Jello Pretzel Salad
Jello Pretzel Salad is a family favorite for bbqs and potlucks. A buttery pretzel crust topped with a cream cheese and jello layer. You can make this dessert with strawberries or raspberries. Either way, it’s delicious.
JELLO PRETZEL SALAD
Confession #1: John usually makes the Jello portion of this. For some reason simple things like making Jello are a challenge for me.
Confession #2: John and I finished half of this by ourselves last night.
Let’s face it. There’s nothing about this dessert that is a salad. I don’t know why it’s called that but it is.
Imagine buttery brown sugar pretzels that form a crust topped with a cream cheese layer and strawberry Jello on top!
HOW TO MAKE JELLO PRETZEL SALAD
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Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9×13 pan.
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Combine pretzels, brown sugar, and melted butter and press into prepared pan and bake for 10 minutes.
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Dissolve the Jello in the boiling water, stirring for 2 minutes or until Jello is completely dissolved and then stir in the strawberries and chill. Refrigerate until partially set. *If it is not set enough it will leak through your cream cheese layer and make your pretzels soggy.
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Beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Fold in cool whip or fresh whipped cream. Spread over cooled crust make sure you spread completely to the edges to create a seal so your jello doesn’t leak through. Pour jello over cream cheese layer. Refrigerate until serving.
You can even make a patriotic version. Someone, ahem (my husband), cut out a piece so I filled it with blueberries.
Thanks to my old roomie Lisa for another winner. It sounds weird but the combination of the salty pretzels with the sweet Jello and cream cheese is so good!
OTHER VARIATIONS:
Classic strawberry pretzel salad is my favorite but you could definitely use one of the following:
- raspberry
- blueberry
- lemon
OTHER SALAD RECIPES
- Grape Walnut Salad
- Frito Corn Salad
- Watermelon, Blueberry, and Feta Salad
- Strawberry Spinach Salad
- Broccoli Salad
- Crunchy Pea Salad
- Caprese Steak Salad
Jello Pretzel Salad
Jello Pretzel Salad is a family favorite for bbqs and potlucks. A buttery pretzel crust topped with a cream cheese and jello layer. You can make this Jello Pretzel Salad with strawberries or raspberries. Either way, it's delicious.
Ingredients
- 2 cups pretzels (crushed fine)
- 3 tablespoons brown sugar
- 3/4 cup butter, melted
- 1 (6 oz pkg) strawberry jello
- 2 cups boiling water
- 1 (16 oz) pkg. frozen strawberries, slightly thawed and sliced in half.
- 1 (8 oz pkg) cream cheese, softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 8 ounces cool whip (thawed) or 2 cups fresh whipped cream
Instructions
-
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x13 pan.
-
Combine pretzels, brown sugar, and melted butter and press into prepared pan and bake for 10 minutes.
-
Dissolve the Jello in the boiling water, stirring for 2 minutes or until Jello is completely dissolved and then stir in the strawberries and chill. Refrigerate until partially set. *If it is not set enough it will leak through your cream cheese layer and make your pretzels soggy.
-
Beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Fold in cool whip or whipped cream. Spread over cooled crust make sure you spread completely to the edges to create a seal so your jello doesn't leak through. Pour jello over cream cheese layer. Refrigerate until serving.
Recipe Notes
Source: Lisa Poulsen
In response to the “refrigerate ]jello] until partially set,” the easiest way to prevent the jello from leaking down into the pretzel layer is to simply make sure the cream cheese layer is spread all the way out to the edges of the pan, creating a water-tight seal. This way, you don’t need to refrigerate the jello. Just pour it on and pop that baby in the fridge. With this, I have never had any trouble with the jello leaking through.
Yes! Thanks Shauna that’s a great tip!
What is “instant” jello?
Great question. I guess it’s all instant, right? LOL.
I make this all the time. My original recipe calls for letting the jello get to the soft set stage before spreading it over the cream cheese layer , therefore you won’t have the problem of soggy pretzel layer.
I just was checking out your recipe to see if it was different than mine. You use brown sugar instead of white and only 1 pkg of cream cheese. I’ll have to try it this way sometime. I make this alot and not only use strawberries I’ve used cherries, blueberries, peaches, apricot. You just change the jello to go with the fruit. This can be used as a dessert too. Great anyway you eat it.
