I have been lazy over the years and not done anything with the nopales, sometimes the fruit, but not the vegetable part of the cactus. Some people in my family buy it canned and eat it in tacos, so I thought I should can some.
There are not alot of recipes to can this, I was a bit on my own. I canned 6 pints last night, pickled of course. Looking to see if any has experience or better recipes in case I do a second batch. I pretty much did the Rootsimple method, where he had used an Okra recipe from the approved National food preservation site.
https://www.rootsimple.com/2012/06/four-ways-to-preserve-prickly-pear-pads-nopales/ But, typically, it is canned with onions, peppers. I added a bit of sugar, a piece of dried cayenne I grew out and dried years ago, a clove of garlic and a couple egyptian walking onion top bulbettes.
First interesting thing is how much it shrunk when I blanched it, I got water boiling and plopped the thin slices in for 5 or 6 minutes. I had measured out how much I was cutting by placing slices in a pint jar and filling it raw, so I sliced enough for 6 jars, but what I had was enough for 3 jars. SO then I had to run the canner twice with half loads, a waste of time and energy.
Before that, what I had done was go out to the furthest along opuntia ( prickly pear) cactus plant and looked for new growth pads that are smaller and have the immature prickles on the faces, they still have a few actually prickles but mostly just a few on the edges. I still got bit by the plnat because I did not pay attention leaning in to reach ! I used tongs and a knife, tossing them into a metal bowl. I ran a knife edge along the face and edge to take off prickles, and rinsed. Then Before processing, I did this a second time a bit harder to get off the bumps too, and sliced off all edges, rinsed again. SO totally safe cactus pads at that point.
