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Barrel Cactus Fruit

Edible barrel cactus buds from arizona

Barrel cactus fruit.

Barrel cactus fruit, also known as muppets you can eat, or the Bert and Ernie of desert edibles.

I’ve traveled to Arizona to see my grandparents just about every other year since I was a child. I always thought the concrete jungle of towns in the desert, and the different terrain was interesting-much different from Minnesota where I grew up, but it was more of just a funny-looking landscape as opposed to something I’d want to study. But now, I try to find edible “souveniers” on my trips, wherever I go, and I’m always on the lookout for new things to cook with.

A sunset picture in the desert

The Arizona desert is one of my favorite places to hike with my father.

I usually go in the winter, say January or February, and, it’s taken a few years to get up to speed. One year I tried to pick cholla buds, picked the fruit by accident, and got them way too green. Let me tell you, I was picking glochids out of my fingers for a week after that foraging crucible, and, unfortunately with the time frame I usually travel in, I probably won’t be getting any cholla buds any time soon. I learn more every year though, and 2019 was the best yet, because of the barrel cactus fruit.

My grandparents had an idea to take a wild foods walk at a botanical garden with a local guide named Felicia, I was excited, as hands-on experience with locals knowledgeable about the terrain is speed learning compared walking around with a field guide.

Arizona desert

There are a lot of cacti here, and they are all technically food plants.

The best new thing I learned, hands-down, from Felicia were the barrel cactus fruit, which look a bit like mini-pinneaples. The fruits of barrel and other cactus have been used as food for eons, along with other parts, but the only edible cactus fruit I knew were the purple prickly pear sold in sugary jam in gift shops, and more recently the more obscure cholla buds. Someday, cholla, someday you’ll be mine.

Goat stew with barrel cactus buds, sage, tepary beans, and wood ash hominy recipeGoat stew with barrel cactus buds, sage, tepary beans, and wood ash hominy recipe

Dried cactus fruit were ridiculously good in soup and stews.

Barrel cactus fruit are glochid and spine-free 

The barrel cactus has long, curved spines on the body but the fruit are, completely, 100%, spine-free. That means no gloves, no tongs, no burning to remove nasty glochids, nothing but pure, sweet, endorphine-rich free food picking to sate your inner caveman/cavewoman.

Barrel cactus fruit

Barrel cactus fruit at a decent stage for picking.  There’s no glochids or spines, just grab’n’go.

Looking in areas supplemented with water

The only tricky part for me was actually finding some cactus fruit in a place I could harvest them. At the botanical garden in January, the wee-pinneaple cactus fruit were everywhere. Excited after our walk at the garden, we went out hiking in the Superstition mountains the next day, only to get skunked, with zero cactus fruit.

Afterwords, at my grandparents house, wouldn’t you know it, the neighbor’s yard had a barrel cactus filled with the damn things. My grandparents called the neighbors, and, giddy like a kid with a new toy, I got to go over and pick some. Later that evening we may have skimmed a few from other houses, under the cover of darkness to please the foraging gods. Needless to say, at least where I was, it seemed to me that irrigated places (lawns, etc) seem to fruit earlier than the wild places that wait for rain, but that’s speculation on my part.

Barrel cactus seed flatbread

The seeds of barrel cactus can be toasted and ground into a meal. These are flint corn and cactus seed flatbread, for dipping in soup or broth, or making tacos.

Cactus slime 

The buds are really firm, solid things, and they took a luggage ride in a paper bag like champions. When I got home, I cleaned them, taking a little inspiration from my conversation with Felicia, who said she dried them and sometimes ground the inner seeds into a meal. Like other cactus parts i.e. paddles, fruit, the barrel cactus fruit are slimy, mucilagenous creatures, and will go toe-to-toe with Japanese Knotweed for most gooey thing I’ve picked.

Marinated barrel cactus fruit

After drying, another thing I did was cook and marinate the cactus fruit for a taco relish. It was good, but nowhere near the desert stew.

