Avocados are one of life's simple pleasures. There's nothing better than having a delicious, healthy avocado either finely sliced or mashed and spread over a piece of sourdough toast for a weekend breakfast or brunch, with a perfectly cooked poached egg oozing its rich, orange yolk all over it.

There's a really simple way to elevate the taste of avocado too, or you can follow one fan of the fruit's clever but simple method of adding two ingredients to make it taste restaurant quality.

But when it comes to preparing the avocado, we all have our own way to do it. And there's a good chance that, if you're reading this, your method involves simply slicing an avocado in half before removing the stone and using a spoon to scoop out the flesh. Am I right?

But there is a much cleaner way. This clever method has several benefits over the spoon-and-scoop method. Firstly, it makes sure you get every last bit of that delicious avocado flesh and all the healthy fats within. And it also prevents that annoying occurrence of pushing your spoon right through the outer layer and causing a right mess.

How to peel an avocado with minimum mess

This clever method really is so simple and will leave you with maximum delicious avocado with minimum fuss and mess.

The first step is exactly the same as you would start any avocado-peeling process: cut it in half lengthways, as shown in the picture below.

Once you've done that, remove the stone. The easiest way I find to do this is to strike it quite forcefully with the sharp blade of a knife so that it becomes lodged firmly in the stone then simply lift it out (but be careful of your hands and fingers!)

But now comes the game-changing part. Don't just stop at cutting your avocados in half. Cut them in half lengthways again, turning them into quarters. When you have done this, you will then be able to easily and cleanly peel off the outer layer of each segment. The skin (or rind) will come away easily and, importantly, will not bring any of the delicious soft flesh inside with it, giving you all the more to enjoy — and a lot less mess all over your hands and working surface.

You can thank us for this game-changing tip later! Enjoy.