Gimme Some Oven

How To Cut A Mango

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Mangoes are hands-down my favorite fruit. But I have to admit — for many years, I had absolutely NO idea how to (safely and beautifully!) peel and cut them.

The story was always the same. I would bring a mango home, super-excited to enjoy that unique, wonderfully sweet flavor. But after just a few seconds of cutting, I would have my hands completely covered and dripping with mango juice, trying desperately to hold onto a slippery-slidy mango pulp, and not slip and cut my fingers instead of the pulp!

Needless to say…I needed an intervention. :)

Thankfully, a few years ago, a friend graciously gave me this lesson. So for anyone else who’s in that boat, I thought I’d make a quick tutorial to humbly pass along to you. I’ve also included some info on how to select a ripe mango, or ripen one at home.

Bottom line…cutting a mango correctly was much easier than I knew. And 100% worth it. So give it a try!!!

Ali’s Tip:

If you end up cutting into a mango that’s too mushy or stringy for dicing, I’d recommend pureeing it, or popping it in a smoothie….or just scooping it out of the peel with a spoon and eating it plain!

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16 comments on “How To Cut A Mango”

  1. WOW _ this is great. I just always just the smushee drippy method. Can’t wait to try this with the mangoes ripening in my kitchen.

  2. I looked pretty silly trying to cut my mango in the staff room the other day. I probably only ate 2/3 of the actual mango because I mangled it so much. I’ll try this the next time. Thank you!

  3. I plan to buy the OXO mango tool. I saw a demo of it at Williams Sonoma and it sure looks easier than licking your elbows.

  4. OMG. Just like two days ago I was lamenting after trying to cut up a mango and ending up with a huge bowl of mush. Thanks!

    Also, I can’t believe I haven’t been following your blog before now! I’m all in…

  5. Hello, I just came across your blog. Beautiful photography, by the way. Anyway, I’ve been cutting and eating mangoes since I was a little girl (actually, when I was young other people would cut it for me), and we follow a very similar method to yours. We score the halves, but instead of inverting them, we take a spoon and run it along the inner side of the peel. Because you’ve already scored the halves, the mango just falls out in a beautiful dice. It’s less time consuming than cutting each cube off individually with a pairing knife. This may sound a little primitive, but we usually just remove the peel around the core and bite off the surrounding mango flesh as we would the red portion of a watermelon slice. I hope this helps you enjoy your mangoes even more!

  6. Hey I’m a huge fan of your blog. Thanks for making it. :D

  7. AWESOME!!! Thanks for sharing. All this time I’ve been doing the hard messy way.

  8. I used your method to take the peel off the mango, and as I made the first slice my eye wandered over to our curved grapefruit knife which I then used to remove the peel. Worked great. Now the house smells like chutney cooking on the stove.

  9. Hey Ali! So I was just browsing through your site looking at mango recipes and I came across this one, and I know that you’ve started doing How-To Tuesdays and I would love for you to do a video on this! Keep up the good work, sending lots of love! 
    x Andy

  10. No videos here, only a still photo of mango and cutting.

  11. I mangled one mango, but fortunately I have two. Thanks for the tutorial. That is really helpful

  12. Nooo… did I miss the instructions for finding a ripe one, or ripening them at home?

  13. I plan to make mango salsa and would like to dice the mangos. What is the criteria for selecting the desired level of ripeness? I do not want to scoop out the mango. I want to dice it. I also want it to be sufficiently ripe to get the full flavor.