This easy recipe for Strawberry Fluff Salad is light, creamy and filled with sweet and tangy flavors from crushed pineapple and juicy strawberries. It’s a classic dessert salad perfect for serving at family gatherings, potlucks, or as a cool and refreshing treat.
Strawberry Fluff Salad Recipe
There is just something extra special about fruit fluff recipes that are not only super fun to make but are always a potluck favorite. For this recipe, strawberry Jell-o and creamy instant vanilla pudding are whipped together with fresh strawberries and sweet pineapple to create a dessert that is totally gorgeous, absolutely delicious, and will definitely cure a sweet tooth.
The strawberry flavor and pretty fluffy pink color makes it an ideal dessert or sweet side salad for a baby shower, a church dinner, for Easter dinner, or just about any special occasion. But it’s such a simple recipe, it’s wonderful to make for a last-minute sweet treat when you’re short on time.
Love no bake desserts as much as we do? You should check out our Pineapple Fluff Salad, Blueberry Fluff Salad and this Orange Fluff Salad.
💗 Why We Love This Recipe
- The sweet fruity flavor and fluffy texture makes this easy dessert salad great as a side dish or a sweet treat.
- It makes a generous amount, making it perfect for those times when you’ll be serving a good many guests.
- This fluff salad is no bake dessert recipe that uses simple ingredients you can pick up at any grocery store.
🥄 Recommended Tools
- Whisk
- Rubber spatula
- Large mixing bowl
- Sharp knife-for slicing the strawberries
🛒 Ingredients
- Strawberry Jell-O mix
- Hot water
- Cold water
- Instant vanilla pudding
- Whipped topping (we used Cool Whip)
- Fresh strawberries
- Crushed pineapple, drained well
- Miniature marshmallows
🧑🏻🍳 How to Make Strawberry Fluff Jello Salad
Wash and dry the strawberries, then hull, half, and slice them.
Step One: Make the Strawberry Gelatin
- In a large bowl, mix together the strawberry jello mix and hot water until the powder is completely dissolved.
- Then add in the cold water and stir together.
- Place in the refrigerator to chill for 15-20 minutes.
Step Two: Add the Vanilla Pudding
- After the strawberry jello has chilled, stir in the instant vanilla pudding mix to the bowl.
- Whisk it well to combine.
- Place the bowl back in the fridge another 15-20 minutes.
Step Three: Fold in the Whipped Topping
- After it has had time to thoroughly chill, remove from the refrigerator and fold the whipped topping into the pudding mixture with a rubber spatula until there are no more streaks of white.
Step Four: Add the Fruit and Marshmallows-Chill and Serve
- Fold in the fresh strawberries, crushed pineapple being careful not to crush the fruit too much.
- Add in the mini marshmallows and gently stir to combine.
- Place your creamy salad in the refrigerator and chill for an additional 2 hours so the cream can thicken up. The flavors will combine and taste even better as it chills.
Store leftover salad in the fridge covered tightly with plastic wrap or in an airtight container.
Easy Strawberry Fluff Variations
- Different fruits: Feel free to switch it up and add in other fresh fruits you like in this delicious dessert. Sliced bananas or fresh raspberries are great in this recipe.
- Whipped Topping: Full-fat Cool Whip gives this dessert a wonderful creamy texture, but you can also use light/low fat Cool Whip or make your own fresh whipped cream.
- Sugar free: Sugar free Jell-O, pudding mix, and Cool Whip will still work in this recipe though the texture may be a bit looser.
- Pudding: You can make this a strawberry cheesecake fluff salad simply by swapping out the vanilla instant pudding for the cheesecake flavor.
- Jello: You can use a variety of different flavors of Jell-o to go with the pineapple and strawberries. Raspberry Jell-o and lemon Jell-o would be a tasty choice.
- Other Add-in: Add flavor and texture with other fun additions. Fold in some chunks of spongy angel food cake or for a crunchy texture you can add shredded coconut or chopped pecans or walnuts. Another fun variation is to add chopped mini pretzel sticks to make it a strawberry pretzel fluff salad.
Can I Make This Strawberry Fluff Recipe in Advance?
This is a great recipe to make in advance. In fact, it is best when you make it several hours or up to a day ahead of time.
Tips for the Best Strawberry Jello Fluff Salad
- For best results, keep leftover salad chilled in refrigerator for up to 3-4 days. After that, the cream will begin to thin out from the fruit juices and the marshmallows become too soft.
- Don’t rush the chill time. It takes at least 2 hours for the cream to thicken up like it should. Plus, this allows time for the flavors to intensify, and for the marshmallows to soften and soak in the fruity flavors.
- This fluffy salad recipe uses fresh strawberries, so the longer it sits, it may get a little watery on the bottom. Just give it a good stir before serving. Frozen strawberries are not recommended.
More Fluff Recipes
No Bake Recipes for Dessert Salad
- Snickers Salad
- Waldorf Salad
- Ambrosia Fruit Salad
- Grape Salad
- Green Jello Salad
- Cranberry Jello Salad
Strawberry Fluff Salad
Ingredients
- 3 ounces strawberry Jell-O Mix 1 box
- 1 cup hot water
- ½ cup cold water
- 3.4 ounces instant vanilla pudding 1 box
- 8 ounces whipped topping like Cool Whip, 1 tub
- 24 ounces fresh strawberries hulled, halved, and sliced
- 20 ounces crushed pineapple drained
- 10 ounces mini marshmallows 1 bag
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mix together the strawberry jell-o mix and hot water until the powder is completely dissolved. Then add in the cold water and stir together. Place in the refrigerator to chill for 15-20 minutes.
- After chilling, add the instant vanilla pudding mix to the bowl and whisk to combine.
- Return the bowl to the refrigerator for another 15-20 minutes.
- After it has chilled some more, remove from the refrigerator. Fold in the Cool Whip with a rubber spatula until there are no more streaks of white.
- Add the fresh strawberries, crushed pineapple, and mini marshmallows and fold to combine.
- Place the bowl back in the refrigerator and chill for an additional 2 hours so the cream can thicken up. The flavors will combine and taste even better as it chills.
Nutrition
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Comments & Reviews
Kathy says
Is the crushed pineapple supposed to be drained? Way on top where they show all the ingredients, it states the pineapple is drained. But yet in the recipe, it doesn’t state anything about draining the pineapple.
Sherri olson olson says
Looks super
Penny Tandy says
Can marshmallows be omitted and angel food cake added?
Alicia says
While it’s a pretty versatile recipe, I haven’t tried it without the marshmallows. The Angel food cake would probably taste AMAZING, but it will be a flatter “fluff” salad and I feel the cake might crumble in it. Definitely worth a try if you’re up for experimentation.
Heather says
Hi, Do you drain the crushed pineapple or use the juice also?
Alicia says
Drain the juice from the pineapple so it doesn’t make the salad too watery. I’ll update the notes. Thanks