This EASY Pineapple Fluff Salad recipe is the perfect creamy side dish – it’s a classic dessert salad full of pineapple and marshmallows – you should try it for your next potluck!
It is no surprise that this blog likes to post fluff recipes! They’re easy to make and easy to eat and they feed a lot of people!
Fluff Salad can be made in so many different ways: with cream cheese, with pudding, with fruit or cookies. I always wonder when salads like this became popular and I’m convinced they evolved in the 50s and 60s.
Watergate salad most likely brought fluff salad recipes into the mainstream, showing people that ambrosia could become something else entirely just by switching up the ingredients.
This pineapple fluff recipe is a like a fruit salad with marshmallows and pudding and whipped topping and cookies too!
Ingredients Needed
- Instant Vanilla Pudding Mix – just the powder, the pineapple juices are what makes the creamy pudding. Any flavor pudding can be used.
- Pineapple Chunks or Tidbits in juice – the juice is what makes the creamy pudding.
- Marshmallows – buy fresh mini marshmallows.
- Cool Whip – or any whipped topping brand or flavor.
- Cherries – chopped maraschino cherries for color, flavor, and texture.
- Nilla Wafers – vanilla cookies soften a bit and make the texture more like chopped cake pieces in the fluff.
How to make Pineapple Fluff Salad
- Make the pudding base with pineapple and pudding mix.
- Stir in whipped topping.
- Add the rest of the ingredients: cherries and cookies, and marshmallows.
- Allow the mixture to rest for an hour or more so the flavors meld and the cookies can soften.
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Fluff Salad Variations
- Use pistachio pudding to make Watergate salad or banana pudding to make Banana Fluff.
- Add different fruit in place of (or in addition to) the pineapple: Peach Fluff uses canned peaches and Mandarin Orange Salad adds orange slices.
- Use different cookies to make Oreo Fluff or use anything you like.
- You can change up the ratios a bit and make pumpkin fluff too!
- Add chopped nuts, like pecans or walnuts.
- Use multicolored or flavored marshmallows.
Expert Tips
- Don’t skip chilling this for at least an hour. The salad needs time to meld flavors.
- Buy cherries without stems to make your life easier.
- Don’t forget you need INSTANT pudding mix, not cooked.
Storage
Store fluff in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. It’s great to make ahead because it needs to sit for a few hours before serving. I don’t recommend freezing this recipe.
Pineapple Fluff Salad Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 can (20 ounce) pineapple chunks in juice
- 1 box (3.4 ounces) instant vanilla pudding mix
- 1 container (8 ounces) Cool Whip
- 1 jar (16 ounces) maraschino cherries
- 2 cups mini marshmallows
- 2 cups Nilla Wafers, coarsely chopped
Instructions
- Stir together pineapple chunks (with juice) and pudding mix. Fold in Cool Whip.
- Drain the cherries and pat them dry. Remove stems and cut each cherry in half.
- Stir cherries, marshmallows, and cookies into pineapple mixture.
- Chill at least an hour before serving. Store in refrigerator for up to 2 days.
Recipe Nutrition
Mix some cheese with it I’m talking about the real cheese extra cheddar cheese cut it real small that makes it delicious out of this world I don’t have a website I’m just a truck driver my aunt made the same recipe she’s gone now but she added cheese to it and I like the real cheese extra cheddar.