the flavours and seasons the whole guacamole evenly.
Halve the avocados (3 avocados), remove the stones and scoop the flesh into the bowl. Mash roughly with a fork, leaving plenty of chunks.
Fold in most of the tomato (1 tomato) and the rest of the coriander, then add the lime juice a little at a time, tasting as you go, until it tastes bright but still of avocado. Adjust the salt.
Spoon into a bowl, top with the remaining tomato and a few coriander leaves, and serve straight away with tortilla chips or as part of a Mexican meal.
Tip: tap a step to tick it off as you cook.
Chef’s notes
- Ripe avocados give slightly when pressed gently near the stalk. Hard avocados ripen in 1–3 days in a paper bag with a banana.
- In central Mexico guacamole is often made without lime, with the tomato giving the acidity. Start with less lime and add only as much as you like.
- Garlic is not traditional and soon overpowers the avocado, so we leave it out.
- Make it as close to serving as possible. To keep it for a couple of hours, press clingfilm directly on to the surface and chill. Keeping the stone in the bowl does not stop browning.
- Serves 4 as a dip or 6 as a side with tacos, fajitas or chilli.
An Aztec sauce
Guacamole goes back to the Aztecs, who made a sauce called ahuacamolli, from ahuacatl (avocado) and molli (sauce), in the stone bowl that is still used in Mexico: the molcajete.
Spanish visitors in the 16th century described the avocado and the sauce made from it, and the name passed into Spanish as guacamole.
Guacamole became popular in the United States in the 20th century with the spread of Tex-Mex food and California avocado growing. Today it is one of the best-known Mexican dishes in the world, and a fixture at British parties since the 1970s.
How this recipe was developed
We compared guacamoles by Rick Stein, Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay and Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street with the most-rated versions on Allrecipes, NYT Cooking and Serious Eats.
- Make a paste of onion, chilli, coriander and salt first. Rick Stein pounds the chilli and onion before adding avocado; Milk Street mashes the seasonings with salt in the bowl to keep the juices; Serious Eats uses the same pestle-and-mortar method.
- Chunky, not smooth. Jamie Oliver and Milk Street keep it coarse; the top-rated Allrecipes and NYT versions are also roughly mashed.
- Lime to taste. Allrecipes, Jamie Oliver, Rick Stein, Gordon Ramsay and Serious Eats use lime. Milk Street’s traditional Mexican version uses tomato for acidity instead, so we add the lime gradually.
- Tomato. Jamie Oliver (cherry tomatoes), Gordon Ramsay (plum tomatoes) and Milk Street all include it; it adds freshness and acidity.
- No garlic. Rick Stein and Milk Street leave it out; Gordon Ramsay’s garlic and shallot version was the outlier.
- Storage. Milk Street’s tip: press the wrap directly on the surface, and do not rely on the stone.
Sources we compared (ratings as shown on each site on 31 October 2026):
- Allrecipes: Guacamole (4.8/5, 7653 ratings)
- NYT Cooking: Guacamole (5/5, 3219 ratings)
- Serious Eats (J. Kenji Lopez-Alt): The Best Basic Guacamole (4.7/5, 26 ratings, 112 reviews)
- Rick Stein: Guacamole (Road to Mexico), retailer reproduction
- Jamie Oliver: Classic guacamole
- Gordon Ramsay: Gordon Ramsay guacamole (unofficial reproduction)
- Christopher Kimball (Milk Street): How to Make Authentic Mexican Guacamole
This is an original Cookeryonline recipe written in our own words. Ingredient choices and techniques are credited above; no source text has been copied.