Cooked fresh, that mucilagenous goo will transfer strongly to water, say, if cooked in soup, and, I don’t care for that, much better to grill them if you want to try them fresh, but know that fresh they’re sour, as in more sour than sorrel. Felicia’s advice on drying them was genius, since dehydrating, as well as being a safegaurd against a lot of gastro-intestinal distress issues with eating new things, can change the structure of mucilage and tame it’s qualities, and the same goes for Japanese Knotweed, while we’re at it, although I don’t care for it much.

Preserving and cooking 

The fruit 

Dried edible barrel cactus fruit and seeds

Sliced, and seeds removed, the cactus fruit dry easily, and the mucilage loses it’s potency. In about twenty minutes of harvesting I got 3 pint jars of these dried–a good yield.

Dehydrating tames the cactus slime 

The fruit itself won’t yield as much as it looks like, since they little pinneaples are filled with black seeds, but, trust me, these things are worth going out to get. I cut some of mine into quarters, and some into rings, before drying and, depending on what you do, either way could work. Once they’re dried they’ll last a very long time in a jar. Some seeds will stick to the cut fruit, but are easily shaken/winnowed after drying and combined with the rest of the seeds.

Cactus seed tacos with dried barrel cactus fruit and blood sauage

After drying, cooking and marinating, the buds made a nice topping for blood sausage tacos made with toasted cactus seed.

As far as cooking goes, there are a few recipes online, but most are just jams packed with a bunch of sugar, and personally I think that’s a lazy method that will make anything palatable. The best way I found to use these was in soup, or stew. To cook from dried, just simmer them away in your soup. They take a while to soften, but eventually they turn into little tart bites that gently flavor a cooking liquid, a bit like avgolemono soup.

Goat stew with barrel cactus buds, sage, tepary beans, and wood ash hominy

An all-desert themed stew I made with my dried cactus buds was out of this world good. The fruit adds a tart flavor to broth. You dip a sourdough flatbread made with cactus seeds into the broth as you eat.

The best thing I made was a simple desert-inspired soup pictured above with goat, tepary beans, wood ash hominy, dried cactus fruit, and a sourdough flatbread made with the seeds you dip into the broth as you eat. The cactus fruit were the star of the show, and they are hands-down the best desert edible I’ve eaten to date.

Edible barrel cactus fruit from arizona

Sliced fruits are basically hollow after the seeds are removed. I discard the pinneaple tops.

The seeds

I scraped mine out of the fruit, dried them, and forgot about them for a while. I wasn’t expecting much, but as the seeds make up roughly 40% or so of the volume of the cactus fruit, I knew I should try doing something with them. Fresh they’re fine as a sprinkle or garnish. Dried and eaten raw, they’re gritty and bland tasting. Felicia made a sweet chutney with green tomatoes and fresh saguaro cactus seeds that was excellent.

Toasting 

Toasting the seeds was a gold mine, and they gave off a rich, nutty aroma, almost like a roasted root, or coffee substitute, almost. I’d describe them as half grain/half aromatic for cooking purposes, and they flavored a flatbread made with cornmeal I made really well, just make sure to grind the meal as fine as possible.

Recipe Ideas

As I said before, soups, broths, and stews are where these will shine the best. But as long as theyre rehydrated and cooked until tender, you can do all kinds of stuff with them. Here’s a few things I did, or have in the chamber. If you’ve worked with these,

  • Desert stew with goat, tepary beans, wood ash hominy, and cactus fruit
  • Cactus seed sourdough flatbread 
  • Sweet chutney made with the dried, rehydrated fruit, garnished with the fresh seeds so the whole fruit of the plant is used.
  • Rehydrated, cooked until soft, and marinated with onions and dried oregano (see tacos above)
  • Fermenting to intensify the sour flavor, then dehydrating
  • Dehydrated, then rehydrated and pickled to use as a sour garnish
  • Dehydrated, then rehydrated and fermented to up the sour flavor as a garnish

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Lee Einer

    April 6, 2019 at 12:05 pm

    About those glochids-

    Very difficult to remove by means of tweezers.

