It’s easy to tell when certain fruit are ripe and ready, but others are a little tough to tell without actually cutting into them. Here are some tips for determining whether an avocado, mango, and papaya are at their peak flavor and freshness.
Avocado
The best trick for determining whether an avocado is soft enough to eat is by removing the stem. The color is indicative of what the flesh inside looks like. The ideal color is a bright, medium green. If it’s yellow, it’s not ripe; and if it’s a darker olive or brown color, it may be getting rotten.
You can also give the avocado a good squeeze to see how soft it is. If it easily goes “mush,” it might be at the end of its life. Alternately, if you can hardly get any give, it needs a little more counter time.
Bonus tip: An extra round avocado probably has a larger-than-life pit inside, too. Instead, look for avocados that are long. 90% of the time, those will have small pits and more tasty avocado “meat.”
Mango
Mango is probably my favorite and least favorite fruit of all time. The sweetness completely depends on how ripe it is. Cut it too early, and you’re going to get a pucker-inducing bowl of sour fruit after spending the effort to cut it. Fortunately, even an extra smushy overripe mango can be overflowing with natural sugar and flavor (you just might want to use it for a smoothie instead of eating with a fork.)
So how do you know if the mango is good to go? Similar to an avocado, you’re going to give it a squeeze. You’re looking for it to be pretty soft, but not bruised feeling. The smell of a mango can also indicate when it’s ready. Get a good whiff right where the stem is. The more fragrant it is, the better it will taste. And finally, the more color a mango has, the more ripe and tasty it probably is. An all-green mango is likely premature. One with yellows, reds, and oranges is in the best condition for eating.
Papaya
This tropical beauty is a little new to me. I only recently cut into my first one and learned how to determine ripeness. As you do with mangos, smell near the stem area in search of lots of floral fragrance. If you can’t smell anything, it’s probably not ready yet. In terms of the firmness, your papaya shouldn’t feel like it has a hard armor on, but you also want to avoid getting one with wrinkled spots, since that may indicate a rotten fruit. And last but not least, look for one with hues of yellow and orange. A predominantly green papaya isn’t ready yet.
