Cranberry Fluff Salad
Cranberry Fluff Salad is the PERFECT light dessert, made with homemade whipped cream folded together with cranberry sauce, crushed pineapple, chopped pecans, and mini marshmallows, ready in under 15 minutes!
This Cranberry Fluff Salad is the holiday season version of ambrosia salad, made with homemade whipped cream mixed with canned cranberry sauce (whole berry), canned pineapple, mini marshmallows, and chopped pecans. It’s insanely easy to throw together, and always a hit at holiday parties! I’ve made this for Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas dinner, and it was a hit at both!
You can serve cranberry salad in fancy bowls, wine glasses, or freeze it for a few hours and serve it in gluten free ice cream cones. It’s best when eaten with a spoon. You can also crush some gluten free graham crackers and make a layered dessert.
If you loved this recipe, you may also love my Easy Pumpkin Pie Dip, and my Cannoli Dip!
Table of contents
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Homemade Whipped Cream – This really adds another level to recipes like this, especially when you add cream cheese to it. It’s reminiscent of cheesecake, while being light, fluffy, and sweet!
No Bake Dessert – You can throw everything together in the stand mixer and refrigerate, no baking required! No cooking required makes it a lot easier to serve for the holidays, or bring to a potluck.
Easy to Customize – You can add any add-ins you like to this recipe. Don’t like nuts? Leave them out. Want more fruit? Try adding mandarin orange slices. It’s that easy!
Ingredients You’ll Need
Cranberry Sauce. I’m using canned whole berry cranberry sauce, because the cranberries have been cooked and mixed with sugar, making them sweet and not too tart.
You can use regular cranberry sauce, but it won’t have the little bits of cranberries in it.
Crushed Pineapple. You can use canned crushed pineapple, which spreads out the most in the fluff and gives you a little pineapple with each bite, or pineapple chunks, which will give you bigger bites of pineapple but less often.
Make sure you drain the pineapple, because we don’t want to water down the whipped cream.
You can also cut up your own pineapple, just make the pieces really small and use about 1-2 cups.
Mini Marshmallows. These will soak up all of the cranberry flavor and melt a little bit into the whipped cream, giving it a really nice sweet flavor.
Pecans. I like to add this for a little bit of crunch. You can also use chopped walnuts, sliced almonds, or pumpkin seeds, or leave the nuts out entirely if you can’t have them.
Cream Cheese. This helps give the cranberry fluff a little bit of a cheesecake flavor. Check out my Whipped Cream Cream Cheese Frosting for more about the base of this recipe.
Powdered Sugar. This helps add sweetness, but it also provides structure to the whipped cream, so it doesn’t fall if you make this ahead of time.
Heavy Whipping Cream. You need to use actual whipping cream or heavy cream for this recipe to work, and it needs to be cold when you add it.
Vanilla Extract. This adds a nice subtle flavor to the recipe.
Kitchen Tools
For this recipe, you’ll need a stand mixer, or a large mixing bowl and an electric hand mixer.
How to Make Cranberry Fluff Salad
Add cream cheese, powdered sugar, and vanilla to the mixing bowl of a stand mixer. Cream everything together on medium-low speed until completely combined. Be careful not to over-mix.
Using the whisk attachment on medium-high speed, very slowly add the cold cream down the side of the mixing bowl.
After the cream is completely added, set the mixer on high speed for about 2-3 minutes.
Once the whipped cream forms stiff peaks, turn the mixer off. Using a spatula, gently fold in the cranberry sauce, pineapple, pecans, and mini marshmallows until everything is mixed together. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Recipe Variations
- Instead of cranberries, try making this with cherry pie filling or maraschino cherries for a different twist.
- Add a cup of mandarin orange slices and a teaspoon of orange zest for more citrus flavor.
- Try adding 1/2 cup of sweetened shredded coconut to make this more like ambrosia salad.
