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For as long as that mushy thing in my skull can remember, my mother has served Marshmallow Salad at holiday dinners. Marshmallow salad is also known as Ambrosia. On occasion we’d call it Sour Cream Salad. Truth is, we really never knew what to call it, other than an embarrassment.
We’re not the fanciest people on earth, but we’re fancy enough to know anything that includes marshmallows should at least be served as a dessert. You see, for some reason we didn’t serve Ambrosia as a dessert. We served it as a side dish. There it sat beside the perfectly respectable green beans and mashed potatoes. A big bowl of marshmallows, fruit and coconut winking, “Here I am, in all my tacky glory. Caught ya lookin’!”.
If marshmallow salad were a dinner guest, she’d be the sparkly, hooker-with-a heart-of-gold your Uncle Nick brings to Easter dinner every year. An embarrassing, loud, colourfully dressed dish that everyone can’t help but love.
Plus it’s sort of understood you don’t talk about either one of them in public.
I’m not sure when it happened, but I’ve taken over the Marshmallow/Sour cream/Ambrosia Salad tradition. It is now my job to smuggle it out of the house under the cover of ageing Tupperware, to all of our holiday dinners. If the neighbours ask, I lie and tell them it’s something a little more respectable than marshmallow salad. Like a 3 bean salad. Or a shrunken head.
The good news is, this dish now officially has a name. After watching me make it for the very first time, many years ago, my boyfriend took one look at the salad and named it. It’s the perfect name. The name stuck. And quickly. Like Crazy glue to a hard hat. Or sparkles to a stripper.
Here’s to strippers, hookers, marshmallows and not caring what other people do or think. Here’s to …
White Trash Salad!
10 oz. Can of Mandarin Oranges (drained very well)
14 oz. Can of Crushed Pineapple (drained very well)
1 cup Sour Cream
1/3 cup Maraschino Cherries (cut in half)
1/4 cup Sweetened Coconut
3 cups Mini Marshmallows (use the coloured ones for added trash)
Add all the ingredients to a bowl.
Like this. Then fold everything together. Cover it up and let set in fridge overnight.
Told ya the coloured marshmallows gave it that added zip.
And I vow here and now, on this very day not to hide the White Trash Salad anymore. I just don’t have the energy. I will carry it with my head held high to every family dinner we have.
Because it’s tradition, because it now has a really cool name and most importantly … because I like it. And even though they may not admit it publicly, so does everyone else.
Update: I just watched an episode of Sister Wives and they made “Ambrosia” for a dinner party they were having. They pronounced it Ambroeeeeeeshaaaaaaaaaa, like it was something fancy. Snort. Yet another part of their lives they should have kept secret from the public.
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Rebecca
Oh man, I love that stuff! I’d totally forgotten it existed. My kids’ll go apeshit if I serve that with dinner. Thank you, Karen. Oh, and I think there actually is something with an inkling of nutrition in marshmallows. Not that I’m saying this is not total white trash, but maybe they keep your fingernails strong or something! Must go google…
Karen
OMG I am making that this weekend. Seems scrumptious!!
Oh, and is Sister Wives worth watching? Like start at Season 1 and watch them all?
Karen
Karen – Meh. It’s more of a have it on in the background kindda show. Paying too close attention might make you itchy. ~ karen
Pati
Yummm! Love your name for it! Also grew up with this on our table at every family gathering…we used plain white mini marshmallows tho..and no cherries. It always sat beside the green jello, grated carrot, weird shaped salad…
In my adult life I have made Ambrosia once and it was for dessert, I just don’t get it as a side dish? But it is yummy!
Kate S
I have never had the please but it sure reminds me of Edward Scissorhands.
Adrienne Audrey
The only food I will mix marshmallows with besides smore ingredients and rice krispies is yams. My family’s thanksgiving tradition is to add marshmallows to the tops of the yams and cook it under the broiler for a few minutes. Sounds gross but it’s yummy!
Rea Niece
LOL Love the name. I am making that for Easter dinner…and I always make it for Thanksgiving and Christmas too. The family will get a kick out of the new name!
den
where i come from, it’s not salad unless it has gelatin.
think of it as a jiggly, fake-fruit-flavored crouton.
Suzan
When my sister was a young bride she brought ambrosia to a large family gathering. She used colored marshmallows. My brother took one look and said, “Look, Julie brought Lucky Charms Barf!” and that is what we have called it ever since. “White Trash Salad” is a MUCH nicer name!
