Orange Cream Fruit Salad is a delicious fruit salad filled with oranges, pineapple and bananas with a sweet orange cream mixed in! Perfect fruit salad recipe to go alongside dinner
Orange Cream Fruit Salad has been a family favorite recipe for years. I love fruit, and while fresh fruit is my favorite, this is a great recipe to make in the winter when good produce is hard to find (and expensive!), because it is primarily made with canned fruit. It has also come in handy many times when I need to make a side dish and don’t have time to run to the store since many of the ingredients are ones that I keep on hand regularly.
What kinds of fruit are in Orange Cream Fruit Salad?
I have made this fruit salad for family dinners, potlucks and we always have it on Easter. One of the things that I love about fruit salads is that you can so easily adapt them. This recipe is delicious with canned pineapple, mandarin oranges and bananas, but you can definitely add other fruits or swap any of those out. I’ve added grapes, apples, kiwi, strawberries and raspberries and all of them have tasted wonderful with the orange/vanilla coating.
Ingredients in Orange Cream Fruit Salad
- 3.4 oz. pkg. instant vanilla pudding mix
- 3/4 – 1 1/2 cups milk*
- 1/3 cup frozen orange juice concentrate
- 8 oz container Cool Whip
- 20 oz. can pineapple chunks or tidbits, drained well
- 11 oz. can mandarin oranges, drained well
- 2 bananas, sliced
How to make Orange Cream Fruit Salad
- Combine pudding mix, milk and orange juice concentrate in a mixing bowl.
- Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed for about 2 minutes and then fold in the Cool Whip.
- Gently mix in the canned fruit and chill in the fridge for 2-3 hours until ready to serve. Feel free to add more fruit. I often add more oranges or bananas, and sometimes I add strawberries and mini marshmallows too. If you are adding apples and/or bananas, wait until just before serving to add them. Enjoy!
Can you replace the Cool Whip in fruit salad?
If you can’t find Cool Whip where you live or you prefer not to use it in recipes, you can use stabilized whipped cream instead. If you just use regular whipped cream, the consistency will be too light and the cream will not hold up very well when mixed into the jello salad. It’s very simple to make your own stabilized whipped cream and it just takes a few minutes!
UPDATE: I’ve made this salad so many times, but recently decided to change it up just a little bit and I’m loving the new version! I swapped the Cool Whip out with vanilla Greek yogurt and added some strawberries too – make sure to take a peek at our Creamy Orange Fruit Salad, a new, yogurt-based version of this recipe here!
How do you make stabilized whipped cream?
To make stabilized whipped cream, you will need the following ingredients:
- 4 ounces of cream cheese (softened to room temperature)
- 1/3 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream.
- Beat the cream cheese with the powdered sugar and vanilla until soft and smooth.
- In a separate bowl, beat the whipping cream just until soft peaks form.
- Add the cream cheese mixture to the whipped cream and beat until stiff peaks are formed. Store in the refrigerator until ready to use.
A little tip for making whipped cream faster. Use a metal bowl for whipping the cream and place the bowl in the freezer for about 30 minutes before you make the whipped cream. This will significantly decrease the amount of time that you will need to beat the whipped cream – the process will go much faster!
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ORANGE CREAM FRUIT SALAD
Ingredients
- 3 oz. pkg instant vanilla pudding mix
- 3/4 cup-1 1/2 cups milk*
- 1/3 cup frozen orange juice concentrate
- 8 oz container Cool Whip
- 20 oz. can pineapple chunks or tidbits drained well
- 11 oz. can mandarin oranges drained well
- 2 bananas sliced
Instructions
- Combine pudding mix, milk and orange juice concentrate in a mixing bowl.
- Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed for about 2 minutes and then fold in the Cool Whip. Gently mix in the fruit and chill in the fridge for 2-3 hours until ready to serve.
- Gently mix in the canned fruit and chill in the fridge for 2-3 hours until ready to serve. Feel free to add more fruit. I often add more oranges or bananas, and sometimes I add strawberries and mini marshmallows too. If you are adding apples and/or bananas, wait until just before serving to add them. Enjoy!!
- *We’ve made this recipe dozens of times with successful results, yet we’ve gotten several comments that the salad is too soupy. So, our advice is to reduce the milk to 3/4 cups initially, and if the consistency is too thick for your liking, feel free to add more.
How do you store fruit salad?
