Rachael Ray's Cooling Rack Hack For Instant Avocado Prep

Avocados are a wonderful food — delicious, nutritious, and seemingly always en vogue. Once the internet saw enough avocado toast, people started using them in wedding proposals and carving them into intricate art. Their buttery, fatty, and firm-yet-spreadable texture works in many dishes — even desserts — and as BBC Good Food tells us, they contain high concentrations of Vitamin E, folate, insoluble fiber, monounsaturated fat, and minerals, which all help provide many potential health benefits.

Yet, these charismatic green fruits truly test a home cook's knowledge from the beginning to the end. You have to choose the right ones — not woefully underripe, or revoltingly overripe — and be careful not to injure yourself when removing the pit before you can even think of cooking with them. Even then, they can be somewhat challenging to work with given their tough, clingy, and inedible rind along with their soft and slippery flesh that can easily lead to a kitchen mess. However, TV personality and celebrity chef Rachael Ray has an ingenious answer.

In a YouTube video for the "Rachael Ray Show," Rachael Ray lays a cooling rack (like the one you'd use to cool a pie or bake chicken wings) over a bowl and presses her grilled avocado half firmly into it. The metal grate of the rack simultaneously cubes and smushes the avocado for you — a handy trick for when you need to prep a large batch of them, like for guacamole or crema sauce. Plus, you probably already have the rack or something like it at home — no need to invest in special equipment.

Put this trick to good use in Ray's simple guacamole salad or "Garlicky Holy Guacamole!" recipe. She also uses avocado crema to make her migas casserole and skirt steak carne asada. Of course, if you're ever called upon to entertain with a bunch of dubiously trendy avocado toast, Ray's got you covered with her version, which is dressed up with lemon, salt and pepper, and drizzled with extra virgin olive oil — or as Ray famously calls it, EVOO. She loves the golden stuff so much, she even has a branded bottle for it!

As Insider reports, celebrity chefs use avocados often. For instance, Bobby Flay likes his guacamole "chunky," while Alton Brown seeks his somewhat chunky. Meanwhile, Ina Garten, Ree Drummond, and Jamie Oliver make theirs extra hot, and Gordon Ramsay, who's always sophisticated, uses shallots in lieu of red onions, Insider adds. Regardless of what direction you want to take your avocado creation in, Rachael Ray's hack will save you time and frustration and keep the knife work to a minimum.

To demonstrate the versatility of your squashed avocados, consider The Guardian's suggestions, including Oliver's avocado pastry quiche, no-bake avocado cheesecake, chocolate avocado peanut butter pudding, and, of course, avocado ice cream. Just be sure to keep your avocados fresh and prepare them properly before use. When possible be sure to choose fair trade avocados to support the welfare of growers and the environment (per Fairtrade Foundation). Since Rachael Ray's simplified the avo-mashing process, there's never been a better — and more fun — time to start experimenting with them in your kitchen.