This old-fashioned Strawberry Pretzel Salad consists of a salty pretzel crust topped with a creamy and sweet cream cheese layer and a strawberry jello topping filled with fresh strawberries.
It’s the perfect dessert to satisfy your salty-sweet cravings and take advantage of in-season strawberries.
This is far from your typical salad. In fact it’s not a salad at all. Strawberry Pretzel Salad is along the lines of Watergate Salad. A dessert that’s called a salad. It tastes similar to a no-bake cheesecake.
Tips for making Strawberry Pretzel Salad:
You can use frozen strawberries instead of fresh.
Be sure to spread the cream cheese layer all the way to the edges so that the jello layer doesn’t seep down and make the pretzels soggy.
If you like a little saltiness in your sweets, you will find this layer dessert to be positively addictive. Each of the 3 layers is delicious on its own, but put them all together and you have amazing flavor and texture contrasts.
Strawberry Pretzel Salad is a classic summer dessert that makes a wonderful make-ahead dish for a potluck or picnic.
Try these other strawberry desserts:
- Strawberry Sheet Cake
- Easy Strawberry Shortcake
- Strawberry Twinkie Cake
- No-Bake Strawberry Lasagna
- Strawberry Pretzel Icebox Pie
Watch the short video below to see how easy this dessert is.
Strawberry Pretzel Salad
Ingredients
- 2 cups crushed thin salted pretzels
- 3/4 cup butter, melted
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 (8-ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed
- 1 (6-ounce) package strawberry Jello-O
- 2 cups boiling water
- 2 cups thinly sliced fresh strawberries
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- In a medium bowl, mix together crushed pretzels, butter, and 3 tablespoons sugar. Press into a lightly greased 9X13-inch pan. Bake for 8 minutes and cool completely.
- Use an electric mixer to beat cream cheese and 1 cup sugar until smooth. Fold in whipped topping using a rubber spatula. Spread over cooled pretzel crust being sure cream cheese mixture completely covers and seals the crust. This will help keep the jello layer from seeping down.
- Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes (can be refrigerated overnight at this point).
- In a bowl, whisk together jello and boiling water until jello is completely dissolved. Add the strawberries. Refrigerate for 5 minutes and then pour on top of cream cheese layer. Refrigerate until firm.
Nutrition
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Originally published May 5, 2014
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.
I tried to adapt a strawberry pretzel salad as a cheesecake for a potential recipe on my website as this is basically a no bake cheesecake, aside from baking the pretzel crust. I used brown sugar instead of white sugar for the pretzel crust to evoke a graham cracker flavor and replaced the cream cheese and cool whip with mascarpone and homemade whipped cream, chilling the cream mixture for at least an hour before pouring on the pretzel crust. It went well until I added the jello mixture which sunk me, guessing it didn’t form a proper seal. I was thinking freezing it after adding each layer to help it retain structure until I pour the jello on top. What would your advice be?
I have few modifications i made just for fun cause i can never keep it simple 😉 . I use double the amount of pretzels and mix with melted butter and 4 tbsp brown sugar; once the coolwhip is folded into the cream cheese and sugar; i add 1/2 tsp vanilla extract and 1/4 tsp of almond extract; and depending on what i have on hand i will mix the jello (use two diff flavors; like raspberry and cherry or strawberry and raspberry) and also add frozen mixed berries with the frozen strawberries. 🙂 thanks for posting this ; im made one last week and making another one now (guess i need to learn to share 😉 )
Love this dessert.
I always top it off with an extra layer of homemade whipped cream…. deeeelicious!!
We love this recipe. My family begs me to make it for every occasion. I do add an extra pack of cream cheese and some lemon to make that layer a little more like cheese cake.
How much lemon do you add?
It’s the best one everyone asks if we’re going to have. Love it !!!!!