Can You Eat The Skin of Dragon Fruit?

Dragon fruit is a tropical fruit which is otherwise known as a strawberry pear. It has scaly spikes on the leather-like skin and comes in three varieties. There is the one with pink skin and white inner part, red skin with red inner part and the least popular yellow skin with the white inner part. Dragon fruit has a subtle taste somewhat resembling that of watermelon. The inner part is creamy with editable and crunchy seeds that are rich in healthy fatty acids and linoleic acid. Read on to know more about it.

Eat The Skin of Dragon Fruit

Benefits of Eating Dragon Fruit

Here is the nutritional value of dragon fruit:

• Fiber: Enhances digestion, regulates blood sugar and improves cholesterol level.
• Zero fat
• Magnesium
• Iron
• Vitamin c
• Antioxidants: Good for heart health, have anti-diabetic and anti-cancer properties.
• Anthocyanins

Eating The Dragon Fruit

Cut the fruit in half and use a spoon for scooping the smoother inner part. Cut this into cubes and serve. Another way is cutting the fruit into fourths and removing the skin with fingers. Have it for breakfast, add to fruit salad or smoothies, pair it with grilled fish or simply make some salsa to have with fish. You can have an extra flavor by adding it to mango or pineapple salsa.

Is Dragon Fruit Skin Edible?

Dragon fruit has edible skin and is even healthier than the inner part. Since it has an intimidating appearance, people think that it is not edible but the fact is it is safe to consume. For this, you need to cut the fruit’s end parts, cut across its surface and peel off the skin.

Divide the fruit into four parts, in case of difficulty in peeling. A vegetable peeler can be helpful to remove the spikes of the whole fruit, in case the peel is tough. Then, cut the skin into strips of desired length and thickness.

[ Read: What Happens if You Eat Mold ]

How to Consume Dragon Fruit Skin?

1. Vegetable Stir Fry:

Make sure to wash off the peel thoroughly to eliminate all the traces of pesticides and dirt, if any. The skin is not delicious and has a savory flavor. Cooking and adding some sugar or spices to it can add some taste to it. This can be added to vegetable stir fry.

You can have a caramelized dragon fruit skin by adding Indonesian bay leaves, palm sugar and raw sugar which makes it more delicious.

2. Dragon Fruit Skin Tea:

You can even make tea with clean dragon fruit skin. For this, cut the skin into small pieces and dry them in the sun which will take about 1-2 days for losing all the moisture. Use these dried skin to brew for making tea, just like the usual tea leaves. After pouring boiling water on these dried skin, steep for 3-4 minutes and use some sugar to sweeten it.

3. Juice: Make dragon fruit juice along with its skin to have a nutrition loaded juice with a thicker consistency.

4. Jelly and Jam:

Dragon fruit skin has pectin which thickens so heating it with sugar. Thus, perfect consistency jams and jellies can be made with it.

Boil the skin in water and add some agar-agar and maple syrup to it. After simmering it on low heat, once the agar-agar dissolves well, you can find a beautiful pink color. Cool it, remove the skin pieces and place them on the ice cube tray. By keeping it in the refrigerator, it will solidify in some time.

Dragon fruits of the best quality are available from June to September. Check if the fruit is neither too soft nor very hard, as it indicates its ripeness. Also, since you will be using the fruit’s skin, make sure it has an overall skin color with no spots.

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