If you can find prickly pears, you can make this delicious prickly pear margarita recipe! Prickly pears have a sweet distinct flavor that works beautifully with tequila.

Two prickly pear margaritas in straight up glasses. They are garnished with pineapple.

Jump to:

What Are Prickly Pears?
How To Juice A Prickly Pear Fruit:
Appetizers That Go With Prickly Pear:
Tools:
📖 Recipe
💬 Comments

Are you ready for a fun new margarita recipe? I feel like I hit the jackpot when I found prickly pears at our local produce market!! Prickly pear has a unique honey-like flavor that tastes incredible in cocktails.

I am all for exotic fruit cocktail recipes! The more unusual, the better! Just try these delicious Red Currant Margarita or Dragon Fruit Cocktail recipes!

What Are Prickly Pears?

Prickly pears or the "tuna" are the fruit of a prickly pear cactus. Their fruit can be hot pink, orange, and even green. Each color of prickly pear has a subtle flavor difference. It is often hard to know the color of the fruit until you cut open the fruit.

Tip: Make sure you buy the fruit without the thorny spines! Prickly pear fruit can be dangerous because its spines are thick and hard to remove.

Cactus pear fruit makes the best cocktails! You will love these Prickly Pear Bourbon Cocktails at your next happy hour!

Two prickly pear margaritas on a cutting board. There are slices of pineapple on the cutting board, and garnishing each glass.

This prickly pear drink is really easy to make once you uncover the delicious fruit under the thick skin! In some recipes, you want to make a prickly pear cactus syrup.

I tried to keep it simple for my first cactus pear margarita recipe! Stay tuned for more cactus pear recipes...I just made the best hot pink syrup out of my latest find!

The top view looking down on a cactus pear margarita.

How To Juice A Prickly Pear Fruit:

Are you ready to juice your prickly pear fruit? I promise it isn't as hard as you might think! Just be sure your prickly pear thorns are removed. If your prickly pear has thorns, you need to safely remove them. Follow this simple tutorial to remove the prickly pear spines.

A strainer filled with prickly pear fruit. Much of the juice has run through leaving mostly pulp and seeds.

Cut the cactus pear fruit in half lengthwise. This is when you see what color fruit you have! Scoop out the pulp and add it to a strainer. Place the strainer over a container that will catch the juice.

Prickly pear pulp and seeds in a strainer.

Use a spoon to press the pulp against the mesh in the strainer. This will force all of the juice through. The strainer will trap the seeds, which you don't want in your drink!

a container of golden orange prickly pear juice.

Now you have prickly pear juice for this cactus pear margarita recipe! The next step is to take a margarita glass and rub lime around the rim. Dip the edges of the rim in coarse sugar.

Two glasses of prickly pear margaritas. Pineapple slices garnish each glass.

Many often wonder if tequila and other hard liquors like Fireball are gluten free. You can read this article to learn more about whether tequila is gluten free.

Appetizers That Go With Prickly Pear:

Tools:

A cocktail shaker to chill your drink.
A strainer to press the juice out of the cactus pear pulp.

This post was updated from an old December 2017 post with more information.

📖 Recipe

Prickly Pear Margarita

Sandi Gaertner

An easy prickly pear margarita recipe.

5 from 14 votes

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Prep Time 15

Total Time 15

Course Cocktail Recipes

Cuisine American

Servings

Calories 231 kcal

Ingredients

Instructions

Cut prickly pear fruit in half lengthwise.
Scoop the fruit into a strainer. Place the strainer over a container. Use a spoon to press the fruit into the mesh. This will force the juice out, without getting seeds.
In a shaker, add ice, and all of the ingredients.
Shake to chill. Let sit for 2 minutes while you prep the rim.
Rub fresh lime over the rims on two glasses. Dip the rim in coarse sugar.
Pour the cocktail into each glass. Garnish with pineapple or lime.

SPECIAL NOTE

Please know that every gluten free flour blend has a different starch to grain ratio. If you use a blend I didn't test, you may need to adjust your moisture levels in your baked goods.

Nutrition

Serving: 1gCalories: 231kcalCarbohydrates: 28gProtein: 1gSodium: 75mgFiber: 2gSugar: 22g

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Nutrition Disclaimer

Nutritional information is an estimate provided to you as a courtesy. You should calculate the actual nutritional information with the products and brands you are using with your preferred nutritional calculator.

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