How to keep avocados fresh for longer time?

Keep the pit in it. If you’re making guacamole, keep the pits and displace them around the mixture so that all of it is touching the pit at regular intervals. Also, the less oxygen, the better. Putting lemon on top works as well.

I’ve heard the lemon trick works as well. Good answer, Zack.

Brush lightly with lemon juice. That will keep it from going brown.

Before you open it up? I’d like to know about that too.

Chuck, do you mean brush the SKIN with lemon? Surely not?

I’m with susanc, thinking that surely you all are talking about after it’s been cut.

As far as before it’s opened, keeping them in the refrigerator will definitely slow down the aging process, but the trick is that if you put an avocado in the fridge before it’s completely ripe, it will not fully ripen, so you should keep them outside the fridge until you judge that they are “almost ripe” based on softness. You will know it’s almost ripe because the skin should give a little, and this will also vary depending on personal taste, but at that point you should put it in the refrigerator, and it should be good for another 2 or 3 days.

If you are talking about maintaining the freshness of intact avocadoes, that’s difficult. If you open it up and mash it, you can maintain the freshness of the mashed-up avocado more easily through the methods described above.

Best way to prevent an avocado from ripening, is to not pick it. That said, keep it cold, so put it in frig. That will prolong the life,

Of course I’m talking about after cutting.

I make pureed avocado for my daughter, but she doesn’t eat the whole avocado in one setting so I freeze the rest. I thought that freezing it would still make it brown, but it doesn’t. So you could cut off the part you want to use and then freeze the rest for later.

Keep the unused open portion with the pit. And mash up and freeze airtight to keep it edible in the future.

@astro, et al: I’ve often bought avo’s at vast expense here in the PNW where, alas, they don’t grow on trees, as I understand they do in places where “don’t pick them” is good advice, thank you very much sccrowell. Then I put them in one of those hanging wire onion-keeping baskets in my kitchen and notice them again only after they’ve gotten kind of caved in and ruined and I have to throw them away at $2 a pop.
Fridging!!! I never knew…
Fluther rules.

When I have half an avocado that I want to save and use in the next few days I use the Pump and Seal (you can find it online). I put the half avocado in a wide mouth glass jar and seal it. It will stay perfectly green for at least 3 days.