    Spread Elmer’s glue (the white stuff) on the affected area and let it dry. Then peel it off and most if not all of the glochids should come with.

    You can also use an adhesive tape like Scotch tape to remove them, but the glue is best.

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      April 6, 2019 at 12:17 pm

      This is some great advice. Thanks. Hopefully I can pick some cholla buds someday, and I’ll probably need to use the elmers.

      Reply
  2. Ellen

    April 6, 2019 at 12:40 pm

    No barrel cactus here, too cold in Santa Fe. Cholla buds have evaded me, too. They ripen here in June (I’m told) and I’m not usually here then. We’re delaying our summer departure by a week this year, hoping for buds!

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      April 7, 2019 at 11:35 am

      Good luck with the Cholla, I’m always to early to get them in Arizona.

      Reply
    • Jo

      March 5, 2020 at 6:10 am

      The best cholla buds are from the Staghorn Cholla. The dark purple/mauve colored one. April is the month here in Tucson they are available. We pick with tongs, spread out on a cookie sheet and hit with small map gas torch. Then onto a rinse in water a couple of times in a colander- grill on skewers- and pop into a balsamic brine to pickle in fridge- delicious! Glocids will stick to everything- we dedicate a set of tongs, cookie sheet & colander just for them!

      Reply
  3. Joshua

    January 16, 2020 at 9:17 am

    Thanks for the ideas. Just moved to Marana, AZ (near Tucson) and we have several barrel cactus with fruit. I want to use them, but I had no idea what to do with them.

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      January 21, 2020 at 3:25 pm

      You will love them. Use the stew for a template–much better than making them into sweet jam IMO.

      Reply
  4. Stone Crafter

    April 7, 2020 at 3:42 pm

    I’m in Peoria by the Agua Fria river bottom and I’m thinking of planting the fruit to grow my own supply. Any thoughts on making my yard the winning organic supplier of barrel cactus fruit?

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      April 7, 2020 at 3:50 pm

      Hey, I only harvest these wild, so I don’t know how much help I can be, but from what I know about harvesting them from my experience, the areas in the desert that had irrigation close by had earlier fruitings. That being said, I would put them in a dry place where you are, since Peoria is a lot different than AZ where I pick. Good luck.

      Reply
  5. carla

    April 13, 2020 at 3:43 pm

    5 stars
    thank you for sharing this: after reading your stew recipe, I just turned the harvest from my yard into chili with everything elderly from my fridge: very tasty. I’d never have thought of that! I went online to look for some sweet preparation…
    Can I thank you by sending you a package of cholla fruit? My yard has 4 fruit-bearing ones right now, one with yellow, 3 with green fruit.

    Reply
  6. lila I davis

    May 22, 2020 at 10:31 am

    I had a bunch in my front yard going to waste. I just picked them, and processed yesterday. I dried a ton of seed which I will use in my baked goods. Then I peeled the flesh and boiled til soft, then candied as I would orange or lemon peel, also plan to use in baked goods such as cookies and sweet breads.
    I’ve lived in this house 7 years and keep intending to use the fruits, but never do. Thanks so much for the confidence and inspiration to get out there and use natures resources.

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      May 23, 2020 at 9:17 am

      Great ideas. I’m planning on candying some too, the natural tartness should be great like that.

      Reply
  7. Conor Bertrand

    July 18, 2020 at 6:06 pm

    Hello! I just moved to the Marana side of Tucson and am wanting to get into foraging and cooking all the delicious desert goodness we have. I picked a bunch of barrel cactus fruit and separated the seeds from the fruit, but how did you separate the pulp inside from the seeds? I’ve read that the seeds would sink and the pulp would float in water, but that didn’t really work too well.

    Any ideas? Thanks!

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      July 21, 2020 at 7:48 pm

      Dehydrate them and the seeds fall out.

      Reply

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  1. Dehydrating Barrel Cactus Fruit - The Geek Homestead says:
    January 31, 2020 at 8:32 am

    5 stars
    […] of his ideas: Desert Stew and Cactus Seed Flatbread as well as a very informative post about barrel cactus fruit in […]

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