Picking, Processing and Eating Prickly Pear Cactus Fruit

Prickly pear cactus and it's fruit have been an important food for indigenous people of the Americas for eons. The cactus pads can be eaten, and used as medicine, while the fruit, often called an apple, is a sweet and juicy treat.

Prickly pear cactus (Genus Opuntia) has literally an infinite number of species as this Genus easily and often hybridizes. Originally native to the Americas, like most true cactus species, prickly pear is now found all over the globe. In Mexico, prickly pears are often used to make appetizers, soups, and salads through entrees, vegetable dishes, and breads to desserts, beverages, candy, jelly, or drinks.

What's so cool about the prickly pear cactus is that it can provide a ton of food with zero supplemental water in a dryland ecosystem. Take a look at the photo above, this prickly pear cactus (unknown species) has been growing at our permaculture education and demonstration site in Ramona, CA for decades. It never gets a drop of supplemental water and we only get an approximate average of 15 inches of rain a year - yet every year it has tons of fruit! Check out how much fruit there is on a single pad below!

Picking the fruit from the plant should not be taken lightly. It is not hard but each pad and fruit has tons of little spines called glochids. They are small hairlike prickles that easily penetrate the skin and detach from the plant. That means good gloves and protective clothing are in order. Keep in mind that no matter how much protection you don, spines somehow always get stuck in you so have a good pair of tweezers or a  pain tolerance ready. The spines don't hurt much but are so small and numerous that they can be difficult to get out of your skin and clothing.

You know the fruit is ripe when it easily detaches from the pad with a push or pull. Pick as many apples as you can, leaving some on the plant for other animals. Set your bounty in a bucket or something sturdy as they get heavy.

To process the fruit find a nice flat cutting surface that you don't mind getting stained from the beautiful juices of the apple. Some people burn off the spines or brush them off, but I find it far faster to just fillet off the skin, vastly reducing the chance of getting any spines in your food. The skin is great for composting.

Start by setting the fruit on the flat rim of one side so it stands on end and the part that separated from the pad is pointing up. Then fillet downward in sections around the apple as thinly as possible while still getting all the spines. Slice down until you are almost at the bottom, just before you hit the skin, then stop (like the photo below). Then you can either slice across the bottom horizontally or grab the slippery flesh and twist off of the skin. The best method kinda depends on the species.

Now you get to choose what to do with your yummy bounty. If this is your first time eating prickly pear apples just take a big bite as is and enjoy! The flavors can vary a lot between plants and species but hopefully they are juicy and super sweet. There are seeds in the fruit but I just try to chew them some and swallow.

As we said before, this fruit can be used for so many things but one of my favorite is just plain or in smoothies. You can make juice, wine, sorbet, syrup, or add them to just about any dish. Be creative and enjoy this amazing permaculture fruit!

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