Takeout Tricks for Keeping Guac Green
Ever wondered how your favourite restaurants keep your guac arriving so fresh and so green? The most extra fruit around poses a unique challenge to takeout restaurants everywhere. Like apples, avocados begin turning brown with oxidization, meaning that within minutes of their fruity flesh being exposed to the air, they lose their green hue to a lackluster brown colour. They are perfectly safe to eat, but hardly feel worth the extra $2.00 charge!
Given this tricky tendency, made-fresh guacamole is the ideal. At Playa Cabana in Toronto, for example, patrons who dine-in have their guac delivered to the table right in the mortar and pestle it was mashed in.
View this post on Instagram
Obviously, that isn’t an option when your food is arriving via courier on a bike or in a car, so restaurants have a few tricks up their sleeves to keep guac looking and tasting its freshest. One of those is the use of a key ingredient: acid. Alongside lending a zesty flavour profile to the rich and fatty fruit, freshly squeezed lime juice stops oxidation in its tracks thanks to high levels of vitamin C (aka ascorbic acid).
View this post on Instagram
A prepped batch of guac will often be smoothed flat and an extra layer of lime juice squeezed over top to seal in that freshness and prevent oxidation. The same technique can supposedly be applied using water, a TikTok hack many swear by, but you risk eating a rather soup-y batch of guac later.
Last but not least, saran wrap is applied, not around the pan or bowl, but directly to the smoothed out surface of the guac to make sure no air can get in. This Chipotle employee gave TikTok a sneak peek into how that’s done.
@xavi_bando Chipotle chips video next 🌯 #xyzbca #chipotle #chipotleismylife #thechipotleguy #chipotlesponsorme #food #foodtiktok #foodie #arbysdiablodare ♬ original sound – Xavi 🌙
Myth busting mention: many have claimed that leaving the pits in the batch of guac will prevent it from going brown. Though this seems to work quite well when used for a halved avocado in the fridge, the internet consensus seems to be that it does pretty well nothing when used for guacamole.
