Prickly pear cactus fruit, called tuna in Spanish, can be eaten out of the hand or used to prepare agua de tuna, a cactus fruit flavored fruit drink. The fruit is eaten throughout Mexico.
Simple and Quick to Clean and Prep
With a paring knife cut off both ends of the fruit. Score the skin vertically to a depth of about ⅛ of an inch. Use your fingers to peel away the skin to expose the edible fruit. That’s it! The fruit is ready to use in your recipes. The seeds, although quite hard, are edible if you are eating it out of hand. You strain the seeds out if you are going to use the pulp to make agua de tuna.
Liliana Ruiz says
Hi, I did all of that and still ended up with one of those fuzzy thorns that are really hard to see, but quite bothersome, in the palm of my hand. How do you handle them so that doesn’t happen?