Sis-in-Law's Jello Salad / Dessert

I started this journey with a dish I could relate to, meat balls, and moved onto a potato dish in homage of the conversation that started this fascination all off.

This week I thought I'd try a dessert as a I have a sweet tooth and it seems right to do a dessert after trying a main and then a savoury side. I was also keen to try something with jello, as along with potatoes, it featured it that very first conversation about Mormon cuisine.

So I decided to try a recipe sent to me by Tracie...her sister in law's jello salad. I interpreted the dish as being a dessert as it involved jello, cottage cheese, cream and fresh fruit. I also presumed the jello would be made up like normal jello and then the other ingredients somehow mixed in but I was mistaken.

A couple of quick Facebook messages with Tracie revealed the following method:

1. mix dry jello mixture with cottage cheese
2. fold in cream
3. put in fridge to firm up
4. serve with fruit

Jello salad ingredients

Outrageous! Mixing dry jello crystals into something other than boiling hot water? Crickey, I am in for one very new experience.

You might note that the ingredients come from two countries. The jello my friend Tracie sent me and the dairy products are of course from Australia. The recipe actually called for Cool Whip, not cream, however we don't have Cool Whip here and I couldn't bring myself to buy cream in a can so I opted for the google alternative...whip your own cream with a little icing sugar till it forms soft peaks.

Blended jello salad ingredients

Preparing this dish is a cinch as you really just mix everything together. The kitchen smelt like a sugar factory and well, the look of the wet mixture was a little unappetising to be honest...I couldn't resist but try a little and as expected, it was pretty sweet.

In less than five minutes the dish was in a glass bowl and in the the fridge to set (or really just to firm up).

I went to the fresh fruit & veg store and picked up some gourmet strawberries (i.e. ones that are not only large, but have some flavour too...you pay about twice as much in Australia if you want Strawberries with flavour and I expect it is the same in most developed nations).


I tried some of the (set) mixture on its own and to be honest, it was too sweet for me and the texture of the cottage cheese in amongst it all reminded me of the texture of vomit; no offence intended anyone!

Tasting the mix on its own was a valuable experience as it helped me understand how this should be served.

I put a few strawberries in bowl and then kind of dipped them into the mix as I ate them. I had that "ah ha" moment and thought, now I know why it is sometimes called a salad...because you could get a big bowl of mixed sliced up fruit and mix a bit of this jello/cottage cheese/cream stuff through it to create a very nice fruit salad. A couple of Facebook comments also confirmed this; thank goodness for the instantness of Facebook!

The sherbet like quality of the mix and the creaminess of the cottage cheese complements fruit very well....but use it sparingly if you don't like really sweet things.

Tip - add the jello crystals to the mix slowly and taste as you go along, stop adding jello when it reaches the right sweetness (I stopped at about 75% of the box of jello).

Many thanks to Tracie for sharing this recipe and to her sister in law too! In return I am going to source one of my Mum's recipes that as a child I thought was weird but the adults loved it. As my family is not Mormon, I won't make it myself and post about it on this blog but would love for some of the Mormon folks on this journey with me to try it and let me know if it makes the grade to be served on your table sometime soon; stay tuned for that recipe.

Category	Sis-in-Law’s Jello Salad / Dessert
Ease of preparation	Way easy
Time from prep to table	5 minutes prep time, a few hours in fridge to set/firm up
Taste	No good on its own, good as a dressing for a fruit salad or to dip fruit into
Visual appeal	No good  on its own, complements fruit though so serve with fruit
Radicality (i.e variation from my normal cuisine) out of 5	5
Recipe enhancement tips	Add jello crystals slowly until your sweetness level is reached
Final assessment	Too out there for me but might make again as a dressing for a bowl of fruit salad some day