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
Can you use regular yogurt instead of Greek?
Yes you can, it may be a little bit of a softer consistency but will still work great!
Would adding plain gelatin give it a more “fluffy” texture? Would that even work or would it be a tru jello consistency? Your thoughts? Thank you!!
I’ve only made this recipe as written, but do have a Berry Fluff Jello Salad that has gelatin in it. The texture is really nice. So for this recipe, it may work too. Let us know if you try it Lisa!
Can you substitute for fresh cranberries.
Thanks.
Yes but canned cranberry sauce is sweeter than this homemade version so it may change the flavor slightly.
Our family loves the taste of coconut but not the texture. Can I incorporate coconut milk for the flavor without changing the consistency of the recipe in the
Millionaire Cranberry Salad?
Coconut milk will change the consistency of the salad as you’re adding a liquid in place of a sold. I would suggest either leaving the coconut out or using a little bit of coconut extract.
Coconut yogurt maybe?
Forget my coconut yogurt comment. I sampled a couple of them and wasn’t happy with using either. Not a lot of coconut flavor, and just not all that tasty (though your mileage may vary). And coconut oil had no flavor at all. I ended up using coconut butter (Raw Coconut Butter by Artisana). Since it was separated in the jar and hard, I microwaved it for 30 sec. It was all nice and liquid then, after some stirring. I also nuked the 2 cups of sour cream for about 20 sec (I think) to remove some of the chill it had from the fridge, so that it wouldn’t solidify the coconut butter again. The coconut butter and sour cream stirred together beautifully. The final salad turned out great. I did add 24g (2 Tbsp) of table sugar to make up for the lack of sugar in the coconut butter. My sister thought it needed more sugar. My Other Half thought it was plenty. The whole family really liked it. It’s a keeper.
Coconut cream should also work, as I think it’s the same thing as coconut butter. And I wonder if the cream top of full fat coconut milk would work, too, especially if you whip it first.
its very delicious. thanks for your receipt..oh ya.. may i join to your board? im very interesting to join your board.thanks..
Thank you Matilda! You can find my Pinterest board here!
Any suggestions for a substitute for those with nut allergies? Thanks
You can leave the nuts out or add extra coconut.
I would use chopped celery or water chestnuts instead of nuts.
Thanks for the suggestion
I cant stop starring at the images of this salad. I just love the color and all the different ingredients that have been used blend so well together. Its definitely going to be a hit with the kids.
Made this for Thanksgiving 2017 exactly as written. It was delicious!!! The leftover cranberry sauce was devoured too! The sour cream and home made cranberry sauce put this over the the top.
Love this salad. But i add 3 stalks celery sliced thin, three bartlett pears, chunked up, and 3 honeycrisp appkes chunked up.
Those sound like yummy additions! I am glad you enjoyed this recipe!
A holiday tradition from childhood. We always used a pint of heavy whipping cream beat stiff instead of sour cream or yogurt. It can be streamlined with Splenda. Love it!
This is the best dessert ever!! Everywhere I take it people just love it. Easy to make and not expensive. Yum
Can the pecans be left out? We don’t like nuts in salads. We could try, though, if leaving them out would change the taste too much.
Thanks for your time!
You can certainly leave them out!
Can I add a little cool whip to this without affecting the sour cream so it will be a little sweeter?
Sure you can if you’d like it to be a bit sweeter.
Made it with vanilla Greek yogurt- gave it a nice sweet tang versus sour cream. Just make sure you drain the pineapple well and that the mini marshmallows are fresh and not sticking together- made this in 92 degree weather and the marshmallows were clumping
Very good!!!
Great recipe. Wondering if this can be made ahead and frozen.
I haven’t tried freezing this recipe so I can’t say for sure.
Hi Holly! Happy Thanksgiving! I made your cranberry fluff recipe yesterday and it was delicious! I am planning on making your cranberry millionaire salad tomorrow. I especially loved the cream cheese / heavy whipping cream / sugar mixture that was the base of the cranberry fluff. Do you think I could take that base and mix with the rest of the ingredients in the Cranberry millionaire salad and it work? Not trying to change your recipe, just combining two or your awesome ideas!! I just really enjoyed the base on the cranberry fluff. My son enjoyed it very much as well. Just wanted to see your thoughts.
I love swapping up recipes and trying new things!! I haven’t tried it so I can’t say for sure but I don’t see any reason it wouldn’t work. If you do try it, I’d love to hear how it works out for you!
I don’t understand why it says to use only 1.5 cups of the cranberry mixture. What are you supposed to do with the rest of it. Throw it away???
We never throw the extra little bit away… it’s great on yogurt, ice cream, cheesecake or just eaten as cranberry sauce.
Readers go by the recipe as posted it’s really delicious! If allergic to an ingredient simply change that ingredient IT will or can change the taste of the recipe It’s not the person fault if it changes the taste.
This is a delicious recipe as is
I was wondering if I could make it with half sour cream and half yogert?
That will work just fine.
I was wondering what your thoughts were about substituting the pecans for walnuts? I bought the wrong bag and already opened it!
I think it could be a delicious substitution!