Beth
Oh my gosh Suzan — LUCKY CHARMS BARF!!!! I just scared the bejeebies out of the cat sitting on my desk in front of the computer – by laughing OUT LOUD and just about screaming!! And I thought White Trash Salad was hilarious!!!
Karen – thank God for your blog – between you and your readers – I never fail to get a good laugh, and that’s just what I needed today!! Getting ready for Thanksgiving at my Sister-in-Laws in a couple days – I’m thinking White Trash Salad (or Lucky Charms Barf) will have to be making an appearance this year!!! (though I know for sure the coconut will have to bow out, or I will be thrown from the premises!) I know my 12 year old will probably make sure the leftovers disappear!!! Thanks for the laugh and hope everyone has a blessed Holiday season!!!
Karen
Thanks Beth! Glad you enjoyed it! ~ karen
Jocelyne
On Top Chef Masters last week, the chefs had to update (mostly) tacky 60s food. One of those foods was ambrosia which I had heard tales of, but never seen or tasted. What a strange little concoction…
Karen
Jocelyne – What a GREAT idea for a show, to update tacky 60′s food! It is a strange concoction, that’s for SURE. ~ karen
Amie
That’s the craziest shit I have ever seen!
Shari
Love it!! We make it with whipped cream and pineapple chunks!
Colleen
To make the salad even more white trash substitute Cool Whip for the sour cream (too uptown). Guilty pleasure!
Beckie
We eat this at thanksgiving in my fam.. but we add cold, cooked rice and it is dubbed “heavenly rice”… and it is, it truly is heavenly!
Brittany
In my family, we call it Waldorf Salad and we have it every year for Thanksgiving as a side dish. Not really sure why, since most of my family can’t stand it, but hey, what’s Thanksgiving without tiny marshmallows?
Karen
Brittany – LOL, that’s really strange. Does your family know Waldorf Salad is an actual salad? (that doesn’t have marshmallows in it?) If I recall Waldorf salad is apples, celery, walnuts, raisins and some mayo. Or maybe you’ve just added marshmallows to Waldorf salad. I’m so confused. Do you see how confusing salads of the 60′s are making my life?
~ karen
Brittany
Ours is like real Waldorf Salad and your salad had a baby. A delicious, too-sweet baby that results in left-overs for weeks because no one wants to eat it. But let’s see, in our bastardized version, there’s no raisins but we do use mayo instead of sour cream…but then we have the mandarin oranges, cherries, walnuts, celery, apples and marshmallows. Oh and bananas. It kind of looks like cat vomit, to be honest.
Karen
Brittany – Well … after that description can I just say “Yum!”. ~ karen
My Texas Table
Where is the “like” button for this string of conversation?
jen
Lets not forget Watergate salad. With marshmallows,pineapple chunks,cherries and pistachio pudding with cool whip.
We also make a mix of pretzles,peanuts,m&ms,chex and cherios cearel mix it with melted white chocolate chips and that is what we call white trash. So funny how much white trash there can be at ones dinner table.
pegr
What a flash back to the 70′s. Stoners used to love this stuff. FYI, waldorf salad has chicken.
Karen
Pegr – I can’t imagine stoners could get their shit together enough to make this salad! LOL. Oh. And classic Waldorf salad doesn’t have chicken at all. That’s a variation of Waldorf that people occasionally make. It’s normally just fruit and vegetables. Although … I make a variation on a curried chicken/Waldorf salad that has all of those things and it’s delicious! ~ karen
Audrey
Nice. I actually love ambrosia. I also like Waldorf Salad and I’m pretty sure they are in the same family of “what-the-what is that?!”. I am going to be trekking back to my home state in a few months for a family reunion..I think I’ll be bringing multicolored marshmallows this year.
Kim
So glad you’re taking this public! Our family has “enjoyed” this salad for 4 generations. We call it 5-Cup Salad…made almost the same as yours Karen, minus the coconut. One cup of each ingredient all mixed together.
Your name is definitely going to come up at the dinner table this weekend!
Love the variety on your site, Happy Easter.
Karen
Thanks Kim.
~ karen
Allyson
We have that every year for Thanksgiving! Except we use Cool-Whip instead of sour cream. Because apparently the marshmallows don’t make it sweet enough. We add actual cut up fruit too, like apples and bananas.
