Classic Ambrosia Salad Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What did ambrosia consist of? ›

Most ambrosia recipes contain canned (often sweetened) or fresh pineapple, canned mandarin orange slices or fresh orange sections, miniature marshmallows, and coconut. Other ingredients might include various fruits and nuts: maraschino cherries, bananas, strawberries, peeled grapes, or crushed pecans.

Ambrosia Salad Tastes Like Coconut, Watergate Salad Tastes Like Pistachio. One of the first things that sets ambrosia and Watergate salads apart is the flavor profile of each dish. Watergate salad uses a pistachio instant pudding packet and often calls for additional garnishings of pistachio on top.

The once hard-to-find ingredients were considered luxurious and exotic. The salad was a treat reserved for holidays and other special occasions, and named “ambrosia” after the food of the Greek and Roman gods.

About The Fruit

Its flavor is best described as refreshing with floral notes and a pleasant crisp, fine-grained flesh. It's very sweet with very little acidity. Ambrosia is an apple that naturally doesn't brown quickly after being sliced, making it perfect for snacks or salads. You can cook with it too!

Apple Origin

In the 1990's, a chance seedling appeared in an apple orchard in British Columbia, Canada. A few years later it bore its first fruit, now known as Ambrosia™: the food of the Gods!

Consisting of pistachio pudding, Cool Whip, nuts, and pineapple, the dish was probably never actually served at the Watergate Hotel. It is rumored to have been given its new name because of its similarity to Watergate cake, which was also bright green and made with pistachio pudding and whipped cream.

The name "Watergate" comes from the hotel in Washington, D.C. where the first crime and break in took place, and is often associated with political scandals.

In 1867, Maria Massey Barringer of Concord, North Carolina, provided a recipe in her “Dixie Cookery; or, How I Managed My Table for Twelve Years." She counseled readers to stick to fresh grated coconut, sweetened with a little sugar in alternating layers with pulped oranges.

The word “ambrosia” means delicious or fragrant. Ambrosia was also the magical fruit of the gods in ancient Greek mythology. The gods on Mount Olympus ate ambrosia to maintain immortality and without it, they became weak. In Homer's Iliad, the gods bathed in ambrosia and used it as perfume.

Where is ambrosia salad popular? ›

Ambrosia means "food of the gods." In Greek and Roman mythology, it referred to magical victuals with the power to bestow immortality on anyone who tasted them. But that was a long time ago in a magical kingdom far, far away. Today, as most food historians agree, ambrosia belongs to the South.

Apple Origin

In the 1990's, a chance seedling appeared in an apple orchard in British Columbia, Canada. A few years later it bore its first fruit, now known as Ambrosia™: the food of the Gods!

Fill an 8-oz. glass with ice. Stir in rum, orange juice, pineapple juice, and a splash of grenadine.

Beat cream cheese and sugar together in a large bowl with an electric mixer. Mix in whipped topping on high speed until incorporated. Fold in pineapple, fruit co*cktail, bananas, apple, coconut, pecans, raisins, and cherries. Transfer to a serving bowl, cover, and chill for at least 1 hour before serving.