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
Ingredients
- 2 cups sour cream (or plain greek yogurt)
- 2 cups pineapple tidbits well drained
- 2 cups miniature marshmallows
- 1 cup chopped pecans
- 2 cups coconut flakes
Cranberry Sauce
- 3 cups fresh cranberries
- ¾ cup granulated 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
Cuisine American© SpendWithPennies.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited. Please view my photo use policy here.
REPIN this Fantastic Side Dish
Thank you for the Cranberry Millionaire Salad recipe. I will be making this for Thanksgiving.
What do you do with the remainder sauce after you use 1 1/2 cup
The remaining sauce you may have is homemade cranberry sauce. It’s delicious enjoyed over yogurt or spread on a turkey sandwich. :)
Made the recipe and it was delicious….followed directions with no issues
Awesome, Kim! Thanks for giving this a try!
Do you sell a cook book?
I truly love your Spend with Pennies , know hassle to print off recipes that I want to try, no ads in the middle of recipe. Thank You. Also have enjoyed each recipe that I have tried. Spend with Pennies is my go to place!
I’m so glad you enjoy my recipes Naomi! :)
It sounds good but when you set let sit overnight is refrigerate…..hanks.
Yes, it should be refrigerated.
looks fantastic, can’t wait to try it
Yum on all these salads.
Holly, I feel your pain. LOL
I am making your salad tomorrow to have for T’giving. Your instructions are very understandable..not sure why so many had trouble understanding.
Have a great Thanksgiving.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family too!
Can we refrigerate this for two nights?? I want to make it today Tuesday for dinner Thursday. Thanks!!
I haven’t left it for 2 days. I do think it would be fine but you could always just make the cranberry portion today and quickly mix the rest together tomorrow evening.
Just want you to know that you’re directions are understandable… I don’t know why everyone is so confused. Thank you for sharing AND dealing with all the confusion…
:) Enjoy Jan!
Jan…thank you, but still funny to read. Could be a SNL skit.
Agreed! LOL
I must agree- directions were clear to me
I agree. I understood the recipe and I am not a very good cook!
I agree Jan. Some of the posts sounds like it came out of a Saturday Night Live skit!. The recipe sounds very simple and easy and I will definitely try this next week for Thanksgiving. Thanks Holly!
Enjoy!
Agree. Made it last night and all went well.
I so agree with you Jan Silly people
Thank you, Jan. I totally agree with you!!
Haha! I agree, this is being made way more difficult than necessary!
Instead of using regular sugar I’d use the drained pineapple juice & add some orange juice to make 3/4 c. if necessary or sweeten the 1 c. of water with 1/4 c. pure maple syrup – this will be healthier….. help to keep blood sugar on a more even keel than using refined white sugar.
Can you replace the sugar with Stevia or Splenda??
I’ve only made the recipe as written. If you try let us know how it works for you!
I have tried making cranberry sauce with Splenda and it doesn’t thicken unless you use a package of plain gelatin
How many servings does this make..thanks
This makes 8 side dish servings.
Depends who is eating ;) Delicious. We ate a lot.
LOL! Glad you enjoyed it! :)
Using 1 1/2 cups cranberry mixture plus the other ingredients equals 10 1/2 cups. Some have posted that a side serving is half a cup, but based on the 10+ cups, 8 servings would be about 1 1/4 cup. What am I missing? This sounds delish and I am planning on taking it to a gathering for 18 people. If I double it, there will be 21 cups. I want enough, but I do not want way too much.
Thanks.
Once mixed together this makes closer to 5-6 cups of Millionaire Salad (so you could likely get 8-10 servings per salad) as it settles even more once it sits. For 18 people I would suggest doubling the recipe.
Do we remove the cinnamon stick after boiling process complete? Thanks!
Yes, this cinnamon stick can be removed and discarded after boiling.
Thanks so much! Can’t wait to make this for my family Thanksgiving!
Love this!
Why do we make 3 cups cranberries to end up only using 1.5 cups of the cranberry sauce. Do we double the other ingredients to also. use the remaining 1.5 cups of cranberry sauce?
The cranberries shrink down when you cook them so you will end up with about 1 ¾ or 2 cups of cranberry sauce.
For the little dab that is left for Pete sakes just mix it with the rest. Not going to hurt a thing.
I agree.Thank you!!!!!!
Still confused. Please confirm that we make and use the boiled cranberries, plus we add 1 1/2 cups of store-bought cranberry sauce?
You make and use the boiled cranberries. There is no store bought cranberry sauce used in this recipe. It uses only the fresh cranberries.
It sure of all the confusion. You explained it very well.
I’m a little confused by these instructions…1.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).
2.Add 1½ cups cooled cranberry sauce with remaining ingredients and stir well. Let sit 4 hours or overnight
Is step 1 the “cooled cranberry sauce” in step 2? Or do I combine step 1 with a cup and a 1/2 of store bought cranberry sauce?
Yes it is the cooled cranberry sauce in step 2. Thank you for your feed back, I will update the recipe to make it more clear!
I am sorry, what do I do with the remaining mixture of the boiled cranberries? This looks good though, I would like to make it for Thanksgiving but I cannot follow these instructions-please help! thanks
The remaining mixture will be a delicious cranberry sauce that can be enjoyed with turkey or even on yogurt!
Is the Greek yogurt would taste better than the sour cream. I kinda not into sour cream. And the coconut flakes. Should I use unsweetened??
The coconut flakes are sweetened. Both Greek yogurt and sour cream are great in this recipe. While they’re both tart in flavor the other ingredients sweeten it up.
So you do not use all the sauce that’s been boiled? And you take out the cinnamon stick.
There will be very little leftover. And yes, the cinnamon stick is removed.
So you don’t use all the cranberries that you boil with water,sugar and cinnamon stick? Why boil all of them then? I’m confused!
When boiling down cranberries you can end up with anywhere from 1½ to 2 cups of cause. Specifying the amount keeps the final results consistent.
It would be good on toast or waffles or a icecream topping
I used the whole amount of cranberry sauce. It was delicious and worked just fine.
Thank you – I will do the same.
Thank you/ my same question!
Making right now to go with thanksgiving dinner! Smells delicious!
Can I use wheat flour,and I use a sweetness instead of sugarb
I’m confused also…..in other words your recipe only needs 11/2 cups of that cranberry sauce that we cook, the rest is used for something else. We also could double the recipe. It looks delicious! Thank You
Yes, you only need 1½ cups of the mixture. There may be a little bit leftover.
Question…i know you said canned cranberry can be used but what about dried crandberries. I have a bag of dried crandberries and cherries and I have no idea what I can do with them. Please any suggestions.
You could add them in addition to the canned cranberry sauce. I think it would taste delicious!
Is the Cranberry Sauce that you add is what you simmered or do you use canned cranberry sauce added to the other ingredients?
The cranberry sauce is what you simmered. It thickens into homemade cranberry sauce.
Can you roast the pecans ? I have family that is allergic to raw pecans.
Definitely! Roasted Pecans have such great flavor!