Ideas For Fruit Salad – Festive Holiday Fruit Salad
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If you’re searching for festive ideas for fruit salad, you need this holiday fruit salad in your life! Featuring a variety of fruit in a creamy custard-like sauce, this fruit salad is one of my favorite treats… ever!
When it comes to ideas for fruit salad, I’ll always instantly turn to and recommend my Grandmama’s holiday fruit salad recipe. It’s my absolute favorite thing in the entire world to eat. I adore it. I love it. As my son said once, “This is so good. If it were a girl, I’d marry it!”. Yep, it’s THAT good.
So, what makes this refreshing fruit salad recipe so irresistible? Well, it includes lots of different fresh fruit, like apples, oranges, and grapes, plus multiple cans of fruit cocktail. Then instead of a , you drain the fruit juice and make a deliciously creamy and custard-like sauce with the juice, sugar, and egg yolks. Let the fruit salad sit in the fridge overnight so the fruit can soak up all that creamy goodness and you have yourself the perfect winter fruit salad.
This is a great dessert dish to take to festive potlucks and gatherings with friends and family. No one will be able to resist!
Recipe Ingredients
- Apples
- Oranges
- Seedless grapes
- 3-4 cans fruit cocktail (with juice)
- 1 cup sugar
- 6 egg yolks
Let’s first start with the ! Peel and chop apples. Place in a bowl.
Peel and cut up oranges. Cut oranges up over apples and stir so that the orange juice prevents them from browning.
Yep, no need for or . The does the job!
Cut grapes into halves. Place in the bowl.
Pour all of the fruit cocktail cans into the bowl, juice and all.
Stir well.
Drain the juice from the bowl of fruit into a saucepot.
Add sugar.
You CAN use Splenda in place of sugar here!
Separate eggs.
You can discard the whites or find another use for them. I’ve included some ideas in the notes section of the recipe card at the bottom of this post.
Beat egg yolks well.
Add to the saucepot. Stir well.
Cook for approximately 15 minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened.
Cool.
Pour over fruit. Stir, cover, and refrigerate.
Make at least 24 hours ahead so that flavors can marry.
Or they can just date for a bit. They’ll likely get along better if they haven’t signed on for a commitment after such a short time anyway!
Serve cold.
If you had any idea how wonderful this tastes you’d be dying right now!
Grandmama and Mama always store theirs in glass jars in the fridge, kind of like this one.
Storage
Leftovers will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for a week. I don’t recommend freezing leftover fruit salad.
Recipe Notes
- When it comes to topping ideas for fruit salad, I recommend coconut and/or pecans. You could also garnish the with or
- If you’d like to add more fresh fruit, you can add bananas to this fruit salad recipe. However, they turn dark quickly and the fruit salad will not last as long in the refrigerator.
- This is a . I wouldn’t recommend using .
- Another idea is to transform this into a , by using .
- Instead of fruit cocktail, you could use a variety of canned tropical fruit, like crushed pineapple, peach slices, or maraschino cherries.
- This is the perfect time to save those egg whites for the meringue on top of a pie or banana pudding! Here are my favorite dessert recipes using meringue:
Here are more fabulously festive recipes to make these holidays:
Southern Plate’s Must Make Christmas Cookies
Christmas Candies (On A Budget & In A Hurry)
Christmas Tie-Dyed Cheesecake Brownies
Sugared Cranberries (3 Ingredients Only)
Ingredients
- 6-8 apples
- 6 oranges
- 1 lb seedless grapes
- 3-4 cans fruit cocktail 15-ounce cans. You can use generic, it is every bit as good!
- 1 cup sugar
- 6 egg yolks*
Instructions
- Peel the fruit and chop them into small pieces. Cut the oranges over the apples so that the juice from the oranges will stop the apples from turning dark. Pour fruit cocktail cans over the fruit.6-8 apples, 6 oranges, 1 lb seedless grapes, 3-4 cans fruit cocktail
- Drain the juice from the fruit into a saucepan. Add 1 cup of sugar and 6 egg yolks. Blend well.1 cup sugar, 6 egg yolks*
- Cook for approximately 15 minutes over medium heat stirring occasionally until slightly thickened. Cool. Pour over fruit.
- Stir, cover, and refrigerate. Will keep in the fridge for a week. Make at least 24 hours ahead so that flavors can marry.
- Optional: coconut and pecans. Bananas can be added but they turn dark quickly and the fruit salad will not last as long in the refrigerator.
Notes
Banana Pudding
Lemon Meringue Pie
Orange Meringue Pie
Coffee Cream Pie
Nutrition
Our fruit salad is similar except that we add sweetened real whipped cream instead of the custard, but the custard sounds delicious, too.
I could happily eat my weight in either one!! Lol
I swear things in our life are so similar is plum freaky. My mom made a fruit salad sooooo close to this one it’s not funny. EVERY relative begged her to bring it for every get-together.
Instead of grape halves she used a can of pineapple chunks. But she never used eggs or cooked to “sauce” . She would do the apples and oranges ahead of time and sprinkle with sugar and then let them “juice” a bit before adding the rest. She also added sliced bananas, coconut and chopped pecans just before serving. I personally don’t care for the coconut or bananas so she’d always take me out a bowlful before finishing it off.
Gosh I’m gonna miss her making it this year. I know how to make it myself, but it won’t be the same. I miss her in soo many little ways. The big stuff too like her up coming birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas of course. See her crooked smile, hearing her laugh, just seeing her everyday. But it’s the little stuff that sneaks up on you. Like someone posting a fruit salad so close to hers…giggle thanks for the memories. BTW loving your cookbook.
Oh Vikki, I know just what you mean. I know your mamas sweet spirit will be wrapped around you during these holidays. Sending my love,
Christy
Wondering how long this will keep in the fridge? TIA Rosemary
Hay…did you ever find a good punch recipe?
I’m probably like light years behind, but for my daughter’s wedding me made a banana punch that everyone begged for the recipe. I found it in a church cookbook thats probably 20 plus years old and would be glad to share it with you.
Phyllis…Phyl to my friends
Hi,
Since bananas are one of my most favorite things in the world, I’d love to have your banana punch recipe.
Vickie
Hi, Christy – just found your website today and love it. My family has been making fruit salad like this at the holidays for as long as I can remember only without any dressing or sauce. This is the very first time I’ve ever seen anything close to it in an actual recipe! My mom used canned peaches and used the juice from that can to keep the apples from turning brown. She added pecans. We also put bananas and didn’t care if they turned brown – it made the dish sweeter. Now that I make it I don’t use fruit cocktail because it’s sometimes a little too crunchy (unripe) for me, and use as much fresh fruit as I can get.
What kind of fruit cocktail do you buy, Jo Anna? I’ve always found it to be too soft.
My daughter does something like this but instead of the egg yolks and sugar she puts a package of instant vanilla pudding. It is good.
Hi,
I tried this recipe to the letter and something doesn’t seem right.. it tastes too much like egg yolk. What did I do wrong? I prepared everything and cooked the sause according to directions..