What Are Nopales And How Do You Eat Them?

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Perhaps you might have seen nopales on the menu at a Mexican restaurant, or one specializing in southwestern-style cuisine. You might have even seen them sold in cans or jars, where they appear as thin, flat strips somewhat similar to green chiles. So, are nopales a type of pepper then? If you have seen the fresh version, you would realize this probably isn't the case since they look more like big, flat, bumpy green paddles — perhaps something that might be used as ping-pong paddles by aliens, instead.

So, exactly what are these mystery veggies (if, in fact, they are vegetables at all)? Well, yes, nopales are a type of vegetable, according to Garden and Me, as they come from the prickly pear cactus (via FoodPrint). Although there are numerous prickly pear species, one kind that is commonly cultivated to supply nopales is Opuntia ficus-indica. If you are more into wild-harvested produce and you live in the southwest, though, you likely have an ample supply of Opuntia engelmannii possibly as close as your own backyard (via Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum). Here's everything you should know about this unusual vegetable.

So, if nopales and prickly pear fruit both come from the same plant, does this mean they are more or less the same thing? No, not at all. For one thing, as Garden and Me points out, an edible cactus like prickly pear is both a fruit and a vegetable — the fruit, the actual prickly pears themselves, are the seed-bearing part of the plant, while the nopales are the non seed-bearing leaves. The leaves of the cactus are harvested in early spring and summer, while the fruits ripen later in the summer and fall (via Edible Monterey Bay).

The prickly pear fruits, which FoodPrint says also go by the names of Indian figs, Barbary figs, cactus pears, and even tunas (no relation to the fish, obviously), are much, much sweeter than nopales. Simply Recipes compares their flavor to watermelon and bubblegum, so it comes as no surprise that they are often used to make candies and jams, and to flavor baked goods and sodas, such as San Pellegrino's Arancia & Fico d'India. Nopales, on the other hand, are more often used in savory dishes like the vegetable they are. The Los Angeles Times reports, though, that one trendy Orange County eatery did use nopales to make a sorbet they served sprinkled with Tajín and paired with a shot of mezcal.

One great thing about nopales is that if you live in a cactus-conducive climate, they are super-cheap and sustainable. You need only cut off a piece and plant it to get your own starter cactus. They are also incredibly drought-tolerant, since, you know, that's pretty much the entire point of cacti. With these points working in their favor, the Food Literacy Center named nopales their Veggie of the Year from 2016 to 2017. Still, they would not have done that if nopales weren't pretty darn nutritious, as well.

So what, exactly, are you getting when you eat a cup's worth of nopales? According to Medical News Today, you will be ingesting 114 calories and about 3 grams of carbs. A cup of nopales only has about 1 gram of protein, but it has hardly any fat and less than 1 gram of sugar, while providing a decent 2 grams of fiber. Nopales are also rich in vitamin C, calcium, magnesium, and antioxidants, and may be able to lower blood cholesterol and blood sugar levels, and possibly treat liver disease, ulcers, and glaucoma. FoodPrint also adds that this veggie has been used to prevent hangovers (with what degree of success, they do not say), and the big green paddles have even been pressed into service as heating pads used to soothe arthritic aches and pains.

What if you are lucky enough to have nopales growing in your own yard or that of a generous neighbor? What id you find them growing alongside the road in an area not posted as private property? (Foraging laws may vary by area — Hello Homestead notes that while you're free to pick prickly pear cacti on Bureau of Land Management Lands, doing so is expressly forbidden on land owned by the National Park Service.) Once you have ascertained that any given prickly pear cactus is OK for harvesting, you are still going to need the right equipment in order to obtain your nopales without skin lacerations.

Gourmet Sleuth advises wearing heavy gloves when you go nopales-picking, perhaps the same kind of gloves you would use for pruning roses. You can simply snap the pads off the cactus stem, or you can use a knife to cut them instead. You will need that knife again, or perhaps a vegetable peeler, to remove the larger cactus spines, as well as the small, stinging, hair-like ones with which nopales are covered. You can even buy a special cactus peeler made expressly for this purpose (via Amazon), although it may not be much more effective than an ordinary vegetable peeler. Once your nopales are prickle-free, you should rinse them off and trim off any bad spots before you use them for cooking.