Easy Ambrosia Salad is a delicious light dessert recipe made with different fruits in a fresh whipped cream and yogurt mixture. This is a classic fruit salad that is often served at holiday dinners or family gatherings that everyone loves.
It is the perfect side dish to serve with those heavy dinners since it is a light marshmallow fruit salad and a great way to cleanse your pallet and enjoy dessert and fruit all in one. This classic dessert salad is truly the best fruit salad especially if you love citrus fruit. It is also easy to add what you like to this recipe to make it your own family-favorite recipe.
Recipe Ingredient Notes
To make our ambrosia salad, you need the following ingredients:
- Fruit: when making this classic recipe use a can of fruit cocktail that has been drained as well as a drained can of pineapple tidbits
- Yogurt: for the best results, get your favorite brand of vanilla yogurt
- Coconut: to add an extra chewy texture, use sweetened shredded coconut that you can find in the baking aisle in the grocery store
- Marshmallow: adding in miniature marshmallows accentuates the creaminess of this fruit and marshmallow salad
Equipment Needed
For this recipe, you only need a few simple kitchen tools. We recommend using the following equipment:
How to Make Ambrosia Salad
- Toss your fruit together in a large mixing bowl. Make sure to drain the juice out of any canned fruit you are using to avoid your salad from getting too runny.
- Gently fold in your vanilla yogurt. You can use Greek yogurt if you want to add some additional protein, but vanilla yogurt is the creamiest option.
- Store your salad in an airtight container until you’re ready to eat it.
Frequently Asked Questions about Making Easy Dessert Salad
For the best texture of the abrosia recipe, you will want to use canned fruit for this creamy fruit salad. Some of the fresh fruit might be a little to hard compared to the more tender texture of the most basic and traditional easy ambrosia salad. But, if fresh fruit is all you have, feel free to use it.
You can also use green grapes, red grapes, apples, bananas, mandarin oranges, or fresh pineapple.
When making this recipe you will never get good results when you try and use whipped cream from the can. To keep things simple, you can use cool whip in the creamy dressing for the easy ambrosia salad recipe. Or you could use heavy whipping cream and sugar to create your own whipped cream mixture.
Expert Tips
- You can customize this recipe by adding maraschino cherries, mini marshmallows, sweetened coconut flakes, or cottage cheese.
- Make this about 30 minutes before you eat. The marshmallows tend to get really mushy if I do it much more before then (however- some people like the marshmallows that way).
- Be sure to drain the fruit well to avoid having a soupy salad.
Make Ahead & Storage Instructions
Fridge: This will be stored in the fridge for 2-3 days in an airtight container after you’ve made it. The juices from the salad will settle on the bottom, so just make sure to give it a good stir before you serve it again.
Enjoy More Delicious Fruit Salads
Want to add more fruits to your meals? Browse our comprehensive list of salad recipes.
- 5-Minute Pistachio Salad
- Caramel Apple Jello Salad
- Creamy Grape Salad
- Honey Lime Fresh Fruit Salad
- Mandarin Orange Cookie Dessert Salad
- Mandarin Orange Pretzel Salad
- Mom’s Frog Eye Salad
- Orange Fluff Jello Salad
- Peach Jello Fluff Salad
- Pina Colada Fruit Salad
- Snickers Apple Pudding Salad
- Weight Watchers Jello Pudding Fluff
Easy Ambrosia Salad
Ingredients
- 1 (14 ounce) can fruit cocktail, drained
- 1 (20 ounce) can pineapple tidbits, drained
- 12 ounces vanilla yogurt
- ½ cup sweetened shredded coconut
- 1 cup miniature marshmallows
Equipment
Instructions
- Toss your fruit together in a large mixing bowl. Make sure to drain the juice out of any canned fruit you are using to avoid your salad from getting too runny.
- Gently fold in your vanilla yogurt. You can use Greek yogurt if you want to add some additional protein, but vanilla yogurt is the creamiest option.
- Store your salad in an airtight container until you’re ready to eat it.
Notes
Nutrition
Did You Make This Recipe?We’d love to hear your thoughts! Leave a review or a question in the comment section below the post.
I love the cute story and that you still have your grandmothers handwritten recipe. I actually made my Ambrosia salad just this weekend for Easter! So easy and such a big hit!
Darling story! And I’m totally going to have to copy the “Stuff the Pantry” idea – so practical, I love it!
We use Mandarin Oranges instead of the pineapple, and 1 cup sour cream instead of the yogurt and call it “5 Cup Salad.” It is a tasty, quick addition to bring some color to a meal that even kids will eat!
This looks delicious! And I love that idea for a bridal shower, how creative.
xo
Jane
Do you drain the cans of fruit first, or mix them all in? Thanks!
For sure drain the cans of fruit!
This looks great! My MIL loves Ambrosia! Thanks for sharing on Show Me Your Plaid Monday’s!!!
CUTE story!!! and I love how easy this looks and it?s healthy too! I had featured U in the post of Seven Little-Known Ways To Make Healthy Side Dish For Father?s Day on AllFreshRecipes, Looking forward to ur more delish Eats!
Love this salad and my grandmother’s favorite salad also. It was always a tradition that she made this and waldorf salad on the holidays. Of course her recipe came from the Betty Crocker cookbook that I still use today.