Prickly Pear Lemonade

Prickly pear blended with lemonade to create an amazingly refreshing drink, perfect for a warm day in fall. Easy to make, this beverage is great for entertaining guests.

Prickly Pear Lemonade | Cooking with a Wallflower

Isn’t the color to this prickly pear lemonade so pretty and vibrant? If you can’t already tell, I like my food to be colorful.

This drink is super easy to make too with just five ingredients and mint for garnish.

When I’m out grocery shopping,  I always come across boxes filled with prickly pears.  I figured I should take it as a sign, that it’s meant to be. So I bought a few.

I wasn’t sure at first what to do with it. But I didn’t think I could go wrong with making it into a beverage. So ta da! We now have prickly pear lemonade!

Prickly Pear Lemonade | Cooking with a Wallflower

Prickly pears, if you haven’t encountered them before, are fruits from a cactus tree. They’re sweet (well, it depends on the individual fruit) and pink on the inside with a multicolored outer skin. Unfortunately, they have soo many seeds. It’s actually really annoying because it’s impossible to avoid the seeds. So how do people eat it? Sometimes they just swallow the seeds or spit them out after eating the fruit. The technique is pretty similar to eating pomegranates or guava. However, these seeds are much harder than the seeds of pomegranates or guava. Avoid biting into them. Otherwise, you’ll probably feel some pain.

Prickly Pear Lemonade | Cooking with a Wallflower

Prickly Pear Lemonade | Cooking with a Wallflower

But don’t worry. I have a way around this.

Make your lemonade, and add it to a blender. I used a Magic Bullet for convenience. Use a spoon to scoop the fruit with the seeds into the blender.

Prickly Pear Lemonade | Cooking with a Wallflower

Blend the prickly pear with the lemonade for about 30 seconds. You’re not trying to pulverize the seeds. What you’re trying to do is separate the fruit from the seeds. So a quick whirl in the blender is perfect for that.

Pour the prickly pear lemonade through a fine mesh or a strainer to separate the seeds from the lemonade.

Prickly Pear Lemonade | Cooking with a Wallflower

Pour the prickly pear lemonade into a glass with several ice cubes and serve cold.

Enjoy!

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Prickly Pear Lemonade | Cooking with a Wallflower

Dental Hygiene Tip #6: To avoid stains on your teeth, avoid eating/drinking anything dark in color. That includes: coffee, tea, soy sauce, and so forth.

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Prickly Pear Lemonade

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 5 minutes

Yield: 1 serving

Prickly Pear Lemonade

Prickly pear blended with lemonade to create an amazingly refreshing drink, perfect for a warm day in fall. Easy to make, this beverage is great for entertaining guests.

Author: Andrea Giang

Ingredients

1 prickly pear

1 cup water

2 tablespoons lemon juice

½ tablespoon granulated sugar (or sweetener of choice)

5-6 ice cubes

2-3 mint leaves for garnish (optional)

Directions

Mix the lemon juice and granulated sugar with water. Pour the lemonade into a blender.

Slice the prickly pear in half. Use a spoon to scoop out the fruit with the seeds, and add them into the blender.

Blend for about 15-30 seconds to remove the fruit from the seeds.

Pour the prickly pear lemonade through a strainer or a fine mesh to separate the seeds from the lemonade.

Add ice cubes and mint leaves to the glass of prickly pear lemonade.

Serve immediately cold.

https://cookingwithawallflower.com/2014/10/12/prickly-pear-lemonade/

 

99 comments

  1. midmiocene says:

    For some reason I couldn’t “like” this post so I thought I’d comment. Lovely color.

    I’m not sure how you took care of the needles but what I do is to spear the fruit with something like a chop stick then turn on the stove and burn them off. It goes quick. Much easier than trying to rub them off.

    Best!

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