Forget the pit: This trick to keep fresh guacamole from turning brown actually works

It doesn’t matter what I do. If I put a bowl of guacamole in the fridge, those beautiful green avocados turn into an unappetizing brown mush in a matter of minutes. With a long list of failed hacks under my belt—and an embarrassing amount of wasted guac!—I was starting to give up hope. But then one ridiculously simple trick came through and totally changed the game.

Forget keeping the pit in the center of your guacamole or dousing it with extra lime juice. When it comes to keeping your guac fresh, the only hack you really need to know involves nothing but a splash of water. To keep guacamole from oxidizing and going brown, the key is not letting any air get to it. And that’s exactly why most methods aren’t going to do the trick. All you need to do to keep your guac green is smooth out the top layer with a spoon or knife and pour a thin layer of water on top to create an airtight seal that gets the job done better than any plastic wrap ever could.

The next time you want to eat guac, just grab the bowl, dump out the water, give it a nice stir, and bam—it’s as green as it was when you made it. This method should make it last a few days in the fridge, but of course the sooner you eat it, the better it’s going to taste.

Apologies to all the avocados I’ve wasted in the past—it’s never going to happen again. Promise!

Switch up your guac-devouring habits for these chocolate avocado bars. And when you’re not eating avocados, you should be rubbing them all over your body with this skin-brightening scrub.