Cranberry Salad is the perfect side for any turkey dinner! A delicious mixture of fresh homemade cranberry sauce combined with pecans, coconut, marshmallows and pineapple.
This salad reminds me of my favorite Millionaire Pie recipe with a deliciously tart cranberry twist!
Cranberry Salad
Cranberry salad is called a salad but it’s not really salad at all (kind of like Watergate Salad or Strawberry Banana Salad). It’s almost more like a dessert salad but we always serve it on the side of our turkey dinner, like Ambrosia Salad.
Regardless what you call it, my family loves this easy cranberry salad! Fresh tart of cranberries, juicy pineapple, pecans for crunch all in a sweet creamy base!
How to Make Cranberry Salad
This cranberry salad recipe starts with an easy homemade cranberry sauce. The cranberry sauce in this recipe uses a bit less sugar so it’s more tart which balances the sweetness of the rest of the ingredients. You can certainly use a store bought whole berry cranberry sauce in place of the homemade version but this does change the recipe slightly since the store bought sauce is sweeter. Creating the homemade sauce is so easy, just a 3 items in a pot and let it boil and cool. Don’t worry too much if your cranberry sauce seems a little runny, it thickens as it cools.
- Make cranberry sauce and cool
- Combine all ingredients
- Refrigerate at least 4 hours
So easy right? This cranberry salad is going to become a new favorite in your house too; a little sweet, a little tart and a lot delicious!
In this recipe I don’t add all of the cranberry sauce to the mixture because I’d like to keep the consistency a bit thicker. You can certainly add all of it if you’d like but the salad won’t be quite as thick.
The little leftover cranberry mixture can be used to drizzle on anything sweet from Vanilla Bundt Cake to ice cream or even spread over Banana Bread! Remember it’s a bit more tart than a traditional cranberry sauce so it goes well with something sweet!
If you don’t have pecans on hand, walnuts are another great option.
This cranberry salad can be (and actually should be) made ahead of time. I try to make it at least 4 hours ahead but the day before is perfect too!
More Cranberry Dishes You’ll Love
- Cranberry Waldorf Salad
- Sour Cream Cranberry Bars
- Cranberry Trifle Recipe
- Cranberry Walnut Bread
- Cranberry Feta Pinwheels
- Creamy Cranberry Salad
Millionaire Cranberry Salad
Ingredients
- 2 cups sour cream (or plain greek yogurt)
- 2 cups pineapple tidbits well drained
- 2 cups mini marshmallows
- 1 cup pecans chopped
- 2 cups flaked coconut
Cranberry Sauce
- 3 cups Fresh Cranberries
- ¾ cup Sugar
- 1 cup water
- 1 Cinnamon Stick
Instructions
- Combine cranberries, sugar, water and cinnamon stick in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and let simmer 10 minutes. Cool completely (sauce will thicken upon cooling).
- Add 1 ½ cups cooled cranberry mixture from step 1 with remaining ingredients and stir well.
- Let sit 4 hours or overnight.
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Dessert, Salad, Side Dish
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Would you cook strawberries with cranberries or would you add fresh tidbits of strawberries?
Either would be delicious J! If you try it I would love to hear how it turns out!
We make this every Thanksgiving! My family absolutely loved it the first time so now it’s a part of my menu every year! Thank you for the recipe!
Is this with sweetened flaked coconut?
Yes, I use sweetened coconut. Enjoy Amada!
This is a delicious salad and I thank you for the recipe. Since fresh cranberries are here for such a short time can I either use frozen cranberries or can I freeze the cranberry sauce to use whenever I want to make it?
Absolutely! Cranberries freeze well as does cranberry sauce!
Hi, the process is a bit unclear. You provide all the ingredients, but in the istructions you call for either ‘more’ or 1/2? of the cranberries to be added initiually or more when mixture cools? Should I divide the original amount and add back in step two. And you add the marshmallows cold too? Just curios.
Can you please address? I really want to try this.
Hi Bill, we make the cranberry sauce first using the entire amount of cranberries listed in the sauce ingredients in the recipe. Once the cranberry sauce is chilled, we measure out 1 ½ cups of it and combine it with the remaining cold ingredients to make the salad.
We say 1 ½ cups instead of the entire cranberry mixture because depending on how juicy your cranberries are, you could have more than the required amount for this recipe. I hope that helps.
Hi. I was wondering if you can premake this millionaire cranberry salad?
Yes, this recipe is best made ahead of time. You can make it up to 2 days in advance.