I guess it’s to make up for the cool-whip.
Britt
Wow… my family must be more White Trash because we make a similar salad only ours is encased in yellow jello… Looks disgusting but tastes soooo good!
Mindy
Yes, this also makes an appearance at our family holiday dinners. Thankfully, I don’t have to be the one to make it. Another one that falls into the same category is the jello salad. There are all types of combos that are equally disgusting, but the one I like to scoff at the most is the…wait for it…lime jello with grated carrots. What the?!
Karen
Mindy – That made me laugh OUT LOUD. Yeah. It’d take some sort of Professor of Gross to explain the lime jello with grated carrots. ~ karen
B-Naz
Karen,
I’m quite amused by the fact that you dedicated a whole post to the ‘White Trash Salad’. When my boyfriend and I first moved into our place we decided to have our first proper holiday dinner for friends that didn’t have anywhere to go. THIS salad was on his list of must haves so like a good girlfriend I scoured the internet to find out what the heck it was he was talking about. And yes, I did make it and yes, everyone did think it was dessert.
In the end I no longer fight it (no matter how odd I think it is) and I make it for big dinners because I’ve come to realize it’s a prairie thing and even though it never all gets eaten having it on the table is like a flash from his childhood for him.
Thanks for the smiles. xo
Tess
Marshmallows totally gross me out. I have to go lay down as my heart is just racing and I think I’m having a panic attack.
Karen
Tess – DON’T LAY DOWN ON A PILLOW!!!!! They’re very much like massive marshmallows. ~ karen
Marie
Love this salad! We make it with mandarin orange slices, pineapple chunks, and grapes-I’ll have to try adding coconut next time. I need to find a dairy-free version to bring to dinners now that we have some dietary restrictions in the family. Thanks for the memories.
amy dame
ultra ultra low fat dream whip is dairy free, if your recipe is for dream whip instead of sour cream. (it’s completely oil product, i have friends who refer to dream whip and bananas as white trash vegan dessert)
or, tofutti makes a good soy based sour cream, if you prefer the sour cream.
Lynn
I cannot eat this salad, it makes my teeth hurt just looking at it. We only had this salad when I was really little (the late 70s), and I think a relative made it. So I have been saved for the most part at family functions in my adult life. We did have one Thanksgiving though when some random relatives brought the colored chocolate pastilles you melt to make candy with and put them out in a bowl as an appetizer/dessert. Ew.
My mom makes a really tasty Waldorf Salad!
Traci
HA! We do Watergate salad, but leave out the cherries! The crazy thing is that NOBODY eats it, but it is ALWAYS a part of every holiday meal!
Lin N
I had forgotten about having this years ago at my aunts. Loved it! Thanks for the memory and smile. Can’t have it these days as it would play havoc with my glucose level.
Kathy
Was your mom by any chance a United Church Lady? I have a theory, you see.
My mother also made this almost-exact dish for every holiday gathering; even as a delighted small child I couldn’t figure out how it qualified as “salad.” Anyhow, my theory is that at some long-ago church-basement supper some UCL brought Ambrosia as a dessert but someone put it on the main buffet table by accident, and ever since then it’s been a fancy-supper salad staple.
?
lj
This made me laugh out loud! Now I know why this is so familiar, though never served at any family dinner in my memory. ( We do still always have lime/lemon Jello with grated carrots, and crushed pinapple.)
Kristen@PrettySweet
You could probably do the same thing with chopped up Peeps. Don’t you still have a stash of those somewhere?
I actually made s’mores with Peeps last night and I am not even kidding when I tell you that they were the most delicious s’mores I’ve ever tasted. It was rather surprising, considering that I don’t even like them otherwise.
amy dame
i’ve only ever had this with the whipped cream, my old boss used to make it and whenever we had a potluck, we’d beg her to bring it in. we didn’t care if it was trashy, it was GOOD!
my family’s holiday dessert is a REAL salad (ie, with gelatin). it’s layers of cherry jello, cream cheese mixed with crushed pineapple, and lime jello made with the drained pineapple juice instead of water. mmm, so yummy. west coast people look at us strangely, but prairie folks know how good it is!
deborahinps
I actually had a cookbook called White Trash Recipes… Of course your recipe was included.
One of my favs was a smashed ketchup sandwich.
I think one of my dear friends lifted it from my cookbook collection a few years back.
