Orange Fluff Salad - A Refreshing Summertime Salad/Dessert that Won’t Heat Up Your Kitchen!

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Come Sit at My Table. Today, we are going to make a really nice summer salad. Now, this is not a salad like you would think of with lettuce or spinach or other greens. This is a really nice, sweet, cool summer salad. Some people might argue it's a dessert, and I guess that argument would be valid, but this is a sweet salad that you serve with a meal. Today's salad that we're making is called orange fluff salad. If you were alive in the 60s and 70s like I was, your mom probably made this salad and had it on your table. So let's get started making our orange fluff salad. We're going to start with a 4.6-ounce box of cook-and-serve vanilla pudding. You do need to make sure that it says on the box cook-and-serve. You cannot use instant pudding in this. We're also going to use a 6-ounce box of orange Jell-O, and with those two, we're going to boil four cups of water. Now, that's the beginning of our salad. We're going to put those three ingredients, the pudding, the Jell-O, and the water in a saucepan, bring that to a boil, and once it comes to a boil, we're going to pour it into a large bowl, and it does need to be a pretty large bowl. We're going to put that into the refrigerator and let that set up. It's going to take probably four to five hours. You could even do it at night, do it in the evening, put it in, leave it overnight, and finish your salad the next day. Once that has cooled and set up, then we're going to stir in a 16-ounce Cool Whip. We're going to stir in, I'm going to tell you that it's three cups of mini marshmallows. I have never before today measured how many marshmallows I have put in. I always just get a 10-and-a-half-ounce bag of mini marshmallows and dump in about half of them. Okay, maybe sometimes a little more than half. But I put about half of a bag. So today I did measure them because the recipe has always said half of a bag, and I never knew how much that was, I just guessed at it. But I measured, and there are six cups of mini marshmallows in this bag, so if you want to measure it out, you should use about three cups. Then we're going to use a 20-ounce can of pineapple tidbits, and you need to make sure that that is drained really well. You don't want the juice in your salad. It will make your salad watery, so drain those very well. Then the last ingredient is mandarin oranges. Now, let me tell you that this is a 29-ounce can of mandarin oranges. I have always bought a 22-ounce can, used most of it in the salad, but saved a few pieces just to put on top of the salad as kind of a decoration before I served it. There's no longer a 22-ounce can of mandarin oranges. So I either had to go down to a 16-ounce can or go up to a 29-ounce can. Well, I wanted to have plenty of mandarin oranges, so I got the 29-ounce can. We will use most of that in the salad, and I'll save a few to put on top if there are any leftover. Melissa and I will eat those, that won't be a problem. Okay, so let's get started making our orange fluff salad. We're going to move to the stove and put our four cups of water in our saucepan. And while that is still cold, we don't have to wait for it to come to a boil, we're going to add our pudding and our Jell-O. I'm almost 100% positive that I can say this and be correct when I say that I think it was a requirement back in the 60s and 70s for every mother to fix this salad for their family. My parents made it quite often, well, I wouldn't say quite often, they made it occasionally. We did have it some, but we didn't have it like every week or anything, but we did have this. And I know it was popular all over the place. So chances are, you've probably had this salad at some point in your life. Now, we're just going to take that mixture and whisk that because we want to dissolve that Jell-O and that pudding mix in that water before it comes to a boil. You don't want that laying on the bottom of your saucepan and burning. So we just whisk it in there. If you don't have a whisk, just use a spoon, it's fine. It'll work too. And we just have to wait for that to come to a boil. While we're waiting for that to boil, I would like to ask you to do us a favor. If you would, just go right below this video and click the thumbs up button. And if you've never before, click that subscribe button that's right under the video. There's a little notification bell beside it, it looks like a dinner bell. If you'll click that and the word all, that will subscribe you to our channel, it's free, but you will always be notified when we add a new video. That would help us build our channel. And if you would like to, you can click that share button right under the video and share this to your own social media page so your friends and family will know about it. All right, we're going to wait for that to come to a boil and then we'll pour it in our bowl. As you can see, our Jell-O pudding and water have come to a boil. So I'm going to, let me come around you. Sorry. I'm going to take that off the fire and pour it into our bowl. And then the wait begins. We're just going to put it in the refrigerator and leave it there for at least five hours or you can watch it and you can tell when it has set up. It should take at least four to five hours though. It may take longer, but it's always, I've never had any problem with it taking longer than five hours. Did your mom and dad ever make this with different flavors besides orange? That's a really good question. I don't remember them ever making it with anything besides orange, but I don't know why you couldn't. You would have to have the same fruit to go in as the Jell-O flavor. So strawberries or, I don't know. I make blueberry