How can you make soup from cactus? Using the unique Prickly pear. The pads are called nopales. When the spines are removed and they are cut into small pieces, they are called nopalitos.
Nopales Salad recipe is on page 183 Tastes & Treasures cookbook. Amazing how versatile these pads from Prickly Pear can be.
Nopalitos Soup
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, diced
2 teaspoon minched garlic
1 (26 ounce can) nopalitos
4 cans fat free chicken broth
Directions:
Heat oil in large saucepan. Add onion and garlic and cook for 2 minutes. Stir in Nopalitos, which have been rinsed; drained and chopped. Stir in chicken broth. We take extra chicken broth as the liquid seems to go faster and people come back for thirds and fourths.
From Plants of the Sonoran Desert and Their Many Uses by Don Wells and Jean Groen.
Photo from DesertHarvest.org.