She’s tacky like that
jonquil
I’m so sorry Karen, I read your blog avidly and pretty much love everything you do. But this, this looks horrible!
Mind you, seeing as so many people commented on how great it is, maybe I’m the one who’s the culinary philistine…
Jen
…or maybe that’s how many of us have white trash roots. Heh.
Betsy
Yes, 5 Cup Salad at our house too…..1 cup of each ingredient mixed together. But we used green grapes instead of the pineapple. Usually just at Easter dinner with the ham…yes, side dish, not dessert. Love it! Very spring-like….fresh and yummy. Seriously. I am going to go buy the ingredients right now because I had actually forgotten about it. Happy Spring everybody!
Amy in StL
Wow, I’ve seen this at potlucks but never partake because I think shredded coconut is like having grass in my food. I subscribe to a recipe service that has one of the side options as apple salad. Which basically is apples, bananas, cool whip and macadamia nuts with marshmallows in a bowl. I pretend it’s an actual salad.
Paula
This post really hit home with lots of people judging from the number of comments. It brought back to me a salad my mother-in-law made that had cottage cheese in it. I really miss her but I don’t miss that salad. Yukko!!!
Susan
Couldn’t you tart this up to elevate it from its white trash orgins?
Such as using homemade marshmallows painstakingly cut into chevrons. Use the rarest, sweetest cherries such as the black surinam variety, toast the coconut on a responsibly sourced plank of wood from an exotic rainforest? Free trade pinapple crushed by a mallet of pure platinum and use sumo oranges instead of tinned mandarians?
Of course then you’d have to call it Pretentious Salad.
Karen
Susan – LOL, that’s an excellent idea. Hilarious! ~ karen
Jen
AWESOME.
Dani
My Oma would make this for all special occasions when I was a kid, except she would freeze it in a big square tupperware container, and when it was time to be served cut us off a big old slab, lol. Yes it was served at dinner time, right next to the beets
Jen
Oh man, I totally love this stuff. …and I will henceforth call it White Trash Salad from now on!
But we have ours with plain mini-marshmallows and without the maraschino cherries. ‘Cause, you know — we have class, baby.
princesslala
Why did no one run with the idea of calling candy salad? I’m going to start this trend by having a KitKat and Twizzler salad right now. This is revolutionary.
Darn right you should hold your head high when you carry this salad. I think you should carry this salad ON your head to parties. That’s badass.
Karen
Princes Lala – Carry it on my head? That’s something a crazy person would do.
~ karen
Pauline Clark
Thank you! I love this stuff. Never knew the name of it and no one ever knew what I was talking about…so now I have a recipe AND it has a super fun name! Can’t wait to write it into my treasured cookbook!
Ecochic
White Trash Salad sounds about right! My friends have taken to calling this White Person Salad. They just don’t understand the allure of it. lol
Elisa
Wow! I cannot believe this salad has made its way out of the South. I keep trying to convince myself that it will count as the fruit salad my mother in law requested. After seeing your post, I will be bringing it with me to Easter dinner!
You should tackle a good homemade pimento cheese. Apparently, it is considered white trash as well!
Pats
Mmmmm, pimento cheese. I second that.
Debbie @ Swampbilly Ranch
My mother still makes this for every holiday dinner. She actually calls it Fruit Salad. My husband loves it!
Karen
Debbie – That’s the funniest thing, when people call it fruit salad!
~ karen
Rose
Karen,
I have eaten this my WHOLE LIFE, and still never had a name for it! Well, I do now! In our recipe, you do use sour cream, and either white or colored marshmallows, but instead of individual cans of fruit, we just get canned fruit cocktail – with cherries and all – and just drain and dump. Voila! Much to my delight, my husband absolutely LOVES the stuff, and requests it on occasion. We’ve always served it as a side dish, too. No idea why. Just do.
Marti
Hey Karen…
My mum makes this with Cool Whip or worse, store-brand non-dairy whipped topping. I think I’ve just taken it down and entire notch, yes?
If I used sour cream or “creme fraiche” that would totally class it up! Haha!
