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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Pour the prickly pear lemonade into a glass with several ice cubes and serve cold.
Enjoy!
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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/
I had no idea that it was possible to eat a prickly pear, or even that they had fruit! Where I live (in Australia) prickly pears are a pest and usually only seen in gardens that are very, very un-cared-for and are inevitably home to a large number of spiders! You learn something new every day…
I’ve heard that from someone else in Australia! I’m not a fan of spiders and now I’m having second thoughts! But here, they’re actually sold at the grocery stores for less than a dollar a pound.
I love prickly pears, you could also do it with green prickly pears and a tad of citrus. Can’t wait to try this!
Hope you’ll like it!
This is crazy crazy gorgeous! The colour!
Thank you!
Wow, it reminds me of eating soursops… they’re super good in smoothies too, but this fruit seems harder to tackle with those smaller seeds! Still I might try it out since the color is so appetizing!
It’s definitely more difficult to remove the seeds than soursops! But if you whirl it in the blender for a little bit, you can get the fruit in your drink without the seeds. Hope you’ll like it!
I have yet to try a prickly pear drink although there are several places here in Singapore that have them!
I hope you’ll like the lemonade =)
Andrea,
Nice photos in your blog, I have a tip for you for your mint. Put into ice water for a few minutes and then blot it dry just before you use it. This will refresh it and make it look much better.
Thank you so much for the tip, Daniel. I actually responded earlier, but it doesn’t seem like it went through. But if it did, ignore this one. I’ve been having so much trouble working with mint because it starts to wilt as I’m taking photos! Thank you so much for this tip! It’ll really help!
No problem Andrea glad I could help.
I’ve never tried prickly pear – I’d love to though. It looks a beautiful colour and I’m sure it was fantastic in that drink.
It really is a nice color. And it’s all natural too, which is perfect. If you get the chance to try it, I hope you’ll like it, Corina =)
I will make this the next time I come across a prickly pear. Yum!
Hope you’ll like it, Jackie!
The spots on the prickly pears that look like white dots are full of what can best be described as miniature “fuzzy cactus thorns”.
The store bought ones have these removed.
If you pick your own prickly pears, use hot dog tongs and remove “the fuzz” by passing the spots over a flame from a gas stove, gas BBQ or small propane torch. The heat will singe the fuzzy thorns without hurting the fruit. A rinse under running water completes the process.
Thank you so much for letting me know about this! I had no idea since I bought mine from the store.
It looks great but not sure where I’d get prickly pear in Perth, I might have to hunt around 🙂
You can always replace it with berries that are available if you can’t find it =)
Excellent idea, thank you 🙂