Cranberry Jello Salad made with 3 festive, delicious layers of pretzels, pudding, cranberries & Jello! Impressive, easy cranberry recipe to add to your holiday meal.
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Cranberry Jello Salad is a staple to our holiday spread! I love the festive flavors. This version is perfect because it’s not too sweet and accompanies ham and turkey beautifully. It’s a very versatile recipe too- if you can’t find cranberry jello, feel free to use raspberry or cherry instead. You can also use a different flavor of pudding. I like to use white chocolate because of both the delicious flavor and the white color looks so pretty contrasted with the red jello. If you can’t find white chocolate pudding mix, you can use french vanilla or even regular vanilla instead.
My version of Cranberry Jello Salad doesn’t use cream cheese, which is intentional! I like the flavor, but I like a lighter taste to my jello salads, so I opt for whipped topping combined with crushed pineapple and pudding mix instead.
I topped my Cranberry Jello Salad with lovely sparkling sugared cranberries, a recipe I found on my friend Gina’s site. Check them out! They’re easy to make and I think they add a very festive element to the salad. She soaks her cranberries for 3 days, but I think you can make a quick version and just soak them overnight. Bonus too- they taste amazing! They’ve got a sweet crunchy exterior and pop with a fresh, bright flavor when you bite down. Yum.
Cranberry Jello Salad
Crust:
- 2 cups crushed pretzels
- 3/4 cup melted butter
- 3 TBSP sugar
Filling:
- 1 20-oz can crushed pineapple (NOT drained!)
- 1 3-oz box White Chocolate pudding mix
- 1 8-oz tub whipped topping*
Topping:
- 1 3-oz box cranberry Jello
- 1 cup boiling water
- 1 14oz can whole berry cranberry sauce
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Spray a 9×13 pan with non-stick spray.
- Combine crushed pretzels, sugar and melted butter in pan. Gently stir to combine and spread around pan evenly. Bake for 10 minutes and cool completely.
- Pour entire can of crushed pineapple (with juice!) into a medium sized mixing bowl. Sprinkle white chocolate pudding mix on top and stir until completely incorporated. Fold in whipped topping.
- Transfer mixture to 9×13 pan, spreading on top of baked pretzels, making sure mixture reaches all of the edges. Set pan in fridge to keep cool while you mix the jello.
- Combine 1 cup boiling water with box of cranberry jello. Stir until jello is completely dissolved. Add in the entire can of whole berry cranberry sauce and stir until combined. Pour mixture on top of pineapple-whipped topping.
- Cover salad and refrigerate at least 3-4 hours, until salad is completely cooled and set. Top with sugared sparkling cranberries, if desired. (Find the recipe here https://www.kleinworthco.com/sparkling-cranberries/ ) Cut squares to serve. Store leftovers in fridge.
*You can substitute 2 cups of fresh whipped cream in placeof the whipped topping in this recipe.
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CRANBERRY JELLO SALAD
Ingredients
- Crust:
- 2 cups crushed pretzels
- 3/4 cup melted butter
- 3 TBSP sugar
- Filling:
- 1 20- oz can crushed pineapple NOT drained!
- 1 3- oz box White Chocolate pudding mix
- 1 8- oz tub whipped topping*
- Topping:
- 1 3- oz box cranberry Jello
- 1 cup boiling water
- 1 14 oz can whole berry cranberry sauce
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Spray a 9×13 pan with non-stick spray.
- Combine crushed pretzels, sugar and melted butter in pan. Gently stir to combine and spread around pan evenly. Bake for 10 minutes and cool completely.
- Pour entire can of crushed pineapple (with juice!) into a medium sized mixing bowl. Sprinkle white chocolate pudding mix on top and stir until completely incorporated. Fold in whipped topping.
- Transfer mixture to 9×13 pan, spreading on top of baked pretzels, making sure mixture reaches all of the edges. Set pan in fridge to keep cool while you mix the jello.
- Combine 1 cup boiling water with box of cranberry jello. Stir until jello is completely dissolved. Add in the entire can of whole berry cranberry sauce and stir until combined. Pour mixture on top of pineapple-whipped topping.
- Cover salad and refrigerate at least 3-4 hours, until salad is completely cooled and set. Top with sugared sparkling cranberries, if desired. Cut squares to serve. Store leftovers in fridge.
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Cranberry Jello Salad made with 3 festive, delicious layers of pretzels, pudding, cranberries & Jello! Impressive, easy cranberry recipe to add to your holiday meal.
Marianna Fleming says
I made this recipe for Thanksgiving this year. I served it up in plastic cups and it was visually appealing upon presentation with the layers thus the 2 stars. However, everyone kind of just tasted it with one or two dips of their fork and left it. A few notes – 400 degrees for 10 minutes is too long for a thin layer of pretzels in a pan. The middle filling of pineapple cream tasted ‘weird’ with the white chocolate pudding mix in it, persons were asking me what that was. And last, I could not get the cranberry sauce to properly dissolve in the liquid jello mixture. Maybe it has to still be very hot for that to work? But I did make the sparkling cranberry’s to add to the top and those were tasty by themselves – just keep them off the jello.
Jessica says
So strange, Marianna! I make this every year and it’s always gobbled up!
Christin says
My family EXPECTS this every Thanksgiving and Christmas…LOL. It is such a tradition in my family.
Jessica says
LOL, right?!