Ok, back to the soups post…
Karen
LOL! ~ k
Gayla T
Well, I have to agree that your family is way way trashier than mine. We were really upper stuff because we also add a can of fruit cocktail and glued it together with half sour cream and the other half is…….WHIPPED TOPPING. Ta dah! Aren’t you just completely blown away by knowing someone like us? Some times my mom would put some cooked rice in it. I’ve also seen her put it into a graham cracker crust for a pie. It, being food of the gods, was named Ambrosia. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. Back in the day, whipped topping was really whipped. It came in a box, just white powder you put into 2 cups of milk and beat it until it was thick and creamy. I sure miss my mom when I think of these old recipes.
Gayla T
I forgot to tell you that Better Homes and Gardens April issue has an big article about front yard veggie gardening. I didn’t have time yet to read the entire article but it looked very nice.
Karen
Ooo! Thanks! I’ll look for it. ~ k
Sally
Yes…this is a salad!!!! We here in Georgia consider mac n cheese a vegetable too. So sue me. Or bite me. What ever. This is still a SALAD! (cute post. ugly salad. still a salad. ::::fingers in ears:::: La alalal la lala…I can’t hear you, people who think this is a dessert)
Laurel
I am sorry, but … ewww. Those cherries in particular are glow in the dark toxic. But, hey, I am aware that that vast majority of people don’t eat food because it is healthy.
Pats
Heh. Mom made this even more white trash. Drained fruit cocktail and Cool Whip. Mixed with marshmallows, and coconut if no one objected to coconut. WE even had a dedicated bowl for it, called “The Fruit Salad Bowl.” My brother has dibs on that bowl when Mom dies.
Karen
Cool Whip *is* a special occasion touch isn’t it? LOL. ~ karen
Claudine
I’ve never seen this salad looks so beautiful! Where I’m from in North Dakota, this is known as funeral salad. There’s also a similar “salad” that features buttermilk instead of sour cream, canned mandarin oranges,instant vanilla pudding mix and fudge-striped cookies.
Max
Making it this weekend for a BBQ. How many would you say these measurements serve? We have maybe 6 adults and 4 young children to cater for.
Karen
Max – That’ll be plenty for the BBQ. You don’t eat a big heaping serving of it like potato salad. You’ll have plenty, plus plenty left over. ~ karen!
Max
Thanks Karen, I ran through the numbers ingredient-wise and came to a similar conclusion
. Looking forward to it, cheers!
Molly
Oh Karen! I laughed. I cried. I remembered. I resolved to take my shameful old Ambrosia Salad out of the closet and to our next pot luck. Those are the most beautiful, flattering, appealing photos of marshmallow/canned fruit/sour cream salad on the internets. Thank you. ~molly
Karen
LOL, Thanks Molly! I’ll have to go back and take a look at that post again. ~ karen
Natalie Robison
My mom and nanny call it heavenly hash. Lol. Theirs is made with whipping cream and chopped pecans too. Yummo!! I looked forward to it every holiday!!
Tanya Stewart
all this talk about white trash salad has made me miss SQUEEZE CHEESE
Kathleen
This is great! I was laughing so hard my husband came from his office down the hall to see what was going on. I remember this “salad” it was never served at church supers because no one would ever be able to make enough to serve 300 of us. We did have green jello and shredded carrots. In fact it alternated with lemon jello and pineapple at our monthly church suppers. I haven’t had this or seen it in years but believe me I can still taste it looking at your photos.
Thanks so much for the best laugh I have had in about 2 months.
Karen
Kathleen! LOL. When I first quickly read your comment I thought you said I was your best laugh in about 2 years! I was pretty impressed with myself and kind of sad for you. 2 months .. that’s acceptable too. ~ karen!
DzynByJules
WOW! This is EXACTLY what I was looking for for our First Annual Redneck Chili Festival, otherwise known as F.A.R.C.-Fest 2012. I was wondering how to serve up a side dish worthy of Honey Boo-Boo’s kin and this fits the bill perfectly! So GLITZY!!! My friends are going to go wild! So sad we can’t speak about it in public. On a similar note, we hosted a greased watermelon polo event on our lake in honor of the Summer Olympics last August. What a hoot! Never saw a bunch of retired executives act so crazy… it brought out the 10 year old in everyone that day. I’m sure this salad would be a great carbo-load dish for next years festivities! Does the Fella chow down on some of this prior to the Tough-Mudder Competition??? Thanks for the recipe Karen!
Susan
Vegetarian here, who misses marshmallows a lot!! White trash salad is catchy. But Lucky Charms barf is totally hilarious!
kelly
this has always been a side dish in my family too. Love the new name!