Whoa Horsey Salad
While I’m facing current challenges in my life as a result of a bad encounter with a horse (you can read more about that by clicking here), Mama has photographed up a few recipes for me to share with you. As you can see by the name of this recipe, Whoa Horsey Salad, she and I have the same sense of humor. Look for more horse themed titles in the near future from her and I fully expect some fun horse themed gifts under the Christmas tree this year!
There are several things I love about Whoa Horsey Salad. First of all, it tastes rich and sweet, but we actually make it with low sugar ingredients. However, you can go full sugar if you like. It is very much like a watergate salad, but with juicy bits of mandarin oranges and maraschino cherries, I like it a little better. 🙂
The main thing I love about this recipe right now, though, is that Mama brought me some of it when it was done 🙂
You’ll need: Crushed Pineapple in juice, Pineapple Tidbits in juice, mandarin oranges, 10-12 Maraschino cherries, small box sugar free instant pudding, 8 ounces cool whip*, and 1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional).
*A big container of cool whip is pictured but you only need the small one. Feel free to buy generic to save a little money.
Drain your fruit juices from the cans into a large bowl.
Add your pudding mix and whisk it up a bit until it is smooth.
Chop up your mandarin oranges and cherries a bit.
Mama drained her cherries some, to keep the salad from turning stark pink, but whether or not that is an important step to you is totally up to you.
It’s gonna taste awfully good either way!
Dump all of your fruit into the pudding mixture and stir that up really good.
Like this.
Add in your cool whip and stir really well until well incorporated.
Mama didn’t take a picture of it after it was stirred up good but hey, she works for free and fed me to boot, so I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
(heehee, get it? horse reference. I kill me 🙂 and I’m sure glad that horse didn’t!) Now, let’s east some Whoa Horsey Salad!
Cover and refrigerate several hours before serving.
Enjoy!
Ingredients
- 8 oz can crushed pineapple undrained
- 8 oz can pineapple tidbits undrained
- 11 oz can mandarin oranges undrained
- 10-12 maraschino cherries
- Small box instant vanilla pudding I use Sugar Free
- 8 oz Cool Whip
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans optional
Instructions
- Drain juice from pineapple tidbits and mandarin oranges into mixing bowl. Whisk in pudding mix until smooth.
- Cut mandarin oranges in half and chop maraschino cherries.
- Add all fruit and nuts to pudding mixture and stir gently to combine.
- Fold in Cool Whip.
- Refrigerate several hours before serving.
Note: I used fruits packed in 100% juice and sugar free pudding mix. Regular pudding mix and fruit packed in syrup can be substituted.
Nutrition
“Be miserable or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.”
~Wayne Dyer
The ingredients for this goes on my grocery list today! Diabetic hubby will probably like this! Now if I can find “No Sugar Added” fruit, that will be great.
Any other suggestions to make this recipe more” diabetic friendly?” Would using milk with the SF pudding be less sugar then fruit juices?
Your recipe calls for ” undrained.”.yet you drained the juices off the fruits..You got me confused here! so basically, you drain the juices first from the canned fruits, and use that juice with the pudding in place of milk that most boxed pudding mixes call for? I bet this would be delicious using SF pistachio pudding, which I have in the pantry now. Using the pistachio pudding would make it “Watergate salad” just no marshmellows.
This is absolutely wonderful! I made is a couple of days ago and everyone loved it. Thank you again for a great recipe and the inspiration each day.
I am so glad to hear that you enjoyed it Tracie!!
Just wanted to tell you I made this a couple of days ago. My kids totally loved it. I loved it. This is one that I will be making again. Thanks for sharing it.
Christy, after you posted this recipe for “Whoa Horsey Salad” and I made some, my husband raved about it, saying it was really good stuff. We ate it all gone!
When he came home today he wanted to know if we had any more of that wonderful salad. When I told him it was all gone, he was disappointed, but when I told him I have the ngredients on hand to make some more he was happy! It is a recipe I will make sure I keep the ingredients on hand so I can make it often. It REALLY is delicious.
yum!looks so yummy
I made this salad twice this week. It is so good, quick and easy. We do like quick and easy:)