Barefoot Contessa: 3 of Ina Garten’s Best Avocado Recipes

Have ripe avocados and not sure what to do with them? Don’t worry. Ina Garten has multiple Barefoot Contessa recipes that call for avocado. Here are just a few of the best ones. 

1. Ina Garten’s Avocado Toasts recipe makes for a quick breakfast 

Need breakfast in a hurry? Make the Barefoot Contessa’s recipe for Avocado Toasts. All of the details are available on her official website. The cookbook author takes it up a notch by serving her version with a soft-boiled egg. For those who are in a serious hurry to get out the door simply skip the egg.

Avocado toast is one of a few food trends Garten actually likes. In a 2018 interview with Today, the Food Network star called it one of her “favorites” before describing how she prepares it.

“I toast the bread and then I make a mixture that’s kind of like guacamole and put it on top,” she explained adding that it “has to be really well seasoned.” 

Garten likes to flavor her avocado toast with salt, pepper, Sriracha, and freshly squeezed lemon juice. Chances are the Barefoot Contessa’s avocado toast will start showing up at lunch — and probably dinner — too. 

2. The Barefoot Contessa’s Fiesta Corn and Avocado Salad is a great recipe to use up summer produce

Have corn on the cob, tomatoes, and avocados that need to be eaten? Enter this summer salad recipe from Garten. She has a lot of popular Barefoot Contessa salads but this one, in particular, is a celebration of summer ingredients.  

Featured in the pages of her 2016 Barefoot Contessa cookbook, Cooking for Jeffrey, Garten’s Fiesta Corn and Avocado Salad is a combination of fresh produce and Tex-Mex flavors. She tosses peppers, tomatoes, corn, and, of course, avocado all together in a bowl before seasoning everything with salt, pepper, lime juice, and more.

This is also the recipe where Garten showcases her easy trick for taking corn off the cob. While making the salad on an episode of Barefoot Contessa: Cook Like a Pro she explained her “system for cutting corn.” 

“Instead of having it bounce all over the kitchen, I get a sheet pan and a clean kitchen towel and I just cut the kernels onto the kitchen towel,” she said. “Then pick up the kitchen towel and I just put all the kernels right into the bowl.”

Try Garten’s method the next time her Fiesta Corn and Avocado Salad’s on the menu.

3. Ina Garten’s Guacamole is for chunky guac lovers

Sorry to silky smooth guac fans out there but the Barefoot Contessa’s guacamole is chunky. 

“I just think usually it’s this puree of avocados that doesn’t have a lot of flavor,” she once said on Barefoot Contessa. “And I just think it’s got to have lots of flavor and be really chunky.”

So expect Garten’s guacamole to be very chunky. Her trick is to add the avocado toward the end of the guacamole-making process. She also lightly tosses everything together to keep the avocado in big chunks. And don’t forget a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. It’s how Garten keeps guacamole from turning brown.