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This easy Grape Salad recipe is an all time favorite! Crisp red and green grapes in a sweet, creamy sauce topped with sugary, crunchy grape nuts and coconut.
This creamy Grape Salad is my favorite fruit salad! It is so sweet and yummy, it’s almost more of a dessert than a salad. We will frequently take this grape salad on family picnics and it is ALWAYS a huge hit! Because there is such a variety of textures in the salad, every bite offers something cool, creamy, and crunchy. Even the kids are crazy for it! It is so quick and easy to whip up, too.
Table of Contents
Ingredients in Grape Salad
- Seedless grapes – red, green, or both. Make sure they are at the peak of freshness, crisp, and sweet. No one likes biting into a soggy, mushy grape!
- Sour cream
- Cream cheese
- Granulated sugar
- Grape nuts cereal
- Brown sugar
- Coconut
Just remember, if you are taking it to a picnic or potluck and want to prepare ahead of time, add the coconut topping RIGHT before serving so it stays nice and crunchy!
Substitution Options for Grape Salad
In the filling
Substitutions can be tricky. Be careful not to make too many substitutions at the risk of altering the flavor of the salad. Having said that, lighter versions of both cream cheese and sour cream can be used. Greek yogurt can also be used as an alternate ingredient for sour cream. Stevia, or another sweetener, can be used to replace the sugar.
In the topping
Since all three topping ingredients combine to make a delightful topping for this salad, it’s difficult to recommend anything different. Chopped nuts, like pecans or walnuts, can be used to replace the grape nuts, but this is an expensive substitution. A brown sugar substitute can also be used, if necessary. You can also scrap all three ingredients and make a topping with candy bars. Chop up Snickers bars or Heath bars and sprinkle them on top.
What Makes A Salad A Salad?
In the world of food, there are a few hot debates. One of them is over the definition and composition of a salad. For some, tossing together grapes with a creamy sauce and some coconut falls short of the traditional image of a tossed green salad. Hence the distinctive phrase “fruit salad.” According to Merriam Webster, a salad is “any of the various “usually cold dishes” including raw greens, vegetables and toppings. It is served with dressing or small pieces of food, or usually mixed with a dressing or set in gelatin.” A fruit salad on the other hand generally contains small pieces of fruit served in their own juice or a syrup of some kind.
No matter what you call it, this Grape Salad hits the spot — and is totally on the mark to be considered a flavorful side dish to your barbecue or picnic.
Frequently Asked Questions for Grape Salad
First of all, grapes. Then most grape salad recipes have a creamy dressing made of cream cheese, sour cream, and sugar. The crunchy topping is usually made of nuts, cereal, or candy bars.
It is an old fashioned party dish that originated in Minnesota.
We like to use a mix of seedless red and green grapes, but you can use all red or all green. Purple grapes or any other kind of grape can be used as long as they are seedless. However, we don’t recommend Cotton Candy grapes. They are too sweet for this salad.
More Salad Recipes with Fruit
There are a whole lot of things you can add to the main dish of any meal to round out the experience. Check out some of these sweet, fruity salads:
Grape Salad with Crunchy Coconut Topping
Equipment
- 9×13 inch pan
- Hand Mixer
Ingredients
- 2 pounds red grapes seedless
- 2 pounds green grapes seedless
CREAMY GRAPE SALAD FILLING:
- 8 ounces cream cheese softened
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 8 ounces sour cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
CRUNCH TOPPING:
- 1 cup Grape Nuts (heaping cup)
- 2/3 cup light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup coconut flakes
Instructions
- Beat together cream cheese, sugar and vanilla in a large bowl using an electric mixer. Fold in sour cream.
- Pick red and green grapes from the stems. Rinse and dry well. Stir the grapes into the cream cheese mixture until the grapes are completely coated.
- Pour the creamy grape salad filling into a 9×13 glass pan. Use a spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl to get all of the filling. Lightly cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to serve.
RIGHT BEFORE SERVING:
- Combine topping ingredients well.
- Evenly sprinkle topping over the grape salad filling.
Video
Notes
- Use crisp, ripe grapes for best texture and flavor.
- To avoid little lumps in the cream cheese mixture, make sure the cream cheese is softened to room temperature.
- Store any leftovers in the refrigerator in an airtight container.
WARNING: This is addicting! And a good addition to yogurt, too. Thanks for this amazing summertime recipe!
Simple and delicious, love it!
We love this salad and everyone always asks for the recipe when we bring it to all of our get togethers. A total crowd pleaser.
This was such a great recipe! Flavorful, quick and delicious! Yum!
This crunchy topping is EVERYTHING! I need to make this again for my next cookout!
This salad is perfect for summer! I love it.
Your website is my “go-to” site for yummy recipes. I have seriously made soooo many of your recipes and some have become family favorites at our house too, but this one needed a comment. I made the recipe as is but as I made the topping I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be very good and it wasn’t. Sorry. The raw sugar made the salad sickly sweet and the grapenuts were not very appetizing. I wish I had used chopped nuts and baked it and the coconut in a crumbly topping of some sort that could be sprinkled over the top. I know it is just one person’s opinion but I would be careful if you decide to make this and perhaps just sprinkle a little granola over the top instead of the grapenuts/brown sugar/coconut topping. Our family didn’t really care for it much.
We had the same experience.
I’ve not tried it yet but want to make some changes cause of the sugar. Soooo has anyone come up with a replacement for the 1/3 cup of sugar??
I have a similar recipe that I love that calls for chopped pecans instead of a topping. I’m definitely going to give this version with the coconut topping a try and see which I like better.
Im not crazy about coconut myself