Strawberry Dragon Fruit Margaritas

I’m drinking Strawberry Dragon fruit Margaritas today for a few reasons:

1. I’m celebrating the fact that I finally am feeling well enough to function like a real human being after a month of mystery illness. Please say I didn’t just jinx myself.
2. Speaking of jinxes (or Jynxes, I guess), I started playing Pokémon Go along with the rest of the world, and feel the need to remind myself that I am an adult of legal drinking age and not back in 1996 with my GameBoy. I followed a group of children yesterday to find a Pikachu, and now feel that I need to reevaluate my life choices. What’s my age again?Yeah I just quoted Blink 182 while talking about Pokémon. 10-year-old Morgan would be so stoked about that. Do the kids these days still say “stoked”?
3. Do you see these things? They’re just as delicious as the vibrant magenta color would lead you to believe. I really don’t need any other excuse than that to drink them down, to be honest.

That gorgeous color is thanks to the combo of this dragon fruit (also known as pitaya) and ripe strawberries. Dragon fruit, if you’ve never had it, tastes almost like a hybrid of melon, pear and kiwi… or something like that– let me know if you have a better description to offer up because I’m struggling here. It’s very subtle in flavor, but still super tasty, and it goes great with berries. Oh, and tequila, of course.

Dragon fruits come in different colors– some are magenta all the way through, some are yellow on the exterior, but most are magenta on the outside and white on the inside, like this one here. You still can get great color out of it though, just trim off all of the hard, scaly exterior and try to leave a decent amount of the pink flesh intact. A little bit goes a long way!

If you can’t get your paws on dragon fruit at your local grocery store, take the extra time to swing by an Asian market and you’ll find one there, since dragon fruit is common in Southeast Asia and the Philippines.

By the way, here’s a fun fact for you: Dragon fruit grow on cacti, which only bloom at night, under a full moon. How bad-ass is that? As if the name “dragon fruit” wasn’t bad-ass enough on its own, right? In its native countries bats and moths take care of the pollination, but farmers in the US who grow dragon fruit actually have to go out into the field under the full moon and pollinate them by hand. Yup, these things were grown out of dedication.

I prefer my margaritas frozen, so I freeze half of the actual strawberries to throw in in addition to ice cubes. That way it doesn’t get watery too fast– as if that’d be a problem for me. You know I can’t help but sling these back super fast. They taste too good to sip slowly, so beware.

Also, I like to rim my margarita glasses, so I picked up some gold sugar for these bad boys. I didn’t get it from a specialty store or anything, it’s actually just the sugar that people use for sugar cookies, which was in the baking aisle of my local ShopRite. You can use salt if you prefer, but I wanted a little something special for my Strawberry Dragon Fruit Margaritas. And since I was doin’ it up with the pretty colored sugar, I decided to also get creative with my garnishes, and I used a melon baller to scoop out some of the dragon fruit for topping a few of the margaritas. In others, I used slices of the dragon fruit and lime. What can I say, I’m indecisive.

Show me how you dress yours up by taking a photo and tagging it with #hostthetoast on Instagram or Twitter. In the mean time, I’ll be enjoying these Strawberry Dragon Fruit Margaritas and walking around the town looking for rare Pokemon. You know, just living the life.

Strawberry Dragon Fruit Margaritas

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• Author: Morgan
• Prep Time: 15 mins
• Total Time: 15 mins
• Yield: 4-6 1x

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Ingredients

• 2 cups strawberries, divided
• 1 dragon fruit, exterior removed, cut in half
• 3/4 cup tequila
• 1/4 cup orange liqueur
• 1/3 cup fresh lime juice, plus lime wheels, to garnish
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 3 cups ice
• Sugar or salt, to rim

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Instructions

1. Freeze half of the strawberries. Slice one half of the dragon fruit and reserve for garnish. Dice the other half and place in a blender.
2. Add all but a few of the unfrozen strawberries, tequila, orange liqueur, lime juice, and honey to the blender. Blend until smooth. Add in the ice and frozen strawberries and blend until slushy.
3. Rim glasses with sugar or salt, and divide the margarita mixture between each glass. Garnish with dragon fruit, lime wheels, and remaining strawberries. Serve.