This Creamy, Retro Salad Belongs on Every Picnic and Potluck Table

Why It Works

A combination of cream cheese and yogurt creates a creamy, lightly tart dressing for the grapes.
Vanilla, granulated sugar, and brown sugar contribute to the salad’s sweet flavor profile, making it a perfect luxurious side for Thanksgiving and other holidays or a light dessert any time of year.
Leaving the grapes whole ensures that they retain their snappy texture instead of getting mushy when served.

My best advice for a great fruit salad is to keep it simple, which is what we’ve done with this grape salad recipe. While a salad by name, this grape dish is really more a dessert—or a wonderfully rich side for Thanksgiving or another holiday, a potluck, or picnic. Grapes tossed with a creamy, sweet dressing have been whipped up in American kitchens as far back as the early 1900s. Creamy grape salads fall into that category of fruit salads like ambrosia, that are bursting with retro Americana appeal; you can easily picture it out on the buffet line at a Sunday cookout or on a holiday table back in the 1950s. And while versions of it are found throughout the South and Midwest, its specific place of origin is a bit murky (just don’t link it to Minnesota).

There’s no way to talk about any fruit salad without acknowledging the genre’s generally sad reputation. Whether it’s on the menu at a local brunch spot, in a giant bowl on a picnic table, or in a plastic tub at the airport, you can rarely expect more than a mix of season-be-damned berries tossed with under-ripe pineapple, with a few whimpering chunks of cantaloupe thrown in, if you’re lucky.

The problem with most fruit salads has less to do with concept than with execution, because simply cramming a bunch of colorful fruits together is no guarantee of success. Instead of complementing each other, they form a disjointed mishmash. To avoid grape salad’s common pitfalls, our test kitchen colleague Giovanna Vazquez tossed together batch after batch to perfect a version that was pleasantly sweet and fruit-forward, not goopy, gunky, or cloying as too many grape salads are. Here’s how.

Tips for a Party-Worthy Grape Salad

Stick with just grapes for the fruit component. As noted above, the problem with most fruit salads is that in their effort to be colorful, varied, and exciting, they force a medley of fruit together that rarely results in the best texture or flavor combinations. To avoid this, we recommend just using grapes. Keep it simple and leave them whole for the best texture and use both green and red for a pop of color.

Use a combination of cream cheese and yogurt. The dressed salad should be sweet, but not cloyingly saccharine—after all, grapes are pretty sweet on their own. A combination of tangy, rich cream cheese and plain Greek-style yogurt adds acidity and a welcome tart bite to the dish. For an even creamier and slightly less tart dressing, you can substitute sour cream for the yogurt. We also stir in a hint of vanilla and granulated sugar to place the dish firmly in the dessert category.

Finish with almonds, mint, and brown sugar. We love how the crunch of thinly sliced almonds pairs with plump grapes. The combination guarantees a satisfying snappy, crisp texture in every bite. Fresh mint not only enhances the visual presentation, it also adds a perky fresh flavor to the salad. A final sprinkle of brown sugar is customary and adds a hint of molassesy sweetness.

This recipe was developed by Giovanna Vazquez; the headnote was written by Leah Colins

August 2024