How to Make Prickly Pear Juice

If you have ever wondered how to make prickly pear juice, now is your chance. Prickly pears can range from gorgeous pink fruits with a berry-like taste to yellow ones with a tropical flavour. So delicious!

The juice is perfect to enjoy on its own or to blend with other beverages like cocktails.

About Prickly Pears

Prickly pears go by several names, like cactus berry, barbary fig, and tuna in Spanish. They come from the nopal cactus (Opuntia) which has paddle-shaped leaves and grows in different parts of the Americas including the United States, Mexico, and the Caribbean.

There are several varieties of prickly pear cactus ranging from deep pink to red, green, or yellow and brown even. The challenge with dealing with them is that they are very prickly on the outside due to being a cactus fruit. Once you get slice them open and get to the inside, it is so worth it - as the inner pulp has an even deeper colour than the outer skin.

Prickly pear fruit has an interesting sweet but subtle flavor profile that is a unique combination of watermelon and bubble gum. While the cactus plants grow all year, the fruit doesn't tend to be ready to harvest until late summer to December. As a result, there is just a short time to enjoy these cactus fruits.

In Mexico, prickly pears have a multitude of uses. For example, they will frequently be the star in agua de tuna; prickly pear flavored agua fresca, a type of refreshing fruit drink. Additionally, they can go into paletas, a Mexican popsicle. They are also great for candy, pies, jelly, and other desserts.

Before I forget to mention, they also taste pretty good when eaten all by themselves and contain a good amount of fiber as well!

In terms of other prickly pear health benefits, the prickly pear cactus fruit has plenty of vitamin C, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and more nutrients to help boost your immune system. In fact, a single prickly pear includes approximately 5 percent of the daily recommended intake for calcium.

What is Agua de Tuna?

This juice is basically pureed prickly pear pulp that has been strained to remove the seeds. In this juice recipe, I also recommend the addition of some limes for some added tang and fruitiness, but they are optional.

Mint leaves are also great for a refreshing flavor. A little agave syrup is an excellent inclusion, especially since you may want the juice a little sweeter to add to smoothies, margaritas, and other beverages.

While you could utilize another syrup like honey, I recommend agave syrup because it is more authentic to Mexico. This syrup comes from the blue agave plant and is actually sweeter than refined white sugar. I give the option of adding it to taste, so you can determine how much to add depending on the preference of your taste buds.

How to Handle and Peel Prickly Pears

If you are lucky enough to live in a place where prickly pears grow in wild in abundance, you may be able to harvest them yourself. You should either wear thick rubber gloves to harvest them or use tongs to pull the fruit from the cactus because they are prickly.

Once you have them in hand, wash them under cold running water. While doing that, I also recommend that you scrub them with a brush because that will help remove the prickles on the exterior of the fruit, otherwise known as the glochids. If you purchased your prickly pears from the store, you may be able to skip this step as the glochids are usually removed before being sold.

Traditionally they used to pre-singe the freshly plucked fruit over an open flame to neutralize the glochids before proceeding to the next step but I personally prefer just scrubbing them off as mentioned earlier.

You will need to peel the prickly pears as they have a tough skin and you want to get to the flesh for the juice. You should wear gloves or utilize tongs for this step because there still might be some prickles on the prickly pears.

The best way to peel them is by using a knife to trim the ends of the prickly pear - followed by slicing the skin down the length of the fruit. Now you can peel away the skin in one large sheet and free the fruit inside.

Another way to remove the skin is to cut the prickly pear in half. Then use a spoon to scoop out the flesh from the two halves. Similar to how you might scoop out an avocado or kiwi fruit.

How to Make Prickly Pear Juice

Once you have the prickly pears prepared and peeled, making the juice is easy. Simply add the full prickly pears to a blender. To flavor the juice you can add lime juice or mint leaves, and some agave syrup for sweetness.

You may think that you should add some water at this step, but it shouldn't be necessary. Prickly pears have a lot of natural moisture that they should mash and blend quite well without the need for additional liquid.

Only blend for a few seconds until the fruit is broken down. It really doesn't take long for that. You don't want to blend so long that the seeds inside the prickly pears get broken down too. Keeping the seeds whole makes them easier to strain out.

Next, set a fine-mesh sieve over a bowl and pour the juice through. This is to remove the seeds from the prickly pear syrup and to give you a nice, smooth juice. At this stage, you can feel free to taste and add additional lime juice and agave syrup if needed.

Once prepared, you can drink the juice as is or dilute it with water, use it in a recipe, or place it in the fridge in a sealed container until you are ready to enjoy it.

How to Use this Juice

Using your homemade juice may be the most fun part of this recipe. You could certainly enjoy it as it is if desired, as the fruit is so sweet and flavourful already. It should keep fresh in the fridge for between 2 and 3 days.

Of course, if you won't be able to use the juice within that time or have a lot of prickly pears to process, you could simply divide the juice between ice cubes trays to freeze until you are ready to use it. These ice cubes are wonderful to add to cold beverages or to stir into water for some extra natural flavour.

Additionally, you could blend them into smoothies in place of regular ice or pulse them into a frozen prickly pear margarita. Other possibilities are to use the juice in vinaigrettes, add it to marinades, or turn it into a fruit curd for a pie. There are so many possibilities with this lovely, exotic fruit.

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