Country Club Salad

This is the kind of ‘salad’ that shows up at every church potluck and Thanksgiving spread in the heartland, the kind your grandmother brought in a Pyrex 9×13 and refused to call dessert. Lemon Jell-O gets thickened to the texture of raw egg whites, then cream cheese gets beaten in until it breaks into pea-sized flecks. Folded in: canned fruit cocktail, mini marshmallows, sliced bananas, and a whole half-pint of whipped cream.

The egg-white-consistency stage is the only real technical move here. Add the cream cheese too soon and it sinks to the bottom, too late and the Jell-O sets around your beaters in chunks. Watch for the loose-jiggly stage where it just starts to thicken on the back of a spoon.

Reserving the fruit cocktail juice and using it as part of the Jell-O liquid pays off in a real way. The natural fruit sugars round out the bright lemon flavor.

Pro Tips

• Slice the bananas just before folding them in, even a few minutes of air exposure turns them brown in the salad
• Use full-fat cream cheese softened well before beating, cold or low-fat versions don’t break into the right pea-sized flecks
• Whip the cream to medium peaks, not stiff, soft peaks fold into the Jell-O without deflating
• Pyrex or glass molds work best, the salad releases more easily than plastic and looks pretty on the table
• Make this the day before, the Jell-O firms up better overnight and the flavors meld

Variations

• Swap lemon for lime Jell-O for a slightly more savory finish
• Add ½ cup of toasted pecans for crunch against the soft fruit
• Stir in ½ cup of drained crushed pineapple for a tropical version