How to eat a dragon fruit, a delicious and fascinating tropical fruit. It's easy to cut and eat this horned pink melon that tastes like kiwi into shapes and use for salads, smoothies, fruit bowls and garnishes.
How to eat dragon fruit is a delightful and easy lesson. Dragon fruit, also called pitaya, is a vibrant tropical fruit that looks like a prehistoric movie prop with pink skin and green spikes. One of my favorite fruits for summer recipes, this sweet fruit is easy to peel and the meat easily cuts into cubes, slices, and melon balls. It's quite easy to turn raw dragon fruit into a frosty dragon fruit smoothie with yogurt, an energizing pitaya smoothie bowl, and even dragon fruit ice cream.
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What is Dragon Fruit?
The fruit, which is actually a cactus, grows on vines and to about the size of a baseball. It typically has a bright pink skin with green spikes. You can find dragon fruit fresh in the exotic fruit area of your grocery produce, or in the frozen section. It is often likely to be found in Asian markets.
The fruit originates from Central and South America, but can be found all over the world. It comes in versions that have pink or yellow skin, and white or pink flesh with black seeds.
The taste of dragon fruit is sweet and watery, similar to a kiwi, pear and honeydew melon, although dragon fruit melon has a sturdier texture and leaves a sweeter aftertaste.
How to Find a Ripe One
How to tell if dragon fruit is ripe: Look for one with smooth and shiny skin, and bright green spikes. An overripe dragon has wrinkled skin and spikes that have become brown and withered.
How to Cut & Peel
To prepare a dragon fruit for eating, first wash off the outside flesh with water and a milk soap.
- Cut the dragon fruit in half,
- Peel the dragon fruit by grabbing the end of the pink peel and pulling it back from the flesh. Or you can leave it unpeeled and simply scoop out the flesh.
Prepare Peeled Dragon Fruit
1. Serve it sliced by cutting a dragon fruit into crescent slices.
2. To add it to a fruit salad, dice or chop the white flesh into uniform dice or chunks of fruit.
3. To make melon balls, scoop the flesh with a melon ball scooper, so you have white seeded melon balls.
How to Eat
Fruit slices can be added to yogurt or oatmeal, or used with a yogurt dip.
Melon balls can be added to a salad or served in the half shells.
Dice or chunks can also be served as is, in a salad, or frozen and blended up into a smoothie.
Health Benefits
Dragon fruit boosts your immune system as it is high in vitamin C and full of antioxidants. It is also unusually high in iron for a fruit, and thus facilitates a boost in energy.
Like many melon-like fruits, a high percentage of it is water and thus is good at hydrating and providing the body with electrolytes. Finally, the fruit is rich in fiber and magnesium, the latter making it supportive of sleep.
Storage
Uncut dragon fruit can be kept at room temperature for several days, although it is best to store in in a cool dry place away from direct sunlight.
Once the dragon fruit is cut, it must be refrigerated or eaten within a day, otherwise the white flesh will turn tan and soft, and become rancid.
To store the cut fruit longer, put it in an airtight container or freezer bag and store in the freezer for about three months before the high-water content turns it icy.
FAQS
A dragon fruit is ripe once it has been shipped to the grocer. However, the more ripe, the sweeter the flavor, so you could wait to cut it until the cactus spikes begin to turn brown and wither. If the skin has begun to wrinkle, it is overripe.
The skin is not poisonous, but it is bitter and fibrous so not pleasant to eat. It's pretty though, so you can scoop out the flesh, chop or scoop it, and use the shell as a serving bowl.
Yes, it's low in calories and sugar, and is considered low glycemic - it doesn't spike blood sugar, so eating one a day should be fine.
Yes, you can use this cutting method on any color dragon fruit, the yellow dragon fruit, the green one, and the ones with pink skin and pink or white inner flesh which are actually called red dragon fruit.
Other Dragon Fruit Recipes
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📖 Recipe
How to Eat Dragon Fruit
Ingredients
- 1 red dragon fruit or use this method on any color dragon fruit
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Instructions
- Wash. Wash the outside flesh so when you insert a knife, germs from the skin are not drawn into the edible flesh.1 red dragon fruit
- Cut in half. To begin cutting a dragon fruit, cut it length wise in half.
- Cut in quarters. Lay each half flat-side down on a clean surface or dish, and cut each half lengthwise into quarters.
Two Ways to Peel Dragon Fruit
- 1. Cut each dragon fruit half again so you have four quarters. Then starting at the tip of each quarter, pull down the skin and peel off and discard. The inside white speckled flesh is your fruit. You can then slice, chop or scoop the flesh.
- 2. Or, work with the flesh while it is in the dragon fruit halves. You can scoop out the flesh with a large spoon, or use a melon baller to scoop spheres, or even serve a whole halve chilled with a spoon.
How to Slice, Chop & Scoop Balls
- Option 1. Slice. To slice, cut the dragon fruit into quarters and peel off the skin. Then slice each quarter into crescents. Serve slices as is, with a dip, or use as a garnish.
- Option 2. Chop. To chop, cut the dragon fruit into quarters and peel off the skin. Then chop the quarter into chunks or dice or cubes of flesh. Serve chunks as is, use as a garnish, or freeze away for smoothies.
- Option 3. Scoop balls. To scoop, cut the dragon fruit into halves, and scoop out balls or spheres using a melon baller. You can also scoop out balls or spheres off of quarter cuts but you'll have more odd shaped flesh left over. Use the balls to make a salad, garnish yogurt, freeze for smoothies or a snack.
How to Serve
- Option 1. Make a smoothie. Freeze the meat and blend with other fruits. Here is my dragon fruit smoothie recipe and my pitaya bowl recipe.
- Option 2. Make a fruit salad. Toss dragon fruit balls, spheres or dice in with other fruits such as cantaloupe, honeydew, citrus slices and more. Serve with yogurt.
- Option 3. Freeze dragon fruit snacks. Blend up the fruit into protein snacks. Here is my dragon fruit snack recipe. And keep them in the freezer for protein boosts.
- Option 4. Make dragon fruit ice cream. It makes the best ice cream. Here is my recipe for dragon fruit ice cream.
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