We recently spent some time checking out San Diego, California. We explored the beautiful beaches, saw wonderful wildlife and most of all, at as much Mexican food as possible! We attempted to make our own version of nopales (cactus) tacos. Take a look below to see more of San Diego and learn how to make these tacos yourself!

San Diego is the Southernmost major city in the US, very close to the US/Mexico border.  We’re super excited to be here by the ocean, where the sun is shining but most of all, we’re excited to eat while we’re here!

San Diego’s main attractions are probably its beaches.  There are a number of different beaches with different vibes and attractions.  We were able to check out a couple of the beaches during our time here.  We spent some time in La Jolla, taking in it’s beautiful views and exploring the surrounding upscale restaurants and high end shopping.  The best thing about La Jolla though was seeing some of San Diego’s most famous wildlife – the seals and sealions!  They’re often out sunbathing, swimming and putting on a show for their on lookers.

We also spent some time exploring Ocean Beach, or “OB” as the locals call it.  This beach has a much more laid back vibe than La Jolla and a strong surf culture.  It was a great place to catch a beautiful sunset and walk along the long and scenic peir. 

Ocean Beach even has a massive dog beach nearby where dogs can run and swim freely.  If only Bindi was able to come along with us on this trip, she would have loved running around in the sand.

In addition to it’s great beaches, San Diego also has a unique and well preserved Old Town.  With a number of historic buildings, much of the area has been restored to resemble how it would have in the 1800s.  Of course, among the historic buildings are plenty of shops and restaurants, including Tuetano Taqueria where we stopped to try some bone marrow tacos!

While the beaches and the Old Town are greaet, we really think the best thing about about San Diego is the availability of excellent Mexican food.  Given that we live in Europe where Mexican food isn’t too popular, we’re so happy to enjoy tons of Mexican food while we’re here.  We took every opportunity to scarf down tacos, burritos and of course some margaritas.

Given that Mexican food is such a big part of the culture of San Diego, it was pretty easy to decide what we wanted to cook while we were here, it obviously had to be tacos!  Not just any tacos though, we wanted to try to cook Nopales, aslo known as cactus, tacos.

Nopales are the round, flat paddles found on many cacti.  In this region, it is very common to see Nopales tacos on menus, so we wanted to give them a try.  In a local grocery store we were able to find nopales that were already trimmed and had their prickly parts removed.  If you’re not in an area where these are readily available, many supermarkets do sell jarred versions you could use. 

In addition to your nopales, the other ingredients you will need for this recipe are

• Good quality tortillas
• Cojita cheese
• Cilantro
• Limes
• Whatever you like as your taco toppings, we’re making a fresh pico de gallo and some guacamole 

We’re going to start by making the pico and guacamole that we’ll put on top of our tacos, that way when the nopales are ready we can put everything together right away.

For the pico de gallo you’ll neeed

• Tomatoes
• A white onion
• A jalapeno
• Some cilantro
• Limes
• A bit of salt

Making fresh pico de gallo is extremely simple. Begin by chopping your tomatoes, onion and jalapeno.  Add these to a bowl.  Then, juice 2-3 limes and add them to the same bowl.  Finally, chop your cilantro and add that as well.  If you’re one of those people who don’t like cilantro, you can also leave it out.  Add a bit of salt to taste and set aside.

Next, make the guacamole.  This is also very easy to prepare.  We’re keeping it extra simple by just using avocados and lime juice (mainly because we realized at this point that we didn’t buy enough ingredients). Of course, you can add in cilantro, tomatoes, onion or whatever else you like.  For ours, we just mashed our avocados, added some fresh lime juice, a pinch of salt and we’re done.

Now, let’s move on to the Nopales.  To cook these, heat some oil in a pan on medium high heat.  Add the nopales to the pan and cook them for about 4-6 minutes on each side, until they start to char a little bit.

While your nopales are cooking, you can prep your tortillas.  Heat up a dry skillet and add the tortillas one at a time, cooking for about 30 minutes per side.  

Now it’s time to put it all together.  Chop up your cooked nopales in to small strips.  Place a few strips in each tortilla and top them with the pico, guacamole, cojita cheese or whatever else you like!

We had never cooked nopales before but we really enjoyed this recipe.  It’s easy to prepare, vegetarian friendly and has the Mexican flavors that we absolutely love, and we hope you enjoy it too!