How to Cut & Peel a Mango | 2 Quick & Easy Ways!

Do you ever have trouble trying to cut into a juicy and perfectly ripe mango? Well, they can definitely be a bit intimidating. There's actually two super easy ways that you can cut and peel them in just a few short minutes. Hey there, I'm London Brazil from EvolvingTable.com, where you'll learn how to make nourishing meals to serve the ones you love. And today I'm actually going to be teaching you how to peel and cut a mango, as well as how to pick out the best ones, tell when they're ripe, and even store them for later. Mangoes are what we like to call stone fruits, much like their close cousins, the peach, the plum, and the nectarine. They are grown on trees and typically found in more tropical climates. Mangoes are made up of a very thin, inedible skin, or peel, that surrounds that delicious, juicy pulp, or flesh, with an oblong pit that runs through the very center of the fruit. While they can generally be found year-round here in the United States, May through August is technically mango season, with June and July being the peak production times. Much like with avocados and peaches, determining when a mango is ripe depends primarily on how they feel, and not so much on their appearance or their color. To determine if the mango is ripe, simply apply firm but gentle pressure with your thumb. If it gives slightly when squeezed, it is ripe and ready to eat. A mango will also emit a slightly sweet and fragrant aroma from the stem end, as it becomes more ripe. Sometimes you'll even see some juices oozing out. Mangoes will ripen naturally on their own, if kept at room temperature for a few days. You can also place the mango in a sealed paper bag for two days, if you would like to speed up the process slightly. Once they are ripened, you can place the fruit in the refrigerator for a few days to slow down the ripening process. Now that you've selected a good and ripe mango, it's time to start preparing it using one of these two different methods. And as a quick reminder, y'all, there's that thin oblong pit running down the center of our fruit. We're gonna try to avoid this while we're cutting. Place the mango on a cutting board with the stem facing up. Insert a sharp knife about 1 1⁄4 inch to the right of the midline. Starting from the top of the fruit, cut all of the way down to the bottom. Repeat this process with the left side of the mango. You should have three mango slices at this point, two of the cheeks, and one midsection with the pit. Using a smaller paring knife, or you could always just use the knife you used earlier, pick up one of the mango cheeks and place it in your non-dominant hand. Take the knife and start to make vertical incisions into the flesh of the mango. Pay careful attention not to cut all of the way through into the skin. Turn the mango 90 degrees and make vertical cuts that intersect the previous ones in a crosswise fashion. Repeat this step with the other mango cheek. You can also make these cuts while the mango is on your cutting board. From here, you can either remove the pieces by using that paring knife, your thumb, or you can always just scoop it out using a spoon. Invert the mango and place your knife, thumb, or spoon where the flesh meets the skin. Scoop out the mango, push it off, or cut off the mango. That's the majority of the mango, but there still might be just a little bit left around the pit of the midsection piece. So to get to this, you'll wanna take that paring knife and place it just underneath the skin and carefully cut between the flesh and the skin to remove it. Cut and remove any additional mango flesh until the pit is all that's left. If that first method was a little bit too intimidating for you, there's actually another super easy way that you can try, and it uses a vegetable peeler. Place your peeler into the skin of your mango and peel the mango completely. The mango does get a little bit slippery, so hold onto it tight. With the stem side facing up, remove the right and left cheeks from the mango as instructed previously. Place the mango cheek flat side down on a cutting board and dice to your desired size. One medium to large sized mango will yield roughly 1 1⁄4 to 1 1⁄2 cups of fruit. You can store freshly cut, diced, or sliced mango in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to two to three days. You can also place cut fruit in a single layer on a baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap, and freeze for at least four hours or up to 24. Once the mango pieces are firm, place in a freezer safe Ziploc bag and store in the freezer for up to a year. Or you can use up all of this freshly diced mango in this mango avocado salsa recipe. If you liked what you saw here today, make sure you check out these other quick kitchen tips. Thanks so much for hanging out. I'll see you again soon.