Prickly Pear Drink | Agua de Tuna | Mexican Food Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What is a prickly pear in Spanish tuna? ›

The other edible part of the nopal cactus is the fruit, called tuna in Spanish and "prickly pear" in English. Nopales are generally sold fresh in Mexico, cleaned of spines, and sliced to the customer's desire on the spot.

Prickly pear cactus — or also known as nopal, opuntia and other names — is promoted for treating diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity and hangovers. It's also touted for its antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties.

Use your fingers to pull the skin back off of the fruit. The skin is thin on the outside, but has a thick layer underneath that comes off too. Peel all of the skin off so that you are left with just the interior pear-shaped piece of fruit.

In Mexico, these Opuntia cacti are known as “nopal,” derived from the Nahuatl word for prickly pear, “nochtli.” The Aztecs would use juice from this cactus to treat burns and other ailments, and they considered it sacred.

How to eat a prickly pear. After flowering, a red, egg-shaped fruit begins to appear. The fruits are edible and can be eaten raw after removing the skin. Jellies, candies and other sweets are often made from the fruit, while some people also snack on the fleshy pads of the plant.

The pads can be sliced and pickled, but cannot be stored fresh in a refrigerator for more than a week. Most prickly pear tunas and nopales can be eaten plain. Prickly pear are used for a variety of foods, especially the fruit for syrups, candies and jellies. However, the pads can also be cooked or eaten in a salad.

What Does a Prickly Pear Taste Like? Ripe prickly pears have a soft, juicy interior that's bursting with sweet flavor and little edible seeds. Its flavor is often compared to that of a melon or a kiwi, sometimes with a hint of bubblegum.

Traditionally made in Sicily, where it's called liquore da fico d'india, and Malta, where it's called bajtra, the liqueur is syrupy in texture with a flavor reminiscent of honeydew melon and an alcoholic kick. The prickly pear's hue isn't the only colorful thing about it.

Be aware that you should use it as a water source in an emergency situation only. There are very few safe cacti that you can eat or drink from. Very few. The fishhook barrel cactus is the only one you can safely drink from without it poisoning you.

How do you drink prickly pear? ›

To extract the prickly pear juice, place the "husked" prickly pears into a blender or food processor and pulse until liquefied. Place the mixture into a fine mesh sieve and push out the juice into a pitcher or bowl.

Precautions. Pregnancy and breast-feeding: There is not enough reliable information about the safety of taking prickly pear cactus if you are pregnant or breast-feeding. Stay on the safe side and avoid use. Diabetes: Prickly pear cactus might lower blood sugar levels in people with diabetes.

Prickly pear cactus can cause minor side effects in some people, including diarrhea, nausea, bloating, and heartburn. Pregnancy and breast-feeding: There isn't enough reliable information to know if prickly pear cactus is safe to use when pregnant or breast-feeding. Stay on the safe side and stick to food amounts.

If you eat too much prickly pear, you may experience side effects related to excessive fiber consumption. These include diarrhea, indigestion, bloating, or nausea. Additionally, prickly pear fruit seeds have been linked to rare cases of bowel obstruction.

Tuna, as it's called in much of South America, is the edible fruit of a type of prickly pear cactus. It originated in what's now known as Mexico but grows today in dry areas all around the world, wild and cultivated.

Prickly pears produce a fruit known as tuna, commonly eaten in Mexico and in the Mediterranean region, which is also used to make aguas frescas. The fruit can be red, wine-red, green, or yellow-orange.

The Prickly pear fruit, known as “chumbo” in Spain, is the edible fruit of the paddle cactus, which can be found in summer in many food markets.

The cactus pear, also known as prickly pear (or by its Spanish name, tuna) is the fruit of the Opuntia cactus native to the southwestern US and Mexico. (The same succulent gives us cactus pads or nopales.)