The short answer
Dragon fruit is the fruit of a climbing cactus, most commonly Hylocereus undatus, native to Central America and southern Mexico and now grown across the tropics and subtropics. It is also called pitaya or pitahaya. The fruit is large — typically the size of a grapefruit or a small mango — with brilliant pink or yellow skin and either white, red, or occasionally purple flesh studded with tiny black seeds, similar in appearance to a kiwi cut open.
Despite the name, it has nothing to do with dragons beyond appearance: the leathery, scale-like bracts on the skin are said to resemble a dragon's hide, which is where the English name comes from.
Where it comes from and how it grows
Dragon fruit is not a tree fruit — it grows on a vining, climbing cactus that scrambles up trees and rock faces in the wild, anchoring itself with aerial roots. Commercially it is grown on posts with a frame at the top, and the plant is trained to climb up and then hang down, since it flowers and fruits on the pendant growth. Its enormous white flowers open for a single night and are pollinated by moths and bats in the wild.
Though it originated in the Americas, the largest producer today is Vietnam by a wide margin, followed by China, Thailand, and a number of other Southeast Asian and Latin American countries. It also grows commercially in Florida, California, and Hawaii.
What it tastes like
Mild and lightly sweet, with very little acidity — most people describe it as somewhere between a kiwi, a pear, and a melon. It is not an intensely flavoured fruit, which surprises first-time eaters given how dramatic it looks. Ripeness matters enormously: an underripe fruit tastes of almost nothing, while a properly ripe one is noticeably sweeter. Our full guide to what dragon fruit tastes like goes into this in more depth.
The main types
- White-fleshed (Hylocereus undatus) — pink skin, white flesh, the most common and mildest variety.
- Red-fleshed (Hylocereus costaricensis) — looks identical on the outside to the white variety but the flesh is a deep magenta, and it is noticeably sweeter.
- Yellow (Selenicereus megalanthus) — yellow, spiny skin with white flesh, smaller, and by far the sweetest of the three.
Our guide to dragon fruit colour varieties covers how to tell them apart, since skin colour alone does not tell you what is inside.
Nutrition, briefly
Around 60 calories per 100 g, roughly 85 percent water, a useful 3 g of fibre, some vitamin C, magnesium and iron, and — in the red-fleshed variety — betacyanin pigments with antioxidant activity, the same pigment family found in beetroot. It is a genuinely healthy fruit without being the miracle superfood some marketing suggests. Full detail is in our nutrition facts guide.
How people eat it
Most simply: halved and eaten with a spoon, straight out of the skin, chilled. It is also cubed into fruit salads, blended into smoothie bowls and refreshers, and used as a natural pink colouring in drinks and desserts. The skin is not eaten and the small black seeds are edible and eaten along with the flesh. See our guide on how to cut it and the best ways to eat it.
Why it is suddenly everywhere
Dragon fruit's recent popularity in the US owes a lot to its use as a flavour and colour in coffee-chain drinks — Starbucks' Dragon Drink and Mango Dragonfruit Refresher, and Dunkin's dragonfruit refreshers, introduced millions of people to the name who had never seen the whole fruit. It has also become a staple of the "smoothie bowl" trend on social media, prized for its vivid colour more than its flavour. See our guide to how these drinks are made if that is what brought you here.