Orange Cream Fruit Salad is a delicious side dish made with oranges, pineapple & bananas topped with a sauce reminiscent of an orange creamsicle! Perfect fruit salad for Easter dinner!
Shared over 100,000 times on social media, this recipe is a hit! Check out the 5⭐️ reviews!
This Creamy Orange Fruit Salad has been a family favorite recipe for years. It’s primarily made with canned fruit, including mandarin oranges and pineapple tidbits, which I usually have on hand. It comes together fast and everyone loves the creamy sauce it’s made with- it really does taste like a creamsicle!!
Why you should serve this fruit salad with oranges for Easter dinner
- It tastes FANTASTIC! You’ll love the bright fruit flavors.
- It’s special enough for a holiday menu. It’s not just plain fruit salad! The creamy topping made with frozen orange juice concentrate, milk, whipped topping and vanilla pudding mix takes it to a whole new level. Your guests will RAVE about it!
- Kids love it! Just like they enjoy a frozen creamsicle, they’ll love this jazzed up salad.
What kinds of fruit go 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 creamsicle coating.
What if my orange fruit salad is too soupy?
We’ve made this recipe dozens of times with successful results, yet we’ve gotten some comments that the salad is too soupy. Our advice is to reduce the milk to 3/4 cups initially and if the consistency is to thick for your liking, feel free to add more.
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!
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!
ORANGE CREAM FRUIT SALAD RECIPE
Ingredients
- 3 oz. pkg instant vanilla pudding mix
- ¾ cup-1 1/2 cups milk*
- ⅓ 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!!
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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!
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.
Can I use Greek Yogurt instead of Cool Whip?
Yes! 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!
In the mood for an Orange Creamsicle? Try these!
- You can serve this Orange Creamsicle Fruit Dip for Easter too! I love making fruit dips because those who enjoy them can opt in, and those who don’t can eat plain fruit!
- We adore these little Orange Creamsicle cake bites! Perfect for a potluck as they’re 1 or 2 bite treats.
- You’ll love the creamy layers in this Orange Creamsicle Poke Cake.
- This easy, no bake Orange Creamsicle Cheesecake is always a good idea!
Aashiya Tongia says
Wow I love fruit salad and also I will prepare it for my family as soon as possible.I would also like to share a link for you which is based on Indian Recipes just have a look at it http://alllatestrecipes.blogspot.in/
Cranberry Morning says
Pinning! I have this recipe but haven't made it for a long time. It is delicious!
Cynthia Meacham says
can u put something else in besides pineapple and bananas. or just keep them out?? maybe just put in strawberries and marshmallows. maybe just keep it oranges and sick mallows and some chocolate in it? YUM!!<br />
Ali Carver says
I just made this exactly as you said, and it turned out really soupy. Like REALLY soupy. It still tasted good, but I'm not sure where I went wrong. Any ideas?
Angel Cooper says
That shouldnt be soupy since the only liquid is under 2 cups (OJ and milk) and the pudding requires 2 cups to be thick, did you make sure to drain the pineapple and the oranges well ?
Karen Zwilling says
You can also make this with orange jello instead and use marshmallows and but without milk and smash mandarins and drain well and crushed pineapple instead of tidbits
Laura Santillo says
mine was really soupy too, would using skim milk have anything to do with it being soupy?
Trent Longbrake says
I, too, followed the directions as posted and mine is also really soupy. I'm praying it will set-up (because of the pudding) overnight.
Nellie says
I have made this dozens of times and never had it be soupy at all, so I'm trying to figure out what the problem is! To make pudding, you usually mix the pudding mix with 2 cups of milk, so by reducing the milk to 1 1/2 cups as the recipe states, the pudding should be thicker than normal and the only thing you are adding to that is orange juice concentrate which doesn't thin it out too
Janalee says
I made this today and followed the directions as stated and it turned out soupy as well. Not sure what the problem is. I read these other comments and seems that half the people had this same problem. hopefully it sets up, i stuck it in the freezer for a little bit.
Stacey Abraham says
Ditto what Janalee said for me. Soupy. As stated in a previous comment I, too, suspect using skim milk might be the problem.
Amy Bramble says
It doesn't have anything to do with what % the milk is. I used whole milk the first time and it was soupy. I just reduced the amount of milk I put in and also drain the fruit well. Y
kate z. says
I have made a similar salad in the past and used vanilla pudding cups, instead. No soupy turnout.
Stella McCartney says
So Yum!!<br />My mouth is watering:)<br />I am loving this..Thanks for sharing:)<br /><br />Best<br /><a href="http://www.yomg.com.au/news/2014-02-13/soy-my-goodness" rel="nofollow">Soy Yogurt-Yo MyGoodness</a>
Melissa K says
I made it today and it is SOUPY! I'm very displeased with this recipe. If anyone ventures to make it, beware! It's seriously flawed. I don't think reducing the milk would even help it. Best yet, find another recipe!
Nellie says
I remade the recipe just to make sure that I didn't put the wrong amounts of anything and my salad came out just like it has dozens of times! The only way that the salad can become "soupy" is if the canned fruits are not well drained. Make sure to strain them extremely well and if you are worried about things becoming soupy, you could even lay the fruit out on a paper towel for a
laulabloomy says
Mine was very soupy, too, but delicious flavor! It was like an Orange Julius with fruit in it! 🙂 I plan on trying to let the pudding set up with just the milk before adding orange juice concentrate, and then folding in the cool whip after mixing those together. We'll see… I'm not giving up hope, though!
Heather Humke says
Love this recipe! The orange Julius taste is wonderful ;). My hubby however is not a fan. Any suggestions please as to what to substitute the orange juice for. I would love to make it with pineapple but due to substitute it would be ok if I had to omit. Other fruit I throw in is banana and strawberry, raspberry. Was thinking of throwing in blueberries sometime. Any help would be
Samantha Buchan says
Try using 1 cup of milk instead. Also, whisk the pudding, orange juice and milk instead of usong an elcetric mixer. That's what I did! It turned out great. Not once but twice!
Courtney Parker says
I made this last night. After reading the reviews, I added the cool whip to the pudding/milk when it was still partially frozen to help thicken it up (not sure if that made a difference, but the consistency was good!) What I found though was that the pudding to fruit ratio wasn't what I would expect–too much pudding. In total I used 3 bananas, 1 20 oz. can of pineapple, 2 11 oz cans of
Tessa says
So I decided to find this,recipe after having it at our ward church party. This was my favorite I found and decided to try. I always read the comments first and read how so many people said it was soupy. I only had an 8 Oz bag of vanilla pudding so I added half the bag (roughly 4oz instead of the asked 3oz) to try to counter act the soupyness. It came out perfect and was sooooo good!! I’m definitely going to be making this again. Oh and I did 3 bananas instead of 2 and added an apple. Next time I’ll use 2 cans of mandarin oranges because they’re our favorites and I don’t think there was enough 🙂
rachel says
I need to try your recipe.
debbie says
Hi could real whip cream be used instead of cool whip? Pinning this and sharing