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
Made this Recipe last year and family loved it as much as the Turkey! Making it again this year, of course. I’m seriously considering reading the whole comment trail for this recipe at the holiday table because it read like a “Who’s on First?” skit!! Hehe…Thanks, Holly!
LOL! Thank you so much Sharon! :) Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!
Whole group loved this!! Made it for Thanksgiving last year and I was told I had t make it for Christmas as well.
So glad to hear you love it Carlee!
Can you use a can of cranberries?
Yes but canned cranberry sauce is sweeter than this homemade version so it may change the flavor slightly.
What size for this recipe?
This recipe makes approximately 5 cups.
If I’d rather not buy cinnamon sticks, is there a way to boil the cranberries with ground cinnamon instead?
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!
I have a family member that is allergic to coconut what can I substitute coconut with in this salad can you let me know right now
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.
This looks & sounds delightful! I will be trying this for Thanksgiving this year & again for Christmas if it’s a big hit. I do have a silly question though, and I apologize if it’s already been answered and I overlooked it….the last step where it says to let sit for 4 hours, do you mean refrigerate for 4 hours?? Thanks!
AMAZING!!! The best cranberry salad ever.
If u use whip creme in place of the sour creme do u use the same amount of whip creme
I have only made this recipe as written.
I’m definitely going to try this. We use a different cranberry salad recipe, but this looks so good. My daughter doesn’t like coconut, but I love it. I’m going to chop the coconut finer and cook it with the cranberries. I hope it won’t change the final result. Thanks for the recipe.
I hope this is a hit with your dinner guests! Happy Thanksgiving!
Cannot use marshmallows. Any thoughts for substitute?
The marshmallows add sweetness and soak up a lot of the liquid. I wouldn’t suggest leaving them out.
The lady asked if you could leave the marshmallows out, Could you cut back on the water and eliminate the need for marshmallows and add some splenda?
I’ve only made this as written so it’s hard to say how it would change the recipe. The marshmallows add sweetness, a bit of bulk plus change the consistency of the recipe. If you try it without, please let us know how it goes.
I haven’t made it yet; however, I plan to on Thanksgiving as it sounds delicious – love the tart/sweet aspect of it. BUT I do have a question….how many servings for this recipe? I think this is such an important part of a recipe in order to be able to know how much to add for more people or take away for fewer people. 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.
How many does this serve? This, to me, is such an important part of a recipe. Thanks! It looks delicious and I like the tart/sweet aspect of it – will be making this for Thanksgiving
This recipe serves 8-10 people. (½ cup servings)
Ok the video says boil for 10 minutes the printed version says simmer 10 min. Also the recipe says to stir 1 1/2 c cranberry mixture with other ingredients, so what do you do with extra cranberry mixture?
Recipe says let sit overnight, video says refrigerate 4 hours.
So much conflict.
You can let it sit at least 4 hours or up to overnight. We enjoy the extra cranberry sauce with turkey or even mixed into yogurt or over ice cream. :) Enjoy!
I haven’t tried this yet, but my family loves the millionaire salad with cherry pie filling…we usually just have canned cranberry sauce with Thanksgiving/Christmas dinners…but I think I’m going to make this recipe this year and see how it goes over…it definitely sounds & looks good…and since I’ve had a chance to read the comments I don’t think I’ll have any problem following the directions – LOL
I would boil the cranberries in the drained pineapple juice. Maybe a little less sugar since the pineapple juice is sweet already.
this looks wonderful I going to make it for my family
I leave out the sour cream and coconut and add a big box of red jello, any flavor. I add diced peeled apples and orange bits without membranes. I drain the pineapple (crushed or tidbits), too. It sets up well in the fridge.
This now my favorite recipe!! I love it!! I made it for Christmas Eve and it was a huge hit. Very simple to make and directions couldn’t be easier. Thanks for sharing!
Penny,
I can’t wait to try this.
Enjoy Alicia! We love it!
This is my new favorite! Thank you for sharing!