Best Cranberry Apple Salad

Cran­ber­ry Apple Sal­ad is one of two sal­ads that are so much a part of our family’s Thanks­giv­ing tra­di­tion, it is unthink­able not to serve them. This jew­el-tone love­ly has been on our hol­i­day table for more than 30 years. 

Tart cran­ber­ries, crisp fall apples, cel­ery, orange zest and pecans are set in a tangy rasp­ber­ry gelatin mix­ture that makes this sal­ad a per­fect com­ple­ment to turkey, ham or roast chicken. 

Cran­ber­ry Apple Sal­ad not only hits all the best fla­vor notes, but it’s also burst­ing with tex­ture. It has the mouth­feel of a chunky rel­ish and all the sweet-tart notes to cut through the creamy, fat­ty dish­es it’s served alongside.

It’s so easy to make and can be made even a day or two ahead. Once you and your fam­i­ly taste it, it will become one of your hol­i­day tra­di­tions, too.

The Ingredients

• Fresh Cran­ber­ries (12 oz.) I grind these dry in my food proces­sor. If you are going to use a blender, put them in the blender pitch­er, cov­er with water and pulse to grind them. Then drain.
• Apples : I use Hon­ey Crisp or Gala
• Cel­ery: It sounds wrong, but trust me. It’s so good!
• Chopped Pecans
• Orange: 1 large one. You’ll use both the zest and the juice
• Sug­ar
• Rasp­ber­ry Gelatin: 2 (3 oz. boxes)

How to Make Cranberry Apple Salad

Grind the cran­ber­ries. You will want them to be about the size of real­ly coarse sand­ing sug­ar, which helps spreads the tart­ness through­out the sal­ad more evenly.

Peel and small dice the apples. Cut the cel­ery into thin slices. 

You can buy the pecans already chopped or chop pecan halves into pieces.

Zest the orange and set it aside. Juice the zest­ed orange and add just enough water to bring the juice to 2 cups.

In a medi­um (at least 2.5 quarts) bowl, mix the cran­ber­ries, apples, cel­ery, pecans and orange zest. Stir to dis­trib­ute every­thing evenly.

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Heat the juice, sug­ar and water to boil­ing. Then add the rasp­ber­ry gelatin to the hot liq­uid and stir until the sug­ar and gelatin are dissolved.

Pour the gelatin mix­ture over the cran­ber­ry apple mix­ture and stir to coat all the ingredients. 

Refrig­er­ate until set. Once it is set, I usu­al­ly stir the sal­ad to redis­trib­ute any­thing that has float­ed to the top of the gelatin. There won’t be much, because the gelatin is fair­ly equal to the amount of oth­er ingre­di­ents, but gelatin should be bro­ken up and stirred through­out all the fruit. Cov­er the sal­ad with a lid or plas­tic wrap until ready to serve it. You can make it up to two days ahead.

The Recipe

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More Deliciously Simple Holiday Recipes

Sweet Pota­to Casserole

Slow Cook­er Creamed Corn

Home­made Beef Sum­mer Sausage

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