Pawpaw

Get to know it

Pawpaw tastes like banana, mango and pineapple stirred into a thick custard, yet it grows in North American woods as far north as southern Ontario. The ripe fruit gives under a gentle touch. Split it open and eat the soft pulp, leaving the skin and seeds behind.

What it is

This is Asimina triloba, the North American pawpaw; the tropical papaya shares its common name. A fruit is about 8–15 cm (3–6 in) long. Its ripe skin can stay green or turn yellow, often with dark flecks.

Inside is spoonable flesh with the texture of custard. Softness helps tell you when it is ready: a ripe pawpaw yields gently under a finger. The pulp is the part to eat; the skin and seeds are discarded.

Where it comes from

Pawpaw grows wild from northern Florida to southern Ontario and west to eastern Nebraska. It is a woodland tree that grows beneath taller trees.

In Frankfort, Kentucky, a living collection brings together more than 2,000 pawpaw trees from 17 states. Named varieties come from there too: KSU-Chappell is the third released at Kentucky State University.

How it's eaten where it grows

Ohio celebrates the fruit at the Ohio Pawpaw Festival, with a cook-off, a competition for the best and biggest fruit, and a pawpaw-eating contest.

An Indiana no-bake cheesecake folds pawpaw pulp into cream cheese with lemon juice and vanilla. Gelatin sets the filling in a prepared crust, and the cheesecake chills until firm. The fruit filling needs no oven time.

How it's grown

Pawpaw trees lose their leaves for winter and need warm to hot summers and mild to cold winters. They grow beneath a woodland canopy, but mature trees give their biggest crops in full sun. Grafted trees can begin bearing in three years.

Flies and beetles carry pollen between the flowers. Fruit growing generally needs two different trees: planting two grafted trees of the same variety does not provide the cross-pollination they need.

When and where you'll find it

In Kentucky, pawpaws are usually picked from late August to mid-October; in Pennsylvania, September is the usual month. Farmers’ markets are a place to encounter the fresh fruit. A fully ripe pawpaw lasts only a few days at room temperature.

Frozen pulp carries it beyond the fresh season. Ohio producer Integration Acres offers pulp with a little ascorbic acid added; it can go into a smoothie or ice cream.

Sources · 7

Get it near Detroit

What it tastes like

As soft as a banana, as mild as a watermelon≈

Not sweetlemonappleSweet

MildapplelemonSour

SoftpearappleCrisp

More about the taste

Ripe pawpaw is creamy and custard-like, often compared to banana with touches of mango and pineapple.

Pawpaw's flavor is often compared to banana, mango and pineapple — these are taste comparisons, not ingredients or a claim that it's a hybrid of those fruits.

Pawpaw flesh is creamy and custard-like, with aroma intensifying as it ripens. Seedlings and varieties vary, so one comparison won't describe every fruit.

A tasting invitation

Describe the texture before reaching for familiar tropical comparisons. Is this fruit silky, thick, fibrous or especially aromatic? If a grower has several named selections, a small side-by-side tasting can reveal more than one large blended dessert.

Choose, ripen, store, eat

1ChooseYields to gentle pressure
Look for
Yields to gentle pressure
Ripe-fruit aroma
Ignore
Dark blotches
Look for fruit that yields slightly to gentle pressure and has a noticeable ripe-fruit aroma. Dark blotches can occur on ripe fruit; softness and aroma matter more than an immaculate green skin.
2RipenOn the counter
Ripens after pickingCounter
Lay picked fruit in a single layer to finish ripening indoors, and check it closely as it softens — pawpaw is very perishable.
3StoreFridge, ripe
1. FridgeRipe
2. FreezerPulp, skin and seeds removedLabelled freezer bag
Refrigerate ripe fruit promptly. For a longer pause, remove the skin and seeds, freeze the pulp in a labelled freezer bag and thaw the portion you need in the refrigerator.
4EatFlesh · not skin, seeds
Eat
Flesh
Not eaten
SkinSeeds
Rinse the fruit, split it and scoop out the flesh. Discard the skin and all seeds.

More tips

A useful detail Eat the pulp only — cut the washed fruit and scoop out the flesh, leaving the skin and seeds behind.

Worth knowing

Use gentle pressure and aroma together; greenish skin does not automatically mean a pawpaw is unripe.
A cool dessert or lightly heated preparation is a good way to enjoy pawpaw aroma. Use the edible pulp with seeds removed.

Detroit, Michigan

When it’s good here

Grown hereLast chance

Ships from other states

20 growing areas, 1 country

California
Florida
Hawaii
Washington
You

Grows hereIn season nowOther monthsYou

7 of 9 areas · October

7

In Kentucky, regional pawpaw trials, orchard work and a living collection of pawpaw varieties support growers; a 2026 workshop there covered propagation and fruit processing.
Kentucky / United States

7 varieties

See all 7 varieties

25 names in 10 languages

أزيمينة مفصصةArabic
Paw pawItalian

Cook it

How to serve it first

Begin with a spoonful of plain ripe pulp. Then try a little stirred into yogurt, or freeze prepared pulp in small portions for a recipe written for pawpaw. Keep the batch labeled so it does not disappear into an anonymous container.

Recipes 2

2 pawpaw festivals

Ohio Pawpaw FestivalSepOhio, United States · Organiser ↗Sep

York County Pawpaw FestivalSepHallam (Horn Farm Center), Pennsylvania, United States · Organiser ↗Sep

Festivals this month →

Strange but true

If you like Pawpaw

Tastes alike

Same plant family

Nutrition, sources

Nutrition

Pawpaw, peeled, seeded, raw · per 100 g

Fiber: 3.3 g
Sugars: 14 g
Protein: 1.2 g
Vitamin C: 28 mg
Potassium: 221 mg

Sources

Pawpaw · Fruitopia · checked Sep 21, 2026

What we don't know yet

Fresh pawpaw is highly local. Some people report gastrointestinal reactions to baked or dehydrated pawpaw specifically.