Grilled Cactus

We went to Jungle Jim's, north of Cincinnati, this morning.

We bought lots of different things. Our goal was to get things that were new to us.

In the produce section we picked up a papaya, bitter melon, two Hawaiian plantains, and a cactus leaf.


Since the papaya and plantains need to ripen more, we decided to try the cactus leaf as a side with dinner (burgers and okra) tonight.

Anita cut out all of the spines from the leaf. This was our first ever exposure to cactus leaves. We made sure to be careful not to get poked by the spines. I got stuck several times when picking up the leaves at the store.

Next, we brushed the leaf with oil and threw a little S&P on both sides. Onto a medium grill it went. This was a pretty thin leaf. We'd read on the web that you need to grill about 10-12 minutes per side, but after about 6 minutes the first side was getting soft, so we went with a total of 12 minutes.

I think maybe 10 minutes would've been enough. I pulled the leaf off and sliced it. The most charred part didn't make it to the cutting board. We ate it before it could make it.

The taste and texture were really good. Something like a cross between a roasted green bean and a grilled green pepper. We really liked it. Something different, that's for sure, and something worth doing again! The leaf cost us 54 cents. You can't beat that for something different and good!