Most everyone loves avocados these days and with studies showing they help assist with keeping your heart healthy, satiating your appetite, and even lowering your blood sugar, we thought we’d share some fun tips to use them best. One benefit of using avocados in your recipes isn’t just because they’re healthy and filling, but also because they lend that creamy texture dairy foods do. Except avocados come with no cholesterol, saturated fat, milk sugar (lactose), excess hormones, tummy troubles, and best of all, no animal cruelty! Avocados are also pretty darn fabulous flavor-wise too. They’re rich, buttery and even slightly sweet if you use them in the right recipe. Their soluble fiber content helps regulate your blood sugar, assist with the removal of cholesterol and even keeps your digestive system functioning well too. All in all, avocados have it going on, so try using them to create creamy dishes where you’d normally reach for the butter, milk, eggs, cream, or even yogurt and cheese.
Here are five ways to use avocados in all your favorite creamy dishes. And not to worry about the fat content avocados contain. They’re so satisfying that you can use just a little, which will fill you up quickly, and their alkalizing benefits, vitamins and minerals will keep your body feeling great!
1. Use Them in Smoothies in Place of Yogurt
If you’ve ever gotten used to a smoothie with yogurt, you know that creamy texture is hard to beat. And sure, bananas can lend that same creamy flavor, but sometimes you don’t want a smoothie to taste like bananas, and some of us don’t want all that sugar all the time, right? Well just 1/4 an avocado is the magic answer here! It will give that same creamy, thick texture, but without the sugar and dairy. It even sweetens up a bit if you let it freeze for about 5 minutes before consuming. You’ll probably notice you’re a bit more full using avocado in your smoothies as well, since their healthy fat and fiber content will better stabilize your blood sugar. Try them with some berries, cacao, and a little non-dairy milk, like this Cacao Maca Energizing Smoothie. It will knock your socks off (in a good way)!
2. Make Them Into Mousse
No need for milk or cream here! Avocados are a great way to make a healthy dessert like mousse, that tastes like the rich, creamy pudding like dessert you’ve always loved. They help lend that whipped, fluffy texture and adopt the flavor of whatever other ingredients you use in the mix. Popular combinations are cacao to make a chocolate mousse, but you could easily use vanilla, berries, coconut, peanut butter, or even mint to make your favorite flavor mousse. Sure it might be green, but it’ll still taste great! Try them in 3 Ingredient Avocado Mousse for Beautiful Hair, Skin and Nails, Raw Vegan and Sugar-Free Chocolate Mousse, or Raw Avocado Chocolate Mousse.
3. Whip Them Into a Batch of Brownies and Forget the Butter!
Brownies are a favorite dessert among most all of us. You just can’t go wrong with a rich, chocolate dessert, right? Well, brownies are one of the easiest dishes to substitute healthy ingredients with, and avocados are one of the best because one, they’re rich and provide that fatty flavor like butter and oil (but without any negative health risks) and two, they’re tasteless in the overall recipe itself. Not sure how to use them in your next batch? Try our Very Vegan Chocolatey Chocolate Brownies and use a ripe avocado in place of the oil called for, or use them in The Ultimate Vegan Brownies or Healthy Chocolate Avocado Vegan Fudge.
4. Cream Them Into a Dressing
Avocados are also one of the best ingredients to use in a dairy-free salad dressing. Or, you can simply mash them into your salads. which will lend similar results. If you’d like to add them to a dressing, add 1/2 a ripe avocado to your blender with a squeeze of lemon, maybe a little sea salt, a pinch of black pepper and for some extra tang, go for some mustard or hot sauce. Blend and feel free to add any herbs you might enjoy as well to make 2 servings. Use this as your dressing and you’ll never want the bottled dressings again! You can also try avocados in our Easy Avocado Salad, Hearty Vegan Cobb Salad, Creamy Avocado Pasta Salad, or even in Super Star Lentil Taco Salad. See more dairy-free (and even oil-free) dressing recipes here.
5. Use Them as a Taco Filling in Place of Sour Cream
Most everyone knows you can use avocados to make your own guacamole, but what about using it completely in place of sour cream in your tacos? While you can buy vegan sour cream products, the healthier and tastiest way to go is just to use some good old guac instead (and even make a cashew-based sour cream to go along with it). If you don’t want to make your own guac, then keep things simple and mash up a ripe avocado, add a little lime juice and black pepper and there you go – a rich, creamy delicious cream without a bit of sour cream needed. The lime will help give it that tart kick that cream does and also enhance the flavors of your other taco ingredients like tomatoes. Want a meaty filling? Don’t forget to try our Walnut Taco Meat, Lentil Tacos, or use avocados with chickpeas in our Cilantro Chickpeas Avocado Salad Tacos.
If you’ve never tried out these options, don’t be intimidated. They’re really simple and will surprise you at how tasty they are and how much you’ll learn to love these versions instead of dairy-based options. Do you sneak avocados into typical dairy-based recipes? What’s your favorite way to use them?
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