Indian-spiced Guacamole
Imagine guacamole topped with fragrant, Indian-spiced onions and garlic, green chiles, and mustard seeds. It's great with chips, toasted naan, or toasted pita.
I'm all for a straight-ahead, no-fuss, guacamole. Nine times out of ten, that's how I approach it. Let the avocado shine. Don't distract with tomatoes, or pomegranate seeds, or too much lemon, or too much lime. I wrote some thoughts about guacamole basics here. That tenth occasion? I'll work in a wildcard, or take a surprise approach. Something along the lines of what you see pictured here, a recurring favorite.
Indian-spiced Guacamole: The Inspiration
It's a recipe I shared years ago in Super Natural Every Day, loosely inspired by a preparation I came across in Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking. Imagine basic guacamole topped with fragrant, Indian-spiced onions and garlic, green chiles, and mustard seeds. The creamy, ripe avocado melds beautifully the savory bits, and the vibrant cooking oil works its way into all the little valleys. People love this with chips, toasted pita, or naan bread. If you're in any sort of a guacamole rut, give this a try.
Variations
- Thai curry spiced: I can also imagine a Thai-spiced version being wonderful (with green curry in place of the Indian curry paste.
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Indian-spiced Guacamole
- 2 ripe avocados
- 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
- Scant 1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
- 1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
- 1 tablespoon clarified butter or extra-virgin coconut oil
- 1 teaspoon black or brown mustard seeds
- 1 small yellow onion, minced
- 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon Indian curry powder
- 1 small serrano chile, minced
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Cut each avocado in half, remove the pit, and scoop the flesh into a small bowl. Add the lemon juice, salt, and most of the cilantro. Mash the avocados a bit with a fork, but don't overdo it-- you want the mixture to be quite chunky. Set aside.
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Heat the clarified butter or oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. When it is hot, add the mustard seeds. Keep a lid on hand because the seeds will scatter as they pop. When the spattering stops, after about a minute, stir in the onion and sauté for 2 to 3 minutes, until the onion is translucent. Stir in the garlic, curry powder, and chile. Count to ten, and then remove from heat. Stir in the avocado mixture, but just barely, and transfer to a serving bowl. Serve warm or at room temperature. Garnish with remaining cilantro.
Makes about 2 cups.
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Comments
For Thanksgiving and Christmas, I made cilantro Chutney, mainly to go with the naan bread. But i ended up putting it on the rice, the salmon, roasted veggies....I absolutely love cilantro, so, I will definitely try this.
Try way more cilantro (and entire bunch), ground cumin, green onions.
Julie Sahni's books are amazing! I have the Classic Vegetarian and Grain as well as Classic Indian Cooking, and they're both super inspiring and informative.
Thanks so much Heidi! I haven't had the chance to try the recipe yet but it looks absolutely delicious! I went through and read the previous article that you wrote on making guacamole and how to pick out the perfect avocados. This was very helpful as it has been a challenge for me to pick out great avocados in the grocery story. I am wondering if you have any thoughts on keeping the guacamole from going brown after making it?
HS: Hi Jordan, press a bit of plastic wrap onto the top surface...:)
Love changing up my guacamole recipe once in a while (although the boyfriend is very cut and dry in what he likes so usually, the simplest it is the better he likes it). I would definitely try this, omitting the cilantro (which is absolutely vile to me)......I gasped when I saw the heap of it you put on top (urgh). But the rest of the ingredients look A+ to me :)
Thank you so much for this wonderful recipe.
This is SO fantastic. I made it tonight for our two adults and two toddlers...and then the 14 month old ate about a quarter of it as soon as I gave him one taste! Dishes that hit the spot for all five of us are rare, so this is super!
I made this for dinner last night and then again for breakfast this morning. I served it lukewarm. The spice of the mustard seeds are the perfect foil to the creaminess of the avocado. Divine.
That's definitely pretty complex guacamole recipe! I usually just mix avocadoes with lime, salt and pepper ;-)
Your mustard seed guac was one of the first things I made from SNED! I loved it at first bite, but I love everything in all of your books, so that wasn't a big surprise. I'm loving your videos lately :)
One of my favourite guacamole recipes is to add pickled ginger! I normally stick to standard lime salt cilantro but when you want to mix it up, pickled ginger!
Heidi, this looks wonderful and will be on the menu very soon. Your "twist on guacamole" from a year or two ago is one of our perennial faves and I'm sure this will become one as well. Here in NZ we are having a bumper avocado season and there are buckets of avos freely available. Thanks.