Fruit Salad With Vanilla Pudding
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Made with an assortment of juicy fruit combined with creamy vanilla pudding, you’re going to love this easy 3-ingredient fruit salad recipe.
This recipe for fruit salad with vanilla pudding is absolutely delicious and Mama and I have been enjoying it for over 20 years. A friend on a diet passed on the recipe back in the day and she called it “super fruit salad”, so that’s what we’ve always called it. We make ours with no added sugar and it ends up counting as a fruit in most diets but with a lot more flavor and variety than eating a single banana or an apple.
This fruit salad recipe with vanilla pudding is just so stinking good, so stinking easy, and if you choose your ingredients right you can reduce the sugar compared to normal fruit salads. The three simple ingredients we’re using are canned fruit cocktails, canned mandarin oranges, and vanilla pudding. The instructions are just as simple. All we need to do is make the vanilla pudding (which we mix with the canned fruit juice to make it into an extra flavorful vanilla sauce) and combine it with the canned fruit. It will take like 5 minutes.
The only downside is you need to refrigerate the fruit salad for several hours before enjoying it, so all those flavors mingle together and the fruit soaks up that creamy vanilla pudding. But let me tell you, this fruit salad is worth the wait. Ready to make my easy fruit salad recipe? Let’s go!
Recipe Ingredients
- Sugar-free instant vanilla pudding mix
- No-sugar-added fruit cocktail (any kind)
- No-sugar-added fruit of your choice (I’m using mandarin oranges)
How to Make Fruit Salad With Vanilla Pudding
Drain all of the juice from your cans into the bowl.
Like this.
Pour your dry pudding mix over the top of it.
Stir that up really good with a wire whisk.
You can also just shake all of this up in a quart-sized mason jar or even mix it up with an electric mixer if you want. This recipe can be prepared according to your mood.
If you end up with a few lumps, don’t worry about them. Once this has set for a while, you can stir the fruit up again and the lumps will go away easily.
They also taste pretty good if you get a hold of one on your spoon.
Dump in your fruit.
Stir that up well.
Cover and refrigerate for several hours.
I like to leave it overnight to let the flavors mingle together.
DEVOUR!
If you’ve never had fruit salad with vanilla pudding before, you’re gonna be surprised at how good it is.
Storage
If you just use canned fruit in your fruit salad, it will last up to 1 week when stored in an airtight container in the fridge. However, if you opt to throw in some fresh fruit, it will only last about 2 to 3 days.
Recipe Notes
- Other canned fruit options rather than mandarin orange segments include peaches and pineapple chunks.
- While I’m using sugar-free and no-sugar-added options, you don’t have to.
- For a burst of citrus flavor, add the lime zest or lemon zest from 1 lime/lemon, or 2 tablespoons of lemon juice or lime juice.
- For a sweet touch, add 1 cup of miniature marshmallows.
- Feel free to change up the pudding flavor as well. Butterscotch pudding would be perfect for fall.
Recipe FAQs
What other fruit can I add to my fruit salad?
Feel free to add some frozen fruit or fresh fruit to your salad, such as a chopped apple, sliced strawberries, chopped grapes, blueberries, or sliced bananas. Opt for about 2 cups overall. Just keep in mind that the fruit you add will most likely lessen the amount of time this stays good in the fridge.
How do you serve fruit salad?
This is a crowd-pleasing dessert as is. However, you can also serve the fruit salad topped with Cool Whip or whipped cream, spooned over vanilla ice cream or plain Greek yogurt, or with a slice of pound cake.
I think you’ll also enjoy these fruit salad recipes:
Fresh Fruit Salad With Honey Lemon Dressing
Aunt Cathie’s Southern Grape Salad
Ingredients
- 2 10-ounce cans no-sugar-added fruit cocktail
- 1 12-ounce can no-sugar-added mandarin oranges
- 1 1-ounce box sugar-free instant vanilla pudding mix
Instructions
- Drain juice from all cans into a medium bowl. Pour pudding over the top and stir with a wire whisk until smooth.2 10-ounce cans no-sugar-added fruit cocktail, 1 12-ounce can no-sugar-added mandarin oranges, 1 1-ounce box sugar-free instant vanilla pudding mix
- Dump in fruit and stir until well combined.2 10-ounce cans no-sugar-added fruit cocktail, 1 12-ounce can no-sugar-added mandarin oranges
- Cover and refrigerate for several hours before serving.
Nutrition
A few years back I did a post with more diet-friendly and lower recipes called the Lighter Side Of Southern. Click here to visit that post.
Dolly Parton on responding to critics and people who gave her a hard time:
“I didn’t listen to any of those people, I never do.
I simply chose to toss their negativity onto the express train that ran
in one ear and out the other.”
~Dolly Parton
I make this salad and add 3 tablespoons of sugar free Tang to the pudding mixture so yummy! Oh and also I drain all the fruit and only use the juice from one can to make my pudding mixture. it thickens nicely and puts a nice coating over all of the fruit. Thank you Christy for all your inspirational messages! You always pick me up. I know what you mean about different as I walk with a walker and always feel like I am in peoples way.
Love to try recipe..so funny, I just made a very similar recipe for a cousins reunion last weekend. Found it in my old stack of recipes & didn’t even know I had it. My Aunt Jo made it with tapioca pudding & you cooked it with the fruit juices then chilled it before adding back in the fruit. Everyone loved it too!
What a great recipe. We have a couple who visits often, her husband is diabetic and she loves fruits. This is perfect!
I have a question, how can this be sugar free when almost all fruit has a lot of natural sugar in it. I look at the sugar in canned fruit all the time and just put it back on the shelf. Even no sugar added is high in sugar. Thanks for listening!
I’m referring to table sugar, or sucrose. Fructose is in fruit of course, but most of our friends who have health concerns don’t have the problems with fructose as they do sucrose and this dish is a welcome treat :). I usually use no sugar added fruit, a very nice option.
Of course, you are the one who needs to decide what is best for you.
Great-looking dessert, but as a couple of people have pointed out, not sugar free. I wouldn’t even call it low sugar. The fruit has a lot of sugar (though no added sugar) and the sugar free pudding has carbohydrates, which most diabetics need to count and add to their daily total intake. (Starches turn to sugars.) Sugar free foods, labeled as such, do not mean that it is safe for diabetics! I don’t mean to sound critical…I love your site. Gorgeous photos and recipes!
Okay this flopped for me I think it’s cause I used nothing but fruit cocktail and it was packed in water. It never firmed up for me just looks like fruit cocktail nothing fancy about it…(pout)
I forgot to get a can of another fruit so I’m making this using nothing but fruit cocktail..I’ll let you know how it turns out. Also how many hours do you recommend it sit in the fridge?