Cooking characteristics of rice uncoated and coated with prickly pear water extracts (4% v/w for rice) were investigated. Prickly pear contained 83.22 mg% of $alpha$-aminoadipic acid and 75.61 mg% of tyrosine as major free amino acids. After cooking, the coated rice contained 1.66 mg% of $alpha$-aminoadipic acid which was not found in the uncoated rice. The free amino acid composition of the coated rice revealed significantly higher contents (about 2.0 to 4.2 times) of arginine, histidine, leucine, lysine and tyrosine compared with those of the uncoated rice. The major minerals in the prickly pear were Ca, K and Mg accounting for 95% of the total minerals present. After cooking, the mineral contents in the coated rice were higher by 10～45% than those in the uncoated rice. The coated rice showed lower hardness, gumminess and brittleness, and higher cohesiveness than the uncoated rice. In sensory evaluation, there were no differences in sweet taste, and overall and color acceptability between the uncoated and coated rice. However, tile coated rice showed higher scores for savory and sticky taste than the uncoated rice.