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
Have made this numerous time…great recipe and delicious. Thanks.
Awesome! It’s one of my favorites!
I made 3 batches of this lovely creation since Thanksgiving. The 3rd batch was a double for an event at our church. EVERYONE loved it, except those who have a “texture” problem. I did not use the cinnamon when preparing my cranberries, maybe next time. In the last batch, I added 2 cups of the prepared cranberry sauce and liked it even better!
And I used Greek yogurt instead of the sour cream. It was great and my “fitness freaks” loved it!! lol
Love, Love, Love this recipe! Thank you for sharing!!! Katherine
Wow, that’s awesome, Katherine!
Made this for Thanksgiving, I loved it went very well with turkey. Leftovers were great for a dessert.
So glad you enjoyed it!
This salad was fantastic!!! Very refreshing! I will be making again at Christmas!
Actually, probably several more times!
I’m so glad you loved it!
Not being a huge fan of cranberries, I was reluctant to try this. I screwed up & accidentally put in a whole cup of sugar & I just added all the cranberry mixture with all the rest. It was fantastic. Making this again. Thank you…oh, and it was not too sweet with the extra sugar.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
This recipe was a little confusing. … It should have said AHEAD of time that you didn’t need as much cranberry sauce (we had previously made cranberry sauce), the cinnamon stick (obviously take it out), and I think if you use sour cream, 2 cups is way too much. It was so overpowering. We had 18 people at Thanksgiving and EVERYONE made a comment on it – “next time use the yogurt”. I have so much left over, and there’s only 2 in my own family. So disappointed.
Wow rude much
Made this for thanksgiving this year. everyone loved it. So easy, made the day before.
So glad everyone loved it!
Way too tart for me. It looked so pretty that I thought it would be sweet.
How long will this last for?
I’ve kept it 3-4 days.
I have made this both way with the sour cream and also with cool whip as my granddaughter has a dairy allergy. Both ways are good, the one with the cool whip is not overly sweet but is thicker than the one made with the sour cream.
So if u use cool whip instead do u use the same amount of the cool whip as u would of sour creme.?
What if I got unsweetened coconut?
It will still be great!
My cranberries are boiling now!! I’m tmqkong this dish to take to my In Laws tomorrow!! I doubled the recipe! I don’t want the cinnamon to be over powering. Should I take the cinnamon sticks out right after boiling or leave them in while the cranberry sauce cools? Thanks for this wonderful recipe! I can’t wait to share it with the family tomorrow!!
You can take them out while it’s cooling or shortly after. Happy Thanksgiving!
It’s best to leave the cinnamon stick in it till ready to make it. I also refrigerated the cranberry sauce to cool first only cause i thought i was suppose to. So i will find out how others like it when its served at a Christmas party tonight. I also sprinkled some extra halved pecan over the top of it to garnish it. The rest of the cranberry cause i have left i am going to give some away and the rest save for toast or biscuits in the mornings.
can I substitute walnuts for pecans?
That would work just fine!
Do we need to take out the cinnamon stick?
Yes, remove and discard the cinnamon stick.
This was delicious! Not sure why others were confused. You end up with about 2 cups of the cranberry sauce when cran berries cook down. I just added it all in together. It was perfect! It’s a winner.
So glad you enjoyed it Donna! :)
“Let sit 4 hours or overnight” – I assume that means in the refrigerator. Please let me know. Thank you.
Yes in the refrigerator.
How far ahead of time can you make this? If I make it this afternoon and refrigerate it, will it get soggy?
No it’s perfect made the day before!
It doesn’t do to get old!!! I decided to make this for Thanksgiving tomorrow. I thought I had everything I needed except for the sour cream and pineapple TIDBITS. So, special trip to the store.
Got my cranberries done and cooled. Opened the can of CRUSHED pineapple – oops #1. Decided no big deal used it anyway.
Then grabbed the sour cream only to find out I grabbed cottage cheese instead – oops #2. Decided what the heck, used it instead.
The mini marshmallows I thought I had were the very large ones instead – oops #3 – kitchen scissors to the rescue.
I tasted it and not bad. Hopefully it will be even better tomorrow after the flavors blend.
LOL! Well I love all of the things in your version so I’m sure will be delicious! Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family! :)
3 cups? or 24 Oz of fresh?????
I measure it by cups using 3 cups. They shrink down a lot.
Ok. I used 2 12oz bags. seems to have turned out well. We can’t wait to try it!!!! :)
Enjoy Cindy! :)
I don’t like cranberries I wonder if I could substitute with celery? Haha just kidding. This recipe sounds perfect. The instructions are perfectly clear. I just read al the comments and sometimes I really worry about our society lol. Super excited about this recipe!!!
LOL! :) Enjoy Christy! It’s one of our favorites!