Avocados From Mexico – 3 Easy Avocado Recipes

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We've started making weekly meal plans and prepping our food as much as we can on the weekends to make eating at home easier for our active lives. Eating fresh fruits and vegetables, like Avocados From Mexico, is an easy way to get more nutrients into meals without a lot of prep work. Avocados are a part of our way of life growing up that I definitely want to share in more ways with my own family.

When I was growing up, my grandpa had a huge avocado tree right in his backyard. We had avocados at every meal! Here in Southern California, our elementary school classrooms have windowsills lined with plastic cups with avocado pits suspended in them as all the kids try to grow avocados. We did this too when I was a kid. Well, I can tell you that avocado trees are a challenge to grow and they don't like the cold weather in the high desert where I live now. No one ever got a tree from those classroom avocado pits! That's why I love Avocados From Mexico – I can get the same great quality taste I know and love from my heritage all year long.

Today I’m sharing some of our favorite recipes with avocados, inspired by échale, which means to put in more of something. This year, we are all about meals at home with more fresh ingredients. Sounds like a perfect fit, right?

Breakfast with Avocados

Since we follow a mostly paleo way of eating, we are always looking for quality ingredients to make filling breakfasts to carry us through the day. Obviously, avocados are one of the staples of our breakfast table and while they are delicious sliced on an omelet, there's more to avocados than being a garnish!

We've updated one of my favorite breakfasts, Eggs Benedict, to be more paleo compliant, gluten-free, and extra delicious with a homemade avocado hollandaise sauce and thin sliced avocado in place of the traditional muffin. This Avocado Eggs Benedict recipe is ready in minutes with our blender hollandaise sauce, serrano ham, and a poached egg.

It's easy to start the day off on the right foot with a nutritious breakfast like this. And it's quick to make!

RECIPE 1: Avocado Eggs Benedict, serves 4

Ingredients:

1. 2 large Avocados From Mexico
2. 4 whole eggs
3. 4 slices serrano ham
4. 2 sprigs of chopped fresh parsley or cilantro
5. 3 egg yolks
6. 1/4 tsp dijon mustard
7. 1 TBSP lemon juice
8. 1 dash of hot sauce
9. 1 TBSP avocado
10. 1/2 cup butter

STEPS:

1. In a blender, combine the lemon juice, egg yolks, mustard, 1 TBSP avocado, and hot sauce. Blend for 5 seconds.
2. Melt the butter in the microwave for about 1 minute.
3. With the blender on high, slowly add the butter to the mixture. Stop the blender once all of the butter has been added.
4. Slice each avocado in half and remove the pit.
5. Slice each avocado half thinly, one half per person. Then fan out the slices onto each plate.
6. Saute the serrano ham slices and place on top of each array of avocado slices.
7. Poach the eggs until done as desired. Place on top of each avocado and ham stack.
8. Spoon the hollandaise over the eggs. Sprinkle with fresh parsley or cilantro.

Ingredient Swap with Avocados

Mayonnaise based salads are challenging to make paleo-friendly and to be honest, I've never really been a big fan of mayo. Did you know you can swap out avocados for mayonnaise in many salad recipes? This Avocado Tuna Salad is paleo when served on a bed of lettuce but delicious enough to make a yummy sandwich for your non-paleo friends and family to enjoy.

The creamy, rich taste of the avocados work great with the tuna and eggs in the salad and the fresh cucumbers we added give it a little crunch that's perfection! You can also make lettuce cups or wraps with this salad and it's great for packed lunches.

RECIPE 2: Avocado Tuna Salad

Ingredients:

1. 1 can chunk light tuna
2. 2 boiled eggs, diced
3. 1/4 cup of chopped sun-dried tomatoes
4. 1 cucumber, peeled and diced
5. 1/4 cup green onions, sliced
6. 2 Avocados From Mexico, peeled and pitted

STEPS:

1. Puree the avocados in a blender until smooth.
2. Mix all of the ingredients together to coat.
3. Spoon onto a bed of lettuce or Mexican style roll and serve.

Lunch and Salads on the Go

As much as I love paleo, not everyone in my household is on the plan with me. That means I need to make recipes that everyone will love but that I can still enjoy too. While we were in Jamaica on vacation, we had a delicious salad with avocado chunks in it that I have been dreaming about since we came home. We reinvented the salad with ingredients that are easy to find and prepare; mozzarella pearls or balls, Avocados From Mexico avocado chunks, halved pear tomatoes from my garden, and a homemade balsamic vinaigrette.

You can use cherry tomatoes or Roma Tomatoes cut in chunks instead of pear tomatoes. This Avocado Balsamic Salad goes together in minutes and the mozzarella balls can be skipped to make this paleo-friendly. Serve this salad on a bed of lettuce or in cups for a party-friendly dish.

RECIPE 3: Avocado Balsamic Salad

Ingredients:

1. 1 8 ounce package of mozzarella balls or pearls
2. 1 TBSP olive oil
3. 2 TBSP balsamic vinegar
4. 1 tsp lemon juice
5. 1 tsp lemon zest
6. 1/4 cup scallions
7. 2 cups pear or cherry tomatoes, halved
8. 2 ripe Avocados From Mexico, cubed

STEPS:

1. Whisk together olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice,  and lemon zest to create a vinaigrette.
2. Toss remaining ingredients in the vinaigrette to coat. Mix well.

Enjoy!

A few fresh ingredients make these recipes easy to prepare and a convenient way to incorporate avocados into our menu. Because they are always fresh and always in season, avocados are a flavorful and versatile addition to add more nutrition to your favorite dishes. I mean, who knew you could replace the mayo with avocados?! Now I'm thinking of all the ways to choose avocados in my dishes to replace ingredients.

A few fresh ingredients make these recipes easy to prepare and a convenient way to incorporate avocados into our menu. Because they are always fresh and always in season, avocados are a flavorful and versatile addition to add more nutrition to your favorite dishes. I mean, who knew you could replace the mayo with avocados?! Now I'm thinking of all the ways I can choose avocados in my dishes to replace ingredients.

Like they say in Mexico, ¡Échale Ganas! Every new year is a time to think of changes we want to make in our lives. In our home, we are cutting out the fast food and coming up with ways to eat more meals at home with fresh ingredients. We started this experiment back in December and well, my bank account is thankful and my pants are already fitting looser! My plan is to continue cooking at home with fresh ingredients that we know and love, preparing meals ahead to make it more convenient, and to start getting more active. Who else has a gym membership that's been collecting dust? I met with a dietitian and his advice to me was to work out to “feel good” and not to lose weight. My goal for 2017 is to feel good! How about you?

What are you doing differently this year? Please share your recipes with me and join me in a more nutritious eating journey. And if your recipes have avocado in them, well, BONUS!  

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