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Please welcome Garrett McCord as he shows us how to cut up a prickly pear. ~Elise
What is Prickly Pear Fruit?
Known to few, the fruit of the nopales cactus (cacti with beaver tail-like paddles), are actually quite edible. Called prickly pears, these neon fruits provide delicious juice that tastes like a cross between all-natural bubble gum (if indeed there is such a thing) and watermelon.
How to Use Prickly Pear
Prickly pear juice is often used to make jam or candy, but works wonders in cocktails and used in vinaigrettes for salads.
I’ve used the juice from prickly pear to flavor cream cheese frosting for a lime flavored cupcake, and have seen others boil cactus pear down with a bit of orange and lemon juice to make a sauce for fruit salads and cheesecakes.
Where to Get Prickly Pear
Many Mexican markets, farmers markets, and some natural food supermarkets carry prickly pear fruit, but you can find cactus pear growing in California, the Southwest, Mexico, and the Mediterranean.
Be warned though, while the prickly pear in markets have been cleaned of the tiny hair-like thorns, the ones fresh off the cactus are covered with them, so be sure to handle them with heavy leather work gloves and scrub them hard to ensure all the painful little barbs are off.
Either way, handle prickly pear carefully or with gloves just in case.
How to Cut and Prepare Prickly Pears
Ingredients
- 1 prickly pear
Method
1 Slice both ends of the prickly pear off. Discard them.
2 Make one long vertical slice down the body of the prickly pear.
3 Slip your finger into the slice and grab a hold of the skin.
4 Peel back the skin: Begin to peel back the thick fleshy skin that's wrapped around the prickly pear. Discard the skin. You'll be left with the prickly pear itself.
The flesh is studded with tons of little edible seeds, if you like them, feel free to just chop the prickly pear up and eat, seeds and all.
5 Extract the juice: To extract the prickly pear juice, place the "husked" prickly pears into a blender or food processor and pulse until liquefied.
Place the juice into a fine mesh sieve and push out the juice into a pitcher or bowl. Discard the remaining pulp and seeds.
Use the juice as you like. Depending on the size of the prickly pears, 6 to 12 prickly pears will get you about 1 cup of juice. It's great mixed in with some fresh lemonade, just use equal parts of prickly pear juice to lemonade.
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Do you have a favorite prickly pear recipe? Please let us know about it in the comments.
Links:
Tuna Juice from Rambling Spoon (prickly pear is also called tuna)
Garrett McCord is a professional writer and recipe developer whose work has appeared in many print and online publications such as Gourmet Live, Saveur, Huffington Post, Smithsonian, and NPR. Past clients also include numerous food companies, wineries, and distilleries. Garrett writes about cocktails on his website, Coupe de Grace.
How to Cut and Prepare Prickly Pears
Great. Easy to understand. Will try during the upcoming holidays.
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I have successfully juiced my pears – I swirled them around the inside of a collapsable metal veggie steamer under running water for a few minutes, 4 pears at a time, to remove all glochids (I had about 40 pounds of pears, burning was just too slow and inconsistent for me). Then I cut them up in a few pieces and ran them through a Squeeze-o to get my pulpy juice.
I have tried various jelly/jam/candy recipes and consistently have two problems: (1) the jelly is too runny, even after doubling the pectin; and (2) if I boil longer than a few minutes or up to 225 degrees (for the candy), it gels, but the product loses its magenta color and turns orange. Do you have any suggestions? Thankfully I have a LOT of juice to experiment with but I’m scratching my head over all these recipes online that are very similar and show outcomes that are bright magenta just like the unprocessed juice. Thanks in advance for any advice!
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Hi Kerry, what color is your juice when you start? Magenta like most? Ripe prickly pears can vary in color depending on the species of opuntia, so the discrepancy could be that. As sneaky as it sounds, maybe you could add a few drops of food coloring or beet juice right at the end. Hopefully another reader can chime in with some thoughts on the color and setting problems you are having.
