If you flip through most Texas cookbooks published in the last century, you’ll find recipes for congealed salads. Simply put, this is a salad is made with fruit, nuts, and gelatin. This longtime favorite was once a standard at most potlucks, church suppers, holiday dinners, and backyard barbecues. Whether the salads were pink, red, or green (or perhaps some combination of all three), these salads always took a place of pride on the table.
My family usually has at least one at every gathering, but this seems to be the exception and not the norm. Unfortunately, the congealed salad no longer occupies its esteemed place on the Texan table, and you just don’t see them nearly as often as you did back in the day.
Sure, I can understand some people’s aversion to making a salad with flavored boxed gelatin that is chock full of sugar, artificial colors, and other dreadful ingredients. But it’s simple to make a congealed salad with unflavored gelatin and any combination of liquid. And quite frankly, these salads not only taste better but are also healthier, too.
One stalwart of the congealed salad tradition is the Dr Pepper salad (or Coke salad if your people were more inclined that way). As the name implies, the salad is made with said soda, and usually some combination of cherries, nuts, and cream cheese. A topping of whipped cream would not be unheard of if you were feeling especially fancy.
When I was telling my grandma that I would be making a Dr Pepper salad for the Fourth of July and discussed with her the traditional ingredients, she laughed and said, “Is this a salad or a dessert?” Indeed, that is a good question. Especially when you consider most Dr Pepper salads are made with cherry pie filling, sweetened red gelatin, along with Dr Pepper. That’s an awful lot of sugar for a side dish, and so I was curious if it would be possible to make a Dr Pepper salad with more natural ingredients instead.
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