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
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REPIN this Fantastic Side Dish
Good stuff. Don’t sneak a taste before it’s all together….it’s all the flavors combined that compliment each other that makes this work. (From a life long sneak taster).
:) So glad you enjoyed this Bobbie!
I made the Cranberry Millionaire Salad. Recipe called for 1 1/2″ of the cranberry sauce that I cooked up. What are you to do with rest of this sauce???
I meant to say 1 1/2 cups of the cranberry sauce…
The amount leftover should be fairly small. The extra can be enjoyed over yogurt or on turkey sandwiches. Some readers have added the extra into the salad as well.
Use it on toast or biscuits or give to a friend. I’m doing all three. I left the cinnamon stick in it til it’s all gone too.
how many will the Cranberry salad feed I work at a senior center and they would love this
This makes 8 side dish servings.
WOW, I saw nothing hard about following this recipe at all. Common sense would tell you to use the “cooled cranberry sauce” you just made, especially since there was no mention of store bought sauce in the recipe itself – only mentioned in the blog that it could be used INSTEAD. .
No offense, that was the worst recipe I’ve ever read. You listed all of these other ingredients and there’s no mention about what to do with them win. The fact that you have all of these comments asking you should tell you. how about coming back on here and turning this into a recipe that everyone can follow?
Which part are you having trouble with Mary?
Step one where you combine the cranberries, water and cinnamon to make a homemade cranberry sauce?
Or step two where you combine 1½ cups of the homemade cranberry sauce you’ve just made with all of the remaining ingredients and stir?
Seriously?? My 12 year old followed this recipe and made it all by herself. It’s delicious!
So glad you loved it Melissa!
Can you substitute Splenda for the sugar?
I have only tried this recipe as written.
You should be able to. I contributed the cranberry sauces for Thanksgiving before, and I would make one with sugar and another batch with Splenda. The difference is that sugar smothers and mutes the flavors. Splenda lets the other flavors shine through. I make my cranberry sauce with orange rind. My father, who does not use sugar substitutes, complimented me on the Splenda cranberry sauce because the cranberries and orange really nicely shined through and the sauce wasn’t cloyingly sweet. My sister, who hates Splenda, hated the Splenda version, no surprise. I, do slightly prefer the Splenda version because I can taste more of the underlying flavors.
Also, Splenda works very well with dairy (sour cream, yogurt for this recipe). That’s how I slowly got myself used to the taste of Splenda years ago. Now I love it.
So, yes, I think Splenda would work quite well in this recipe, especially if you already like Splenda.
you use whole cranberry sauce in a can in place of making your own?
You can however the recipe would be sweeter. In this version I’ve reduced the sure to balance out the sweetness.
I a m making the millionaire salad for how many people is the recipe ?
I’m going to make this and yes the recipe is totally comprehendible so thanks! The one question I did have was how long does it keep? Happy Thanksgiving!
I’ve made this up to 2 days ahead (I find that the day before is about perfect).
How long will this last if you make ahead of time? Need to make everything 3 days ahead for Thanksgiving and wondering if it will keep.
I can’t say for sure, I’ve left it for up to 2 days. You could try mixing the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients and combining them on the day of serving.
Do you put the pecans in whole or break them up?
I chop them.
I’m confused the way the recipe reads. It says add 1 1/2 cups of the cranberry mixture from step 1 and mix well. It doesn’t say how to mix in the rest of the cranberry mixture why doesn’t it just read Mix the 2 different part all together . The wording is not clear.
You are only going to use 1½ cups of the cranberry mixture. You may have a little bit leftover that is not added in.
Can you just use ground cinnamon? I don’t have sticks.
I have only tried this with a cinnamon stick. If you do make this using ground cinnamon, I would suggest you start with a very small amount (⅛ tsp) and add more if needed. I’d love to hear how it works out for you if you do try it. Enjoy!
We used all of the cranberry sauce. A little more than called for. But if you have extra mix with butter for biscuits. Yummy
Cranberry Butter would be AMAZING!!
This looks wonderful. But would you be able to substitute cool whip for the sour cream?
While it would likely work, Cool whip would make this salad much sweeter. The sour cream balances out the sweetness.
Love alot of this recipe. Love to make them.
LOVED your Cranberry Millionaire Salad! I have a family recipe that is similar but with drained fruit cocktail, extra crushed pineapple, marshmallows, sour cream. I love your variation with the cranberries, coconut, and pecans. I never tell company (or grandkids) what’s in it until they try it and always love it. I don’t want to serve a dessert as a salad but I like that it’s inbetween salad and dessert. Sweet but not too sweet. Yummy! Thanks!
I’m so glad that you enjoyed the salad, Linda!
Can I add all the cranberries to the recipe.?…. I love cranberries!!! This recipe sounds delicious!!!!!
You can, it may change the consistency and make it softer.
I don’t like coconut, can I just omit or do I have to substitute with another ingredient.
While I’ve only tried the recipe as written, you can try adding some extra nuts (although I wouldn’t suggest adding an extra two cups, that would probably be way too much). Maybe some dried cranberries as well just to make up some extra volume as this recipe contains quite a bit of coconut.
I’m going to assume that this cranberry millionaire salad is refrigerated 4 hours because it doesn’t say so.
Yes, it is refrigerated for 4 hours or overnight.