I’m patiently waiting for emergence of nice tender nymphs to blanch and cook up.
Last time I did a simple stir fry but anyone have any other favorite recipes to try?
I hate getting wing parts stuck between my teeth.
So you pick up dead cicadas(yep, bugs!) and go cook em up. Ain’t that just road kill, kinda?
I’ve never, ever, in my vast(it is Arkansas) knowledge of dead animals I’ve seen on roads, in ditches, laying around said “Yummy, dinner managed!”
If you catch them live, how do you dispatch them?
You catch them live as they are emerging at night. Wings and exoskeleton not well formed yet. Blanch briefly then can freeze in ziplock for cooking up.
When they came out in the 1980s, our dogs at the time were just munching them like a snack on the hot driveway, lol.
Sounds legit.
I can’t that I’ve ever eaten them. (Not likely I will)
I’ve seen recipes on Food network of Fried rice with grasshopper. I think that might work.
Other cultures that include more insects in their diet would likely have some good recipes. (Thai and Oaxacan recipes would be places I would start.)
Reddit suggests things like:
- deep fry them for tacos Ala chapulines (crickets)
- sauteed lightly in mojo de ajo, then served on a taco with salsa de pasilla de Oaxaca
Ohio State University suggests:
Cicada Stir-Fry
(Courtesy of Cicada-Licious: Cooking and Enjoying Periodical Cicadas)
Ingredients:
- 1 onion, minced
- 2 tablespoons fresh coriander (cilantro), chopped
- 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
- 3/4 cup sliced carrots
- 3/4 cup chopped cauliflower and/or broccoli
- 1 can water chestnuts
- 3/4 cup bean sprouts
- 3/4 cup snow peas
- 40 blanched newly hatched (teneral) cicadas
Directions:
- Capture cicadas at night as they emerge from the ground.
- Blanche for 1 minute in boiling water. They can now be stored in freezer or used immediately in recipes.
- In a wok or other suitable pan, heat a couple tablespoons of vegetable oil. Add ingredients in the order listed above when those in the most recent addition are partially cooked.
- Serve over whole-grain rice and add soy sauce to taste
Yield: 4 main course servings
Andrew Zimmern suggests:
Googling “cicada recipes” yields lots of sites and YouTube videos
I just learned I’ve been making grasshopper pie all wrong.
Gathering them at night seems too much work for this old guy. I’ll wait for the family size 20 lb. pack at Costco. The samples will be interesting.
The stir fry is not too far off from I did last time. The kids (now adults) braved it with me but the youngest told mom on me and she was not pleased. It was … okay.
I may look up the Oaxacan deep fry. I’d love some personal recommendations though!
David George Gordon’s Eat-A-Bug Cookbook contains recipes for many bugs. I’m sure you could adapt one of his cricket or grashopper recipes to use cicada, but he does include one cicada recipe – a Cicada-and-artichoke pizza he calls Piz-zz-zz-zza
Sorry, but I don’t have my copy handy, or I’d quote the recipe.
Oh, you should totally try and get some individuals from both broods XIII and XIX for that once-in-221-years goodness!
Over and out of this thread. 
This makes me think of that scene in the Chuck Jones cartoon Rabbit Fire (1950) where Bugs and Daffy read aloud recipes for rabbit and duck to entice Elmer to shoot the other guy. All you have to do is change “rabbit” or “duck” to “cicada” or “locust”:
Snappy Cicada Pizza, of course.
Why not something alcoholic?
I’d try it.
Well it can only improve Malort! 
- Capture cicadas at night as they emerge from the ground.
- Blanche for 1 minute in boiling water. They can now be stored in freezer or used immediately in recipes.
- In a wok or other suitable pan, heat a couple tablespoons of vegetable oil. Add ingredients in the order EXCEPT cicadas listed above when those in the most recent addition are partially cooked.
- Add cicadas to trash can
- Serve first 8 ingredients over whole-grain rice and add soy sauce to taste
Your recipe was slightly off, I fixed it for you.
I dunno. I would at least offer them to my cats. They seem to like them. 