This particular fruit salad recipe stores very well in the refrigerator for up to 3-4 days, but is not ideal for freezing. There really is no need to freeze this recipe because you can make it so quickly! I usually make this jello salad several hours, or even the day before I am planning to serve it, because I like the way that the flavors of the fruit mix and become a little bit stronger. I have also served the salad just a few minutes after making it and it is still delicious!
What if I don’t like oranges?
If you don’t like oranges, you are in luck because this fruit salad recipe is so easy to modify! Swap in a different flavor of juice concentrate – strawberry, raspberry, lemonade, etc. Don’t put oranges in and add whatever types of fruit you want to! I think raspberry juice would be amazing and then you could add all types of berries – strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries!
Is this fruit salad recipe healthy?
Anytime you add a glaze to fruit, you are adding a bit of sugar and some extra calories. One way to make this fruit salad recipe a little bit healthier is to add more fruit, but keep the amount of orange glaze the same. Double the amount of fruit in the salad and the orange glaze will more lightly coat the fruit to give you that amazing creamy orange flavor with less sugar and calories.
If you make the alternate version of this fruit salad, it is a little bit healthier because you can use Greek yogurt instead of Cool Whip which adds a little bit of protein which is a nice little boost and hard to find in a fruit salad! You can find a low-sugar Greek yogurt (or even plain Greek yogurt) to use in the recipe and you can use skim milk if you are trying to cut calories a little bit.
Like jello recipes? So do we! Check out our full collection of jello salads and jello desserts here:
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Renee says
March 22, 2018 at 4:32 pmI did not see the milk till I scrolled down to the recipe. Has anyone ever used Almond milk in this? I can’t have milk, yogurt or ice cream.
Nellie says
March 22, 2018 at 9:33 pmI’ve never tried this with almond milk, but I think that it would work great in this recipe!
Denise says
April 2, 2018 at 10:53 amThis looks delicious! Can’t wait to try it!
Jenn L says
April 2, 2018 at 11:45 amWe have so many mandarin oranges in the pantry pretty much at all times – this recipe will be a fabulous way to use them up! Thank you!
Nellie says
April 3, 2018 at 5:32 pmYou’re so welcome! I hope you enjoy this salad as much as we do!
Bonnie says
April 10, 2018 at 5:41 pmI drain my fruit in a strainer for about 2 hours I also only used 3/4 cups of the milk and it turned out awesome.
Nellie says
April 10, 2018 at 6:11 pmI’m so glad you enjoyed it!
Maria Browne says
May 5, 2018 at 5:43 amHi what could u use instead of cool whip or where do u buy that please
Nellie says
May 14, 2018 at 12:22 pmYou could use 2 cups of sweetened whipped cream instead. Or here is a modified version of this recipe that doesn’t require cool whip – you actually use Greek yogurt instead. https://butterwithasideofbread.com/creamy-orange-fruit-salad/
Sheila says
August 25, 2018 at 3:53 pmHi, I made this salad for supper, my husband declared that is was delicious but should be a dessert instead of salad. I didn’t have concentrated OJ, so instead of milk and OJ, I used 1 Cup of Tropicana Juice. The consistency turned out great. I drained my pineapple and oranges and let them sit in a strainer while mixing the pudding and OJ. I didn’t have any problem with it being to soupy. I also use bulk ingredients and used a 1/2 cup of pudding mix for my base. Do want to try it with jello sometime.
Jessica says
August 27, 2018 at 9:33 amSo glad you both enjoyed it Sheila!
Alies Richardson says
October 7, 2018 at 3:11 pmI doubled the recipe for a group of 40 and it was enough, but it was eaten up! The group LOVED it and I received many compliments of how good it was. It was easy and cheap for a crowd. I added bananas and mini marshmallows, and topped with another can of mandarin oranges right before serving. Yum!
Alison says
October 8, 2018 at 6:46 pmAlies, I love what you added to the salad, it all sounds so yummy! Thank you for your kind words, I am so glad everyone was pleased with it!
MaryP says
November 6, 2018 at 5:24 amI was fine with this until I saw cool whip. A very bad choice. Ugh. Use real cream or leave it out. You can always add a little cream cheese.
Nellie says
November 7, 2018 at 12:48 pmYou can definitely use real whipped cream if you prefer!
Cindy says
November 12, 2018 at 11:55 pmHow many people does this feed? I’m going to make this for Thanksgiving. Sounds fabulous!
Nellie says
November 13, 2018 at 6:33 pmCindy – I think that you could easily plan on it feeding 10-12 people. Especially on Thanksgiving when there are so many other foods that need to fit on the plate!