Pineapple Pretzel Salad

This sweet and tart salad is creamy with a crispy crust and full of pineapple flavor. Serve it as a salad, a side dish, or a dessert!

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Course: Desserts

Cuisine: American

Prep Time: 10

Cook Time: 10

Chill: 4

Total Time: 4 20

Servings:

Author: Jennifer Stewart

Ingredients

Crust

2 ½ cups crushed pretzels roughly 4-5 cups of pretzel sticks before crushing
4 ounces butter melted
4 tablespoons sugar

Filling

12 ounces cream cheese softened
16 ounces frozen whipped topping thawed
¾ cup sugar

Topping

6 ounces pineapple jello
20 ounces crushed pineapple in water drained
20 ounces crushed pineapple in syrup not drained
1 cup boiling water

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350F.
In a mixing bowl, combine the crushed pretzels, sugar, and melted butter. Stir to combine and evenly coat the pretzels with the melted butter.
Press the mixture into a 9x13 baking dish.
Bake at 350F for 10 minutes to get it crispy. Remove from the oven and cool completely.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the softened cream cheese and sugar.
Fold in the whipping topping by hand with a spatula. This keeps you from overmixing the whipped topping and causing it to separate.
Spread the cream cheese mixture over the baked pretzel crush into an even layer. Place in the fridge while you make the fruit topping.
Drain the crushed pineapple(the one with water)
Bring the water to a boil and stir in the jello mixture to dissolve it.
Stir in the drained crushed pineapple and the can of crushed pineapple in syrup.
Stir to combine.
Pour over the cream cheese mixture and spread into an even layer.
Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or until the top jello layer is set. Overnight is best so everything is chilled.
Cut into squares and serve.

Notes

This calls for 40 ounces of crushed pineapple. These are usually available in 20 ounce cans. They come as crushed pineapple in water or in syrup. I like to get one of each. The one with water, I drain and press out the extra water. The crushed pineapple in syrup, I don’t drain. The extra liquid (syrup) I use instead of crushed ice or cold water in the jello mixture.

You can also use pineapple tidbits (small pieces in juice). Just drain and use water to make up the rest of the liquid volume.

Be sure to crush the pretzels into small pieces. If the pretzel sticks are still long, they can be hard to cut and break apart easily meaning the crust will fall apart when serving.

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