- Try adding in 1/2 cup of mini chocolate chips for a chocolate version!
- Instead of canned cranberry sauce, you can mix 12 ounces of fresh or frozen cranberries with 1 cup of granulated sugar and pulse in the food processor until you have small pieces.
Recipe Tip! Make sure you’re using cold heavy cream to make the whipped cream. It whips up faster and holds its shape better.
Frequently Asked Questions
This is the perfect recipe to make ahead of time, because the flavors really come together in the refrigerator. This works well when made 12-24 hours ahead of time, but I wouldn’t go longer than that. Make sure to store it in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
Recipe Tip! When making the whipped cream, put your mixer on high speed and keep an eye on it. It’ll form stiff peaks, which means you can take the whisk out and it’ll keep standing up instead of falling.
More Holiday Dessert Recipes
- Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Balls
- Gingerbread Cupcakes
- Easy Peppermint Chocolate Cookies
- Homemade Christmas Chex Mix
Storage
Refrigerate this cranberry salad for 2-3 days in an airtight container.
It will lose some of its fluffy texture over time, so I recommend making this the same day if you’re bringing it to a holiday gathering.
You can freeze cranberry fluff salad, but it’ll be more watery when you defrost it. If you’re going to do that, I recommend serving it like ice cream while it’s still frozen.
Cooking Tips
- Drain the crushed pineapple as best as you can. The less liquid you introduce the to whipped cream, the better. To do this, you can use a fine mesh strainer and gently use a spatula to press the pineapple down.
- Make the whipped cream before adding anything else to it. If you add everything at once, it won’t form properly.
- When creaming together the cream cheese and sugar, the most important part is to get rid of any big lumps of cream cheese. Bringing the cream cheese to room temperature about 20-30 minutes beforehand helps with this. Stop the mixer and use a spatula to scrape the bottom of the bowl.
- I like to add a few marshmallows and fresh cranberries on top for decoration, but they are very tart so I wouldn’t mix them into the whole thing. You can mix them in a food processor with sugar beforehand if you want less tart fresh cranberries.
- Be very gentle when folding the other ingredients into the whipped cream. We’ve whipped air into it, which makes it light and fluffy. You don’t want to crush those tiny air pockets out.
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Cranberry Fluff Salad
Ingredients
- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups heavy whipping cream, cold
- 14 ounces whole berry cranberry sauce, (1 can)
- 20 ounces crushed pineapple, (1 can) drained
- 3 cups mini marshmallows, gluten free
- 1 cup pecans, chopped
Equipment
- 1 Stand mixer or electric hand mixer
Instructions
- Add cream cheese, powdered sugar, and vanilla to the mixing bowl of a stand mixer. Cream everything together on medium-low speed until completely combined. Be careful not to over-mix.
- Using the whisk attachment on medium-high speed, very slowly add the cold cream down the side of the mixing bowl. After the cream is completely added, set the mixer on high speed for about 2-3 minutes.
- Once the whipped cream forms stiff peaks, turn the mixer off. Using a spatula, gently fold in the cranberry sauce, pineapple, pecans, and mini marshmallows until everything is mixed together. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Notes
- When making the whipped cream, put your mixer on high speed and keep an eye on it. It’ll form stiff peaks, which means you can take the whisk out and it’ll keep standing up instead of falling.
- Make sure you’re using cold cream to make the whipped cream. It whips up faster and holds its shape better.
- Drain the crushed pineapple as best as you can. The less liquid you introduce to the whipped cream, the better. To do this, you can use a fine mesh strainer and gently use a spatula to press the pineapple down.
- When creaming together the cream cheese and sugar, the most important part is to get rid of any big lumps of cream cheese. Turn the mixer off and use a spatula to scrape the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl.
- Be very gentle when folding the other ingredients into the whipped cream. We’ve whipped air into it, which makes it light and fluffy. You don’t want to crush those tiny air pockets out.
Nutrition
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