Easy 5-Ingredient Grape Salad – A Beautiful Mess

This homemade grape salad recipe could not be more simple with only five ingredients needed! You can make this in about 10 minutes, plus chill time. I love the crunchy fresh grapes pair with sweetened cream cheese and a crunchy nutty topping. To some it may seem like an odd combo but it WORKS and feels very Midwest to me.

Grape salad is one of those dishes that makes me think of big family meals at holidays or potluck dinner or cookout picnics. Of course the word ‘salad’ is being used pretty liberally here. 🙂 It’s a lot like ambrosia salad or watergate salad. It’s not a green, leafy salad it’s more like a lightly sweet fruit side dish.

Related: Next up try my Great Aunt Ina’s strawberry pretzel salad. We sometimes just call this jello salad at my house.

Ingredients

• Red seedless grapes
• Cream cheese, softened
• Greek yogurt
• Brown sugar
• Spiced Walnuts or Pecans

How to make Grape Salad

Rinse off the grapes and remove them from the stem. Set aside to dry.

Stir together the softened cream cheese, greek yogurt, and brown sugar. If you want the creamy mixture to be perfectly smooth, free from lumps, I recommend using an electric mixer and blending the cream cheese by itself first and then blending in the other ingredients. Personally, I don’t think it makes a big difference if there are a few lumps. Call me lazy but once you add the nutty topping it doesn’t really show / look smooth anymore anyway.

Fold the cream cheese mixture in with the grapes so they all get coated. Chop the nuts and sprinkle over the top.

Chill the salad for 30 minutes or more so everything is nice and cold before serving.

Notes and Substitutions

• I like using all red grapes but you could use a mixture of red and green or all green. But I stick with seedless grapes whatever color you choose.
• If you want to lightened this up use reduced fat cream cheese.
• I prefer using greek yogurt but sour cream works just as well.
• I like using spiced (sweet) nuts for the topping but other options include chopped up Snickers (yes! this is more ‘traditional’ or common where I live) or graham crackers.
• If you make this grape salad ahead of time, like the night before you plan to serve it, save the nut topping and sprinkle it on before just before serving.

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