The Best Avocado Gadgets

This compact tool was relatively comfortable to hold, although its double-headed configuration (knife on one end, slicer on the other) meant that unless we wiped the knife end after cutting, avocado got all over our hands the second we switched sides. Its serrated plastic knife was surprisingly sharp, making it easy to halve Hass avocados. But it didn’t do a particularly good job of slicing and scooping, mashing the ends of the avocado slices, and it was a little too small to halve or slice large Florida avocados in fluid strokes. Still, this tool managed to do what no knife or other tool could, making safe, easy work of removing avocado pits.

Resembling a metal shoehorn, the simple Trudeau 3 in 1 wasn’t very comfortable, with a serrated edge that did a fairly good job of halving the avocado but dug into our palms while we were scooping. And we didn’t always feel very safe using its sharp, pointed end to gouge out the pit. The 3 in 1 did, however, perform one task well: It quickly and effortlessly scooped out avocados of all types, sizes, and ripeness levels so we were free to cut or mash the perfectly excavated halves in any way we liked.

While it was comfortable to use and scooped out both Florida and Hass avocados relatively neatly, the Zyliss Avocado Tool was thoroughly mediocre in every other way. Its dull, serrated plastic blade posed no threats to our hands but halved the avocados with ragged strokes, and its spatula-like tip often failed to pry out the pit, mauling the avocado around it.

The Trudeau 2-N-1’s double-headed construction made it messy to use, and its paw-shaped pitter had a hard time getting the pit out without mashing the flesh around it. With sharp slicer blades, it was pretty good at cutting Hass avocados into even pieces, but it didn’t always scoop them out intact, and in general it struggled with larger avocados. And with no dedicated edge for halving the avocados, it was necessary to get out the chef’s knife anyway, making this supposed double-tasker feel like a waste of drawer space.

At 11 inches long, this double-headed gadget was the biggest we tested. Its size didn’t make it any better at slicing Florida avocados; it just rubbed stray avocado even further down our arms after we used one of its two heads. It was unwieldy, and its toothed pitter never actually latched onto any of the pits. Razor-sharp slicer blades cut Hass avocados into nice even pieces but made for treacherous handwashing.

Like the other double-headed gadgets, the Amco was slightly messy to work with once one side had already been used. Its noose-like pitter sometimes had trouble looping around the slick pits and often ended up mashing the avocado around it instead. With thicker wire struts, this gadget sliced through the avocado fairly well but had trouble removing the slices; they clung to the wires, requiring us to push the ends through with our fingers while attempting to scoop out the halves. Finally, it couldn’t halve the avocados and wasn’t quite large enough to sweep through a Florida half in just one stroke.

The short, narrow, curved blade of this undersized tool made it awkward to halve and scoop the avocados—especially the larger Floridas. The two large teeth on the side of the blade were sharp enough to latch onto the pit but not deep enough to provide any leverage, mashing the pit into the flesh without actually removing it.

With a plastic blade featuring tiny serrations that nicked the avocado skin as it halved the fruit, an undersized slicer and scooper that required several strokes to remove unevenly cut pieces, a trowel-shaped pitter and masher that didn’t pit or mash particularly well, and a short, cramped handle, this tool was a dud from start to finish. At least it wasn’t dangerous to use, lacking the sharp edges that might actually have produced neater halves and slices.

With no sharp blades, this tool was safe to use—just not effective. This tool had only two jobs to do, and it didn’t do either of them well. The head of the tool was a little too broad to easily scoop out smaller Hass avocados, and the short spikes extending from the head didn’t slice all the way through each half, mashing the avocados instead of turning them into cleanly cut pieces and generally making a mess. And you’d still need a knife to halve and pit your avocado.

Requiring a separate knife for halving and pitting, the head of this wire slicer/scooper was too big to fit comfortably into smaller Hass avocados and still not big enough to slice through the entire breadth of a Florida avocado in one fell swoop. And while the wires slipped through both avocados easily, it was difficult to produce uniform slices. Worse, the rim of the gadget was inexplicably sharp, making an otherwise innocuous tool dangerous.