How To Eat Prickly Pear Cactus

Prickly Pear Cactus are edible but due to all the spines you must be very careful when doing so. One way to get the part you want is to use some sort of tongs to grab a break off the part you want. The part you want will be redder and should easily be removed from the rest of the cactus. Gather up all your cactus pieces in a bowl and then soak them in water for a couple of minutes to wash them off.

Now using tongs and a large knife, cut off the top and the bottom part of the "pear". And while holding the pear with a fork or the tongs slowly gut away the thick skin/peel of the cactus. Discard the skin maybe in a fire and keep the inner part. Do this to all you have collected.

Now what remains has no spines but is filled with thousands of tiny seeds that will need to be separated. Separate by any means you can. A food processor works great to liquefy the pears but if you don't have electricity you will just have to do some form of manual grinding and crushing.

Once you have the stuff pulverized you separate the pulp and seeds from the liquid with a colander. The seeds of which you will have a good quantity, can be processed into flour. The liquid can be served as is.