How To Harvest And Eat Prickly Pear Fruit

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Before moving to the southwest, I had never even tried prickly pear fruit. Then I moved to the southwest and my first home had not one, but two large prickly pear cactus. I’ve learned so much from prickly pear cactus and have recently completed my second year harvesting fruit.

This post goes over every detail on the prickly pear cactus fruit and all of your questions will be answered.

The first question I hear from people who have never tried prickly pear fruit is if it’s even edible.

Yes, you can definitely eat this fruit but you have to tear off the skin and clean off the glochid spines. It’s a process that is worth it if you love the taste of prickly pear fruit.

You can eat prickly pear fruit completely raw as long as you tear off the skin.

Many people in the southwest mountain biking community will go up to a prickly pear cactus, tear off the skin, and eat the fruit immediately while on their ride.

Some people say prickly pear fruit tastes like a mixture of a watermelon and bubblegum. I can’t describe the taste at all. All I know is I’ve never tasted anything like it.

Prickly pear fruit has a unique taste that is so different from other fruit.

When I first tasted the fruit, I was confused and I couldn’t tell if I liked it or not.

I’m still unsure on how I feel about the taste but I’m so excited about having this fruit grow in my yard with no effort whatsoever on my part, so I have to harvest the fruit.

There are so many things you can do with prickly pear fruit. Here are just a few ideas.

Jam or jelly
Smoothies
Candies
Syrup
Salads
Sorbet
Margarita
Pancakes (yes I put it in my pancakes once!)
Tacos
Lemonade
Vinaigrette

You only want to eat the fleshy part of the prickly pear fruit.

Never eat the skin and obviously do not eat the glochids. The inside of the fruit has a ton of seeds, so avoid those as well.

I like to throw all the flesh into a smoothie to extract the juice and separate the seeds.

Eh, why would you want to? The fruit is covered in glochids and even if you think the fruit no longer has glochids, it probably does.

These little suckers are microscopic and so hard to see to the human eye, it’s just not worth it.

How do you know if prickly pear is ripe?

You know when prickly pear is ripe if the fruit can easily twist off of the cactus.

I use tongs and gently grab ahold of the fruit and twist. The fruit should easily come off with almost no effort on my end. I only try to take off the prickly pear fruit once the entire fruit has no green color to it.

Depending on how much prickly pear fruit you eat, you make notice your poop turning red after eating this fruit.

This is the most important part of the prickly pear fruit harvesting process.

Here is what I do to clean off prickly pear cactus.

Place a few prickly pear fruit in a strainer under running water.
Shake the fruit around the strainer for awhile. This helps remove the glochids.
Some people get lucky and all of the glochids remove from the shaking the strainer. That’s typically not the case for me.
Carefully remove the skin. If the fruit is ripe, you can peel the fruits skin off easily. It should melt off like butter and be incredibly easy to remove.
Once the fleshy part of the fruit is separated from the skin, I like to run the flesh under water in case any glochids somehow stayed on.
I place all clean, fleshy parts of the fruit in a container where it gets ready for the next step, which is blending in a blender which helps separate the seeds and juice quickly.

Prickly pears do not ripen much after being picked.

This is why it’s important to only pick your fruit once it’s ripened. You’ll know if the fruit is ripened if there’s no green left on the fruit. You should be able to easily twist off the fruit with tongs.

If it’s not effortless to twist off the fruit, the fruit is not ripened yet.

Prickly pear fruit is highly poisonous to dogs. Do not give it to your dogs.

Prickly pear fruit lasts around 2-3 days in the fridge.

You should immediately clean and blend the fruit once you take it off the cactus. Once you have the juice from the fruit, you can freeze the juice to use later.

It’s pretty much impossible to peel a prickly pear without getting pricked. I even have friends that use fire to burn off the glochids but they still complain of getting sticked with these little suckers.

There are many different methods for peeling prickly pear without getting pricked. I think the method of either burning the glochids off first or tossing the fruit in a strainer under running water is best.

If you harvest prickly pear fruit, you’re bound to get glochids stuck in your body somewhere.

If you ever find a glochid in your skin, remove it with a tweezer.

Some people also choose to use Elmer’s glue and spread a thin layer on the glochid. Once the glue dries, you can remove the layer of Elmber’ glue off your skin. This should help remove the glochids.

I have never done this and would only recommend doing this if you’re comfortable with a blow torch.

With a blow torch, you slowly work around the fruit and the fire will burn off the glochids.

Extracting prickly pear juice is the easiest part of this harvesting process. All you need to do is the following.

After cleaning and removing glochids off the fruit, it’s time to put the flesh of the fruit in a blender.
You may notice a ton of seeds in the fruit, no worries. The seeds will fall to the bottom of the blender.
Once your fruit is blended, it’s time to get a strainer and separate the seeds and juice.
I put all of the juice in a mason jar and freeze the juice until I’m ready to use it.

Key things to remember

Prickly pear cactus is one of the coolest cactus out there.

The fruit has such a unique taste, so if you have one of these plants in your garden producing fruit, you may want to consider harvesting the fruit.

You can make so many different things with prickly pear fruit and there’s nothing like seeing someone’s face when you hand them homemade prickly pear fruit jam.

How To Harvest And Eat Prickly Pear Fruit

Can you eat the fruit of the prickly pear?

Can you eat prickly pear fruit raw?

Can prickly pear make you sick?

Is prickly pear poisonous?

What does prickly pear fruit taste like?

Is prickly pear fruit tasty?

What can you do with prickly pear fruit?

What part of the prickly pear fruit is edible?

Can you eat prickly pear skin?

Is prickly pear like dragon fruit?

How do you know if prickly pear is ripe?

Do prickly pears make your poop red?

How do you clean prickly pear fruit?

Where does prickly pear grow?

Can you put prickly pear in a smoothie?

Do prickly pears ripen after being picked?

Can dogs eat prickly pear?

What time of year do prickly pears ripen?

How long does prickly pear last in fridge?

How do you peel a prickly pear without getting pricked?

How do you get rid of prickly pear thorns on your hand?

How do you burn a prickly pear cactus?

How do you extract prickly pear juice?

How many times does a prickly pear cactus bloom?

How long does prickly pear take to grow?

Key things to remember