This Cranberry Ambrosia Salad is an easy side dish for any meal. Delicious, sweet and tart, light and creamy, and perfect for the holidays!

This is a staple for us every Thanksgiving, and it’s a hit. Even if you don’t love cranberries, this dish sweetens them up and creates a fruity, flavorful delicious side dish!

Why You’ll Love This Cranberry Ambrosia Salad

Only 6 ingredients, and they are all easy to find!
It’s a simple salad, basically you blend it all together and let it sit.
The perfect holiday side dish, looks beautiful and tastes incredible. Let it replace whatever cranberry dish you normally prepare.
Even when someone doesn’t love cranberries, they wind up really liking this dish.

Ambrosia salad (also referenced as 5 Cup Salad) is absolutely delicious, and changing it up with different flavors is something we love to do.

Looking for more ways to use cranberries? Try these chocolate cranberry almond clusters or try making cranberry butter or cranberry syrup!

This Cranberry 5 Cup Salad only has six ingredients and is easy made ahead of time. The sixth ingredient is nuts and don’t have to be added if you don’t want them.

Ingredients and Substitutions

whole berry cranberry sauce – while I’m sure you could use fresh cranberries, unless you also make a sauce to go with them, you won’t get the full flavor of the salad. You can use other fruits to change up the salad if you’d like.

crushed pineapple – the pineapple gives a sweet flavor to the tart cranberries. You can used chunked pineapple as well.

mandarin oranges – mandarin oranges are a standard part of ambrosia salad and definitely add to the flavors of this incredible fruit salad. If you wanted to use real mandarin oranges or even real orange slices, this could work as well. I would recommend slicing them.

miniature marshmallows – these help bulk up the salad quite a bit. Don’t leave these out. If you wanted to, and especially for other holidays, you could use the pastel mini marshmallows for more color, but we always use the white marshmallows.

whipped cream – use light whipped cream, sugar free whipped cream, make your own whipped cream with coconut milk, regular milk, almond milk… you choose what you want here.

pecans – these are completely optional. Not everyone loves nuts in their salad, and we get that. If you don’t like pecans but want more crunch you could either substitute with another nut or even shredded coconut.

Cranberry 5 Cup Salad on a Red Plaid Tablecloth

Make Ahead/Leftovers/Freezer Instructions

Make Ahead: This most definitely can be made up ahead of time. We prefer it that way since it gives the salad time to marry all the flavors together. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator until ready to server or for up to 4-5 days. If you will be making it up 3 or more days ahead, I recommend adding some marshmallows to it a few hours before ready to serve to help absorb any excess liquid from the fruit.

Leftovers: If you wind up with some leftovers they can be stored in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

Freezer Instructions: We don’t actually recommend freezing this salad. But it can be done. But please note, the texture and consistency more than likely are going to change after freezing and then thawing. Your marshmallows will probably become quite mushy and your whipped cream will probably be quite watery. If you wanted to, you could freeze it and add more marshmallows to soak up some of the liquid after thawing.

More Delicious Recipes To Go With This Salad

This basic recipe for stovetop stuffing is buttery, herbed goodness. And it is of course, made right on your stove top. Lots of great flavor and a simple recipe makes this our favorite and our Best Easy Homemade Stove Top Stuffing.
Cheesy, creamy restaurant-style creamed spinach is the perfect side dish with almost any meal. Easy Cheesy Creamed Spinach is a crowd pleasing recipe that’s popular with everyone anytime of year.
Creamy, delicious mashed potatoes. This truly is the Best Creamy Mashed Potatoes Recipe. Super easy recipe, super creamy, perfect for holidays, potlucks, picnics, bbqs and more!
Soft crumb, moist sweet honey-like flavor – this Moist Sweet Cornbread Recipe is a huge hit anywhere it’s served.

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