It seems very wrong to call anything containing several cups of marshmallows a salad, but history dictates that's exactly what this is. It's Marshmallow Salad with canned fruit; similar to ambrosia but served with the meal not as a dessert.
I know a salad made out of marshmallow and canned fruit seems like a joke but this mixture of mini marshmallows, shredded coconut, mandarin oranges, crushed pineapple, maraschino cherries and sour cream (not Cool Whip) is serious stuff on the holiday dinner table.
And one of those holidays will be here momentarily.
UNTIL THE 4 DAY EASTER WEEKEND
You'll note the addition of *sour cream* instead of Cool Whip which makes my recipe super classy.
It's kind of how I made Brussels sprouts classy (edible) by tossing them in dijon mustard and honey. After deep frying them.
For as long as I can remember, my family has served Marshmallow Salad at holiday dinners. Sometimes we'd call it Ambrosia, on occasion we'd refer to it 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. We serve it as a side dish.
There it sits on the table, right 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'!".
Table of Contents
Marshmallow Fruit Salad
If you change it up a bit and call it a fruit salad with marshmallows it sounds almost healthy.
Ingredients
- 10 oz. Can of Mandarin Oranges (drained very well)
- 14 oz. Can of Crushed Pineapple (drained very well)
Speaking of pineapples, I tested out the pulling apart a pineapple hack you can see the results here.
- 1 cup Sour Cream
- ⅓ cup Maraschino Cherries (cut in half)
- ¼ cup Sweetened Coconut
- 3 cups Mini Marshmallows (use the coloured ones for added trash)
If marshmallow salad was a dinner guest, she'd be the sparkly, hooker-with-a heart-of-gold that your Uncle Nick brings to Easter dinner every year. An embarrassing, loud, colourfully dressed dish that you can't help but love.
Plus it's sort of understood you don't talk about either one of them in public.
Steps
- Add all the ingredients to a bowl.
2. Then fold everything together. Cover it up and let set in fridge overnight.
Where did it originate?
Ambrosia (the inspiration for marshmallow salad) was first recorded in a recipe book from 1867 called the Dixie Cookery in the Southern United States. Here's the best part. You can STILL buy the Dixie Cookery cookbook.
I found a copy of the entire Dixie Cookery cookbook online through the Library of Congress. The second recipe in the book starts with "Boil a calf's head".f
I like marshmallow salad. Even though they may not admit it publicly, so does everyone else.
White or Coloured Marshmallows?
If you make marshmallow salad with white mini marshmallows it'll look a bit more like a trifle. It tastes a little different as well because the coloured mini marshmallows are actually fruit flavoured.
But making it white and putting it in a cup classes it up a bit.
Marshmallow Salad (also known as White Trash Salad)
Ingredients
- 1 10 oz can mandarin oranges drained very well
- 1 14 oz can crushed pineapple drained very well
- 1 cup sour cream
- ⅓ cup maraschino cherries cut in half
- ¼ cup sweetened shredded coconut
- 3 cups mini marshmallows
Instructions
- Add all the ingredients to a bowl and fold together.
- Cover with plastic and let set in the fridge overnight.
Nutrition
If you're looking for another dish to horrify your guests with (until they try them) whip up these bacon wraps made from bacon, condensed milk, dijon, cheese and bread. You would NEVER think those ingredients would make up anything even close to delicious but they're a favourite of everyone who's tried them.
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 in our house. One year it was dubbed White Trash Salad. The name stuck 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.
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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!
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
Heidi
Candy salad is our name for it too.
We decorate it with the cherries cut up and arranged like flowers and maybe a crushed candy cane border.
Yes it is a salad and proud to see it on our table.
I think we must all be related or at least distant cousins. I have never met any one else that has seen this before.
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.
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 :P
Denise Potter
I think someone in my family did that too! I've forgotten all about it. Yum.
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.
Denise Potter
ROFLMAO, seriously, I'm still giggling and snorting.
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!!!
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.
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!
Denise Potter
That's what we called it too! I'm sure I have several of those "neighborhood" or "church" recipe books that were sold as fundraisers, with the recipe in it. Good memories.
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.
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 :)
Mary W
I had that cookbook also. Of course, we ate this salad many years ago - probably 50 at least. Always a side, never dessert. I love the colored marshmallows. It always got eaten with no leftovers. That was in Wisconsin for holidays and 40 years in Florida again at holidays. Weird no one ever made it except for holidays. Wonder why?
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!
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.
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.)
Dolores
And do you add cottage cheese and chopped celery to it too? That's another 70's salad thing that my BFF used to make.
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.
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!
Amy in KC
I LOVE Watergate salad! A potluck favorite and family dinner favorite too. And then there's the pink version that's really good also.
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!
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.
Diana Guilfoyle
I too have dairy problems but I use dairy free yogurt and strain a lot of the way out by putting it in a strainer with a coffee filter.
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
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
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
Denise Potter
This has got to be the most hilarious post and RESPONSES of any I've read on your website. "Professor of Gross", I almost had to go change clothes after than one.
Joi Lin Olsen
Are you from Utah? That's a Relief Society staple around these parts, lol!