How to Cut a Jackfruit

What is a jackfruit? A jackfruit is the world largest tropical fruit. It can weigh over 80lbs. Jackfruit contains Vitamin A, Vitamin C, thiamin, riboflavin, calcium, potassium, sodium, zinc, and niacin. 100 grams of jackfruit contains only 94 calories.

I love to this fruit so does my mom. The two of us purchased 7 jackfruits for this season already! Now, a lot of you may know how to eat but do you know how to pick and open one? Let me teach you what I've learned from my mum. :)


1. Pick a jackfruit that is uniform all around. Reason for this is because you'll get more flesh (bulb) than fibre (rags). Look at the one I picked below. Rags are okay to eat but it have no taste to it. Some people use it to cook...but I just get rid of it since I don't know what to cook it with.

2. Finding a ripe jackfruit. When ripe, the fruit will give a little when pressed. You can also smell the aroma of the fruit. If the jackfruit is hard as a rock and no aroma, then you should leave it alone since it will not ripe until a few days or it will never ripe since they picked too soon.

3. Some jackfruit have green skin and some have yellow skin like the one below. If you see a black skin jackfruit, leave it alone as it is rotten or overripe. Once a jackfruit overripe, it does not taste good at all and might make you sick. :) Some jackfruit have yellow, dark yellow, or orange flesh. Some flesh is more crunchy than the other. You can never really tell by the skin unless you're an expert. :)

Cut the jackfruit in half.
As you can see, I picked a really good fruit. It is mainly flesh!!! The flesh is also very big and thick. Very sweet.

Do not touch the gum as it will glue all your fingers together.
Now use one of the magazine paper and wipe the gum off the fruit. Use as many papers as needed. Or use paper towel...but magazine is better.
Cut the fruit in halves again.

Remove the central core as it is inedible. Get ready to clean the gum again.

Now cut the bottom of the bulbs. This will make it easier to get the bulbs out from the skin. As you can see if you pick a good one then you should have more bulbs than rags.
Clean off the rags and eat the bulbs. Cover and save the uncut fruit in the refrigerator to slow down the ripening process. The bulbs can be kept in air tight container in the refrigerator for at least a week! Better when it's cold!!!

Some people...include my mom eat the seeds. She cooks the seeds over boiling water for over 5 minutes and then add in a dash of salt. The seeds can also be roasted. It tastes like chestnut. Of course just eat the inside of the seeds and not the skin. :)

Cleaning is the hard part. But if you have fluid oil or kerosene oil use it to clean the knive and hands first then wash off with soap and water. It should works with vegetable oil too but takes longer.

Hope you learn something today!