Have made this for years and LOVE it. A real treat and different from other jello “creations”. Not a salad, not really a dessert but it disappears very quickly at any function I ever take it to. Thanks for sharing this with us so that others can enjoy it too.
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This looked amazing and I was really excited to make it! Got all the stuff and mine did not turn out like the picture! I think you need a smaller pan or mor jello! :0(
Not strange at all. I live in PA and around here the salty sweet combo is a must. It’s a Pennsylvania Dutch thing 🙂
And a Mennonite thing! 🙂 Saltine crackers and ice cream! We love the sweet and salty combo! 🙂
If I might make a suggestion, I would recommend using confectioner’s sugar, or rather specify it. Despite having made a millions batches of buttercream icing and the like, I didn’t even think and used regular granulated sugar. While the salad was WONDERFUL, the consistency of the white layer was a little gritty. Thanks for the recipe!
We recently featured this recipe in our weekly food trend post. You can check it out here –
http://blog.recipelion.com/food-trend-sweet-jell-o-recipes/
@Gynnej,
You can absolutely use raspberry for both. It tastes fantastic!
Can this be made with raspberries and raspberry jello? My husband is allergic to strawberries. Thanks!
My family started making this with strawberry pie glaze mixed with fresh strawberries as the top layer instead of the jello because my mother and I are not jello fans, and it is everyone’s absolute favorite dessert!
@Elise, you are right. No clue why this is called a salad but it’s had that name for over ten years so that is how we know it.
Looks great, but how is this a salad?
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What a fantastic recipe! I just wanted to let you know that I loved your post and I shared a link to your blog on my Notepad feature that will be posted tomorrow morning. Thank you so much for sharing! 🙂
I’m not much of a jello person-but the salty/sweet combination sucked me in! After reading the comments I used frozen strawberries and then opted not to add the cold water to the jello (as per jello instructions) and it worked out fabulously! This was a huge hit and I will definitely make it again. The sealing thing is a big must too. Also Christy-when I hit the “printable version” of this recipe it left off the sugar and cool whip from the ingredient list. Not sure if it was just me! Anyway-I figured it out and was able to jot it down. Point of story=deliciosness.
I haven’t had this in years! I’m so excited to try to make it myself. (But, I’m more excited to eat it!!)
@Sarah,
I definitely need to add the sealing part to the notes. It’s a must if you don’t want a soggy layer on the bottom.
This is definitely a family favorite. It’s requested as birthday treats every year.
We use frozen fruit in the jello layer and count that as the cold water. If you push the cream cheese layer all the way to the edges to make a seal and then refrigerate to let that set and then pour the jello on, it won’t leak. I did that once and it was quite a disaster…but still edible.
This is my favorite summer dessert! The recipe I’ve always used has 3T sugar in the crust instead of the brown sugar..I’ll have to try it your way now too! Also, I don’t prepare the jello according to the box directions, I just add the 2 cups boiling water (not the extra 2 C cold). Thanks for sharing such a yummy treat!
I made this last weekend and my family was in AWE! The pretzel layer needed to be crushed a little more I think ’cause it didn’t hold together real well, but we made it work. Next time we’re trying it with cherries! Thank you so much for sharing these wonderful recipes.
This is the best dessert in the world. When i was younger i used to ask my mom to make it for every holiday! LOVE IT!!
I used to have this in college all the time but since I didn’t have a name for it haven’t been able to find a recipe. Thanks so much for posting this! I look forward to making it and reliving some good memories. 🙂
This is one of my favorite desserts. The salty with the cream cheese is awesome.
My family makes this every year at Thanksgiving and I think its my favorite dish. It is sooo good. We usually make it with the frozen strawberries and a can of crushed pineapple. It is the best combination ever. The sickly sweet jello and the salty buttery pretzels! I love it!
What a classic! Haven’t had this in ages. Pretty sure we used Cool Whip for the middle layer instead of cream cheese, though.
i’m guilty of really liking jello! this looks delicious
I have to say this sounds very strange but the picture looks delicious!! I will try it. Also, do you have the recipe for that buffalo chicken dip? I seriously loved it when John made it for the super bowl.