Strawberry pretzel salad recipe

If you are now not accustomed to strawberry pretzel salad, you may suppose—with horror—that it comes to blending strawberries, pretzels, and vegetables at the side of some form of French dressing. However the dish does now not come with greens or dressing. As a substitute, it is extra just like the wiggly jello salads that have been the entire rage in The us throughout the Sixties. With a base of overwhelmed pretzels, a layer of Cool Whip combined with cream cheese, and a topping of shiny pink strawberry jelly, Strawberry Pretzel Salad is deliciously salty, creamy, and crunchy suddenly. Despite the fact that a slice might remind you of a no-bake cheesecake, it is not normally eaten as a dessert. As a substitute, salad is normally served as a facet dish and is a staple at picnics, potlucks, and Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations.

I did not develop up consuming strawberry pretzel salad, however I have since grow to be a fan. In spite of everything, what is to not love about pretzels, cream cheese and jelly? Impressed by way of this American vintage, I sought after to create a model from scratch that will pay homage to the unique whilst nonetheless depending at the tanginess of cream cheese and the herbal sweetness of unpolluted strawberries. This model skips the Cool Whip and the strawberry jelly combine. As a substitute, it comes to creating a no-bake cheesecake for the filling and home made strawberry syrup for the jelly—either one of which might be just right sufficient to revel in on their very own.

Pretzel crust

Bobbing up with the crust was once lovely simple. I knew I sought after to mix the pretzels in a meals processor with some granulated sugar till they have been sandy, then toss the crumbs into the melted butter. The query was once: to bake or to not bake? I will have stored this dessert 100% no-bake, however toasting the pretzel crust within the oven for simply 10 mins added a intensity of taste that the no-bake model simply did not have. Whilst I am usually keen on totally seasoning the whole thing, you can understand that I skipped the salt within the crust. The pretzels are already neatly salted, and I discovered that any further salt was once now not best useless, however over the top.

Stuffing just right sufficient to consume by myself

No hate for Cool Whip, however I sought after a filling that was once extra really extensive – just right sufficient to consume by itself. I grew to become to former Severe Eats editor Stella Parks’ easy no-bake cheesecake, which will get its tangy taste from cream cheese and light-weight texture from whipped cream. It is a recipe she describes as «embarrassingly easy.» There’s no want for baking or a water bathtub like an ordinary cheesecake, nor does it want gelatin to set; all it comes to is thrashing cream cheese, sugar, lemon juice, vanilla extract and salt within the bowl of a stand mixer and whipping heavy cream till stiff, then refrigerate till set. Paired with a salty-sweet pretzel crust and fruit jelly dressing, the filling makes for a lovely strawberry pretzel salad paying homage to the most efficient cheesecakes.

Fruitier jellies

I will be the primary to confess that I’ve a cushy spot for jello combine. (As opposed to fruit or the occasional store-bought birthday cake, my grandmother best made jelly for dessert, and it was once all the time the spotlight of her dinner.) I sought after, alternatively, a fruit jelly topping, one who tasted like contemporary strawberries, and it wasn’t as one-dimensional as jelly from a field. Whilst you’ll want to indubitably use your favourite jelly combine right here, there is something extremely fulfilling — and scrumptious — about making your individual strawberry syrup and turning it into jelly.

To make the syrup, I get started by way of blending gelatin powder and boiling contemporary strawberries with water, sugar and lemon juice, which provides brightness and is helping stability the beauty. When the fruit has softened, I pressure the syrup, combine within the swollen gelatin and let it cool at room temperature. You do not want to hurry this section: pouring the nice and cozy syrup on best will soften the cream cheese, leading to chunks of softened dairy product floating within the jelly. An ice bathtub isn’t an method to velocity it up despite the fact that as it might be too chilly and would set the combination sooner than it’s even poured over the cream cheese layer. Handiest sluggish cooling is enough.

The most important drawback to the usage of contemporary strawberries for jelly is the colour—they simply do not produce as colourful a syrup as synthetic strawberry jelly in a field. If that colour is necessary to you, you’ll be able to simply just do what the stuff within the field does for its unnatural shiny pink hue: combine in a drop or two of pink meals coloring.

As soon as at room temperature, the syrup is gently layered on best of the filling, adopted by way of strawberry slices, which can then be positioned within the jelly as soon as it has set. To keep away from the precarious technique of hauling a splattered, not-quite-jellied salad to the refrigerator, I like to recommend hanging the baking dish within the refrigerator first—after which in moderation pouring the syrup and strawberries over it. Chilled and portioned, it is laborious to not wonder at how fulfilling each and every chew is. Jello salads could also be out of date, however one thing this just right must by no means move out of fashion.