Thank you, Sara, for your reply. Yes, the juice starts out a beautiful, deep magenta. The only one that stayed even remotely red, didn’t jell. The ones that jelled, and the candy, both the ones that I cooked longer, turned orange. I was presuming that the extra heat caused it? Hmm … might try the beet juice, if I can’t solve the problem, thanks!
Did u use lemon juice and did you use the pink pectin so you dont have to use so much sugar.
Article was very useful as I had never seen the inside of a cactus pear! Helpful tip about juicing it and putting half prickly pear juice and half lemonade. The prickly pears I got themselves were ok… I hope to try some other ones and see if they taste better. Regardless, this is a very helpful article.
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OK, i went to Texas for a visit and received a bag of prickly pears. We flew home to Washington state and I didn’t have time to complete the jam so I put the prickly pears into the freezer. Skins and all! I now have time to make the jam I wanted and need to know the best way to skin these now that they are frozen.
Any ideas?
Hi Paula,
This is a cool problem to have! Let’s see…I assume you’ll need to make sure the tiny spines (glochids) are removed. Prickly pears purchased in markets likely have them removed, while ones harvested by a friend might not. In the method outlined in the post here, you simply cut off the skin and discard it…which won’t be as easy when you are handling softer thawed fruit. A lot of people will skewer the fruit on a metal fork and burn them off with a blowtorch, and I assume that will work on frozen ones, too. Charred spots mean the glochids are gone. Then simply halve them and scoop out the flesh as directed above. Enjoy your fruity adventure!
Thank you! I’ll give it a shot!
I don’t peel the pear apples. We burn the thorns off on our gas grill. We then cut the ends off and then quarter the apples. I cook the pear apples in a small amount of water until the pear apples are soft and mushy. I have a Squeezo, which separates the seeds and skins from the juice and the pulp, but you can just use a potato masher and then use a sieve or cheesecloth to strain the juice. My recipe calls for 5 cups of juice and 1/2 cup of lemon juice in a large pot. When this is hot, add 2 boxes of Sure Jell fruit pectin (I use the yellow box). Bring to a boil that can not be cooked down and boil for 3 minutes. Add 7 (yes 7) cups of sugar. Bring to a rolling boil for 2 minutes. I usually use the spoon test to see if the jelly “sheets” off the spoon. Pour into sterilized jars. Water bathe for 10 minutes. This will usually yield 4.5 pints.
Carolyn, thank your for sharing your processing tips and recipe! “Pear apples” is a new term for me–where are you from? So many fruits go by wonderful regional names.
So, I’m in NC and harvested some prickly pears for the first time. I’ve scorched off most of the glochids, removed most of the seeds and blended the heck out of them. I’m in the process of trying to shove the slurry through a very fine metal sieve…but it is SOOOO VISCOUS!!! I’ve added some water to try and thin it a bit. I’m not sure I will even be able to get to the clean t-shirt part. I’d like to make this into a syrup but I’m still worried about any glochids I may have missed and the viscosity…advice?
Hi, Rachel! Did you peel the prickly pears or just scorch then blend them? It is thick and pulpy, so it will take bit to push the puree through the sieve.
Of you have the bulbs see recipes for juice here.
If you have paddles, here is my easy all time fave. Flame them, I have a gas range), wash under cool running water, scrubbing lightly with a Scotch Bright type pad. Lay flat on cutting board and trim off all around the edges and the round base attachment and discard. Thinly slice paddle into strips, skin and all. Depending on volume put a Tablespoon or two oil (I use olive oil) into a fry pan and heat to med high, the cactus strips, (optional: some sliced onion), season to taste with salt, pepper, and granulated garlic. Continue cooking, stirring frequently until onion turns clear and strips are tender. Delicious. Enjoy as a veggie side dish.
Use 2-3 layers of straining cloth in the sieve to get rid of the pulpy stuff. Leaves a clear beautiful juice
I don’t burn mine. I was and use a scrubbing rag to remove glochids. Then just put in blender and then pour into the cloth as mentioned in top sentence