A Smarter, Safer Way to Cut An Avocado

Halved avocado

We love to start our day with a piece of avocado toast with all of the toppings (a feta fried egg and chili crisp is a favorite combo), smashing some avocado for a bowl or guacamole, or dicing or slicing some avocado for a salad. What we don't love as much? Cutting an avocado.

Although we've gotten pretty good at prepping avocados, there are moments when we struggle with the slippery fruit, and we see a lot of other home cooks doing the same. If you use the cheffy method of holding the avocado in your hand when you cut it you could end up at the ER with an injury so common that doctors have a name for it: avocado hand.

So you can imagine how we perked up when we saw legendary cooking teacher and cookbook author Sara Moulton demo her preferred way of cutting an avocado, which is a whole lot safer than what we've been doing. Here's what you need to know.

Related: The Right (and Wrong) Way to Store Avocados

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What's a Safer Way to Cut an Avocado?

Oftentimes, people hold the avocado in their hand to halve the fruit and also to remove the pit by stabbing the pit with the heel of the knife, which when many hand injuries occur. Here's what Moulton suggests doing instead.

1. Grab a cutting board. Instead of holding the avocado in your hand, Moulton suggests placing it on a cutting board. This way you're getting your palm out of harm's way.

2. Grab a knife. Moulton uses a chef knife to slice the avocado, but she mentions that you can also use a smaller knife. Some of the commenters on her Instagram post mention using a butter knife if the avocado is really ripe.

3. Cut all the way around. Next, with the avocado on the cutting board, slice the avocado all the way around with your hand on top of the fruit to steady it.

4. Give it a turn. Give the avocado a quarter turn and slice around again.

5. Pop the wedges apart. These two cuts create four wedges, which will pop right off of the pit with a light pull. If you want avocado halves, twist the two halves apart and either use a spoon to pop out the pit or place your index and middle fingers on either side of the pit (on the flesh of the avocado) and your thumb on the skin side behind the pit. Press with your thumb and the pit will pop out.

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