How do you eat a papaya?

Slowly but surely, the tropical fruit has arrived in Europe. You can see them more and more often in the supermarket. The melon-like fruit not only tastes good, it is also a super slimming aid.

Their original home is probably in Central America, where the papaya (Carica papaya) was already cultivated by indigenous peoples. With the colonization, the cultivation area spread and today papayas are cultivated in tropical areas worldwide. It is considered healthy and can also be found more and more often in fruit shops and supermarkets. But what can you eat from the papaya and how should you prepare it? We now want to clarify these questions.

How do you recognize a ripe papaya?

You can tell the ripeness of the papaya best by the color of the skin, from completely green - unripe - to solid yellow or with red spots - ripe - you can find almost everything for sale. Because papayas have a long journey from the growing area to us in Europe and they don't ripen as well as for example

bananas (Musa) or avocados (Persea), they are mostly transported by plane. You can also let the fruit ripen at home, but at least a small part of it should already be yellow. Other signs of ripeness are the softness of the fruit, which can be recognized by gently pressing it with your fingers, and a sweet scent. A ripe papaya has a deep red-orange, juicy and soft flesh.

tip: Although papayas only get their maximum flavor when they are fully ripe, even unripe papayas are edible. Unripe papayas are mostly used in salads.

Do you have to peel papayas?

You don't necessarily have to peel papayas, the pulp can be scooped out with a spoon, just like with the kiwi. However, if you want to slice papaya and use it in salads or other dishes, it is worth peeling the papaya. A potato peeler is best for this.

Properly cut papayas

Depending on how you want to eat the papaya, it has to be cut differently. After peeling the papaya, cut it in half to remove the core. This is best done with a spoon. You can either put the cores in the organic waste or put them aside and then use them again. You will learn more about this later.
For most papaya recipes, the tropical fruit can be diced. If you are making a som tam salad - a traditional Lao papaya salad - you will need to grate the papaya into strips.

Can you eat papayas raw?

Papaya is eaten both raw and cooked. The consistency of the raw pulp is reminiscent of that of melons. Since the two fruits are very similar in taste, all recipes intended for melons can be prepared with papaya instead.

Are papaya seeds edible?

You can use pretty much anything from the papaya apart from the skin, even the papaya seeds are edible. The only question is how to eat papaya seeds. Straight from the fruit, they taste slightly hot, similar to cress. You can either add these directly to salads or dry them. The seeds are about the size of peppercorns and, after drying, can be used like the seeds of the pepper plant (piper) are ground. To dry them, you must first remove the remains of the pulp from the seeds and dry them in the oven at a low temperature for about three hours. You can then put the seeds in a spice or pepper mill and use them to season sweet and savory dishes. The taste actually reminds, who would have thought it, of pepper.

How do you eat papaya seeds?

• Raw with salads or appetizers
• Dry and use like pepper

tip: Even if you don't eat the seeds, you can still find use. In our article we explain how to do it Plant papaya seeds and grow a papaya yourself.

How does papaya taste?

Before you eat a papaya, you probably want to know how it tastes. The pulp tastes similar to a melon, very juicy, refreshing and sweet, with the sweetness depending on how ripe the papaya is. The riper the fruit, the sweeter it tastes.

How healthy are papayas?

The papaya contains many vitamins, the proportion of vitamin C is very high. Just 100 grams of papaya cover 76 percent of the daily vitamin C requirement. In Thailand, young people like to eat raw papaya in a salad to stay slim - and it's not just because of its low fat and calorie content. The fruit, especially the green skin and seeds, contains an enzyme called papain, which has a proteolytic effect. This enzyme helps to digest protein and is also used as a tenderizer for tough meat. It is also said to support fat burning, which is why unripe papayas are often eaten during a diet.

Papayas are very similar in texture and taste to melons. You can find out where melons come from and what different types there are in our article Melons: origin, species and variety.