Frog Eye Salad Recipe

Frog Eye Salad is a sweet fluffy rendition of a fruity dessert salad with cool whip, instant pudding and plenty of extras to make you go Mmmm!

Course Dessert, Salad

Cuisine American

Keyword dessert salad recipes

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 10

Total Time 25

Servings people

Calories 340kcal

Author Kathleen

Ingredients

1 cup Acini di pepe
1 (3.5-ounce) box instant vanilla pudding mix
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups milk
1 (8-ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained with juice reserved
1 (20-ounce) can pineapple tidbits, drained with juice discarded
1 (11-ounce) can mandarin oranges, drained with juice discarded
2 (15-ounce) cans fruit cocktail, drained with juice discarded
3 cups colored mini marshmallow
1 cup shredded coconut
1 (8-ounce) container cool whip thawed
Reddi wip

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Cook pasta (1 cup) in lightly salted rapidly boiling water for 10 minutes. Drain and rinse in cold water. Drain well.
In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat together Instant pudding mix (1 box), 1/4 cup of reserved pineapple juice, sugar (1/2 cup), and milk (1 1/4 cups) for 2 minutes.
Add drained pasta to pudding mixture and fold gently until combined. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Place all drained fruit in a bowl or a 1-gallon resealable bag and refrigerate overnight.
When ready to serve, add cold fruit (1 can crushed pineapple + 1 can pineapple tidbits + 1 can mandarin oranges + 2 cans fruit cocktail), cool whip (1 container), mini marshmallows (3 cups), and coconut (1 cup) to pasta mixture and fold to combine. Serve in a large bowl or individual serving dishes. Top with Reddi Wip if desired.

Notes

Chilling: You’ll want to blend your pudding mixture with your acini di pepe and let it firm up in the fridge overnight. Chill your fruit in a separate container overnight in the fridge so it’ll all be cold and creamy when you serve it.
Acini de Pepe – To cook it, you’ll boil a big pot of water, with just a touch of salt, just like you would when cooking any other type of pasta. The difference for this particular recipe is that I’m going to break all the rules and laws when it comes to cooking pasta and tell you to overcook it.

- Yes, this is one of the few times I suggest cooking the pasta past al dente since I want it to be nice and soft in this salad. We’re NOT looking for mushy here, but you want to boil it for a good 10 minutes to make sure the final texture adds to the creamy consistency of the salad instead of creating that “bite” you’re usually after when you cook pasta. Once it’s perfect, rinse it under cold water to preserve that texture without going into the soggy froggy zone.
- Serving up this sweet salad doesn’t require any crazy ingredients. The acini di pepe may sound out of the ordinary but it’s really quite common. It’s a small pasta similar to couscous which is often used in soups and salads.

3. Pineapple Juice: You’ll want to reserve the juice from your crushed pineapple because you’ll use it to blend up your vanilla pudding. It is Ah-ma-zing!

Nutrition