Jell-O, I don't know. That's a good question. I don't think I've ever seen blueberry Jell-O. There is a very berry Jell-O, I think. I'm pretty sure. So maybe blueberries would be really good, but strawberries should be great. And that should work perfectly. Just use a box of strawberry Jell-O and in place of the mandarin oranges, cut up some strawberries. Okay, to the refrigerator we go. Our Jell-O and pudding mixture has firmed up. I'll shake it so you can see that. Watch it wiggle. See it jiggle. I probably shouldn't be singing, should I? I do remember that old commercial though. Now we're just going to take our hand beater and whip it until it is creamy before we add everything else in. And I know that sounds really strange that you're going to whip this mixture up, but that's what you do. It doesn't take just a few seconds. You just want to get it light and creamy. You just don't want it to be in big chunks. Just blend it out. Okay. Now we're going to stir in our entire 16 ounce Cool Whip. Just put it in. You really don't want to beat it. You just want to fold it in until it's all combined. And I think I am just going to go ahead and put everything else in because that's what I normally do. All right. And we're going to put in all of our pineapple. And I have drained it really well. I've gotten as much of the liquid out as I possibly can. We're going to put in half of this bag of marshmallows. Now, normally I would never measure these, but because I'm doing it on camera and I know a lot of people who watch like for things to be measured, I'm going to do that. So there's two cups and three cups. That might be a little more than three cups, but that's okay. About half the bag. And then we're going to add most of, I'm going to make sure these are drained. Most of our, oh yeah, that looks good. Most of our mandarin oranges, I'm going to save some to put on top of our salad once we get it in the bowl and made. So this is all you do. Just start folding, get it all incorporated. That's going to take just a couple of minutes. It won't take long. You'll know you're finished when you don't see any more white streaks from the Cool Whip. You just want it to be a nice orange color. We just keep folding and folding. Babe, I think you had a really good idea earlier about doing it with strawberries. I think we should try that next. I think it would just be- Since we've never done that. Really, I think this is a great salad for the summertime and a little variety would be nice too. It's a really good summer salad. Or some people would say it's like a dessert, but still. It's really nice for summer because it's light. It's fluffy. It's cool. Now, would it be- No baking. No baking, no heat. Now, would it be great for a potluck or a family reunion? Probably not because it's not going to do well sitting out. Now the heat is gone. If you were having a potluck at your house or something, then that might be different, but not to be outside. Okay. You see, that did not take long. I'm going to rinse my hands off. And now we're just going to put it in a bowl and that may not all fit in there, but that's okay. You want to do a sample first? Sure, why not? Before we put it in a bowl. Yum. All right. You get the first bite. I like it. I haven't had it in a long time, but that's really good. I haven't made it for a couple of years. That is really good. Good one you could easily forget about, because it's been- Oh, it reminds me of- Oh, thank you. I stuffed your mouth full. Now I'm going to ask you, it reminds you of what? It reminds me of things that your mom made. Yeah. Oh, she did. She liked that salad. She liked things like this. Okay. I'm just going to move it over to a smaller bowl that's not as messy looking after me blending it. And we'll decorate the top of it. Now you are going to want to put this back in the refrigerator and keep it there until you're ready to serve it. You don't want to leave it sit out. And I have found it's better if it goes back in the refrigerator for at least an hour before you serve it. It just kind of helps firm it up after you beat it with the beater, because that kind of loosened it up. So, you know, put it back in the fridge until you're ready to eat. After you get it made, you can put it in for an hour or even a lot longer. And this will keep in your refrigerator for several days. So you don't have to worry about it sitting in there. You can eat on it. If you don't eat it all at one time, that's okay. You can keep it and have leftovers. Just put a few on top to decorate it. Put some mandarin on just to get a few mandarins and we'll throw those on there. Isn't this a pretty salad? Tastes really nice too. Yeah, very summery, very nice. If anyone that's watching this has made this salad with other fruit, something besides orange jello and mandarins, let us know what you've put in it. We'd love to hear the variations. All right, that's it. We sure do appreciate you watching our video and we hope you take the time to make this salad. It's really easy to make. Takes a little while because you have to wait for the jello and pudding to firm up, but it's so easy to make. All right, remember that right under this video where you see the title of the video, if you click on that description box, it will expand. Melissa always puts the written recipe for you. It's right there. So all you have to do is expand that box and you'll see it and our contact information's under. And then we do encourage you to hit that like and subscribe button. And there's a place at the very bottom where you can leave us a comment. Let us know if you've done something similar to this but with a different fruit. Maybe we'll try your version. Most of all, we want you to remember that you are always welcome to come sit at my table. Have a great day.