Jello Salad Recipes – What They Are And How To Make Them

Jello recipes come in many forms. There are jello cheesecakes, jello pies, jello cakes, and jello salad. If a salad, to you, is a combination of lettuce, cucumber, and tomato, you might be a bit confused about this culinary term.

To make jello salad recipes means to combine jello with other ingredients. These ingredients could be cream cheese, whipped cream, fruit, pretzels, nuts, grated carrot, marshmallows, or anything else you fancy. If you are using gelatin sheets instead of fruit flavored jello, you might want to make a savory jello salad with vegetables, mayonnaise and fish or meat, rather than a sweet one.

Our parents and grandparents were making jello salads in the 1950s and 1960s. Tomato aspic is an example of an old-fashioned gelatin dish and a sweet jello salad might have been something like coca cola, cherry jello and fresh or thawed cherries. It can be fun to try making these old-fashioned recipes.

Types of Jello Salads

Jello salad recipes are colorful and attractive and they are often taken to potluck dinners because of this reason. Also, they are very economical to make. A sweet jello salad might be something like orange jello with pretzels, grapes, and cream cheese, all mixed up and combined. You can imagine the resulting jello salad would be colorful and multi-textured.

You can use whipped cream, cream cheese, cottage cheese or a mixture of these to make your salad creamier. What about adding some vanilla pudding too?

For a savory jello salad recipe, you can choose from mayonnaise, cream, or salad dressing for a creamy finish or simply serve it clear by combining gelatin and vegetables and allowing the dish to set.

Useful Tips for Making Jello Salad Recipes

Whether you are making plain jello or a fluffy jello dessert you have to take care with the liquid you add to the jello. Adding too little can make your jello tough and adding too much can make it runny or, worse still, it will not set. You can be more creative with jello salads and throw in whichever other ingredients you like. Adding an extra couple of tablespoons of cream or ten extra blackberries is not going to make much difference to the finished dessert. You can experiment with marshmallows, chocolate, candies and anything else you want to try.

If you are following a recipe for jello salad, you can adjust the ingredients. Perhaps the recipe calls for chopped walnuts and you want to use chopped chocolate or coconut flakes instead. Making substitutions like this usually works fine with jello and you might even create a new favorite dessert.

Use either a big jello mold, lots of smaller ones or some kind of clear glass serving dish. One of the nicest things about jello salad is that you can see all the different ingredients in it and a nice mold or serving dish makes it look extra special.

A recipe for layered jello is easy. Choose the jello you want, and add your ingredients. Layer it with another type of jello mixed with whipped cream or with a topping of your choice. This salad keeps well in the refrigerator. Your family will love this creative dish.