Menu Musings of a Modern American Mom: Creamy Grape Salad

This dessert salad is absolutely good any old way... as dessert, a side dish, a breakfast, or a snack. Its a simple mixture of fresh juicy grapes and crunchy sweet pecans blanketed by a super simple creamy sauce. Make a lot because it will go fast; and it's even better the next day.

The original recipes for this dish contain sour cream, quite a bit of white sugar and vanilla. I have taken the liberty of substituting the yogurt... it is low fat and healthy, still has "vanilla" flavor, it's plenty sweet already... and we've reduced the prep time and number of steps. I almost always have yogurt in the house as my little girl is a big fan. So all in all, this is a quick, healthy, delicious snack!

Ingredients:

2 pounds seedless green grapes
2 pounds seedless red grapes
8 oz package of reduced fat cream cheese
2, 6 oz containers of "light" vanilla yogurt
*or vanilla Greek yogurt
2 Tbsp brown sugar

So here's a disclaimer. This photos of this process do not necessarily match the order of the steps I just gave you. I was trying to cook something else, when these guys asked if they could make something. This seemed like a nice, safe dish for them to do together. So we just sort of started in the middle and added things as they went. As much fun as Canon had stacking and arranging the grapes in the bowl, I can only imagine what a mess it would have been to have made the dressing first and then had him putting his hands in it. Ick!

Add the red and green grapes

Chop the pecans

Add the pecans to the grapes

Add in the yogurt

We each have our own method of doing this, apparently. Ha Ha!

Mix in the softened cream cheese and brown sugar.

Mix and refrigerate. Garnish with extra pecans and mint leaves if you wish. We have mint growing out of the wazoo, so no reason not to "fancy it up a bit."

Written Directions

Prepare the sauce by mixing slightly softened cream cheese with yogurt. Add brown sugar and mix well. Wash and dry grapes and remove them from the stems. Add them to the "dressing." Mix them all together and refrigerate until serving.

That's all there is to it!

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Want more awesome recipes? Please visit my Recipe Index for tons of ideas of things to cook with and for your family! Here are a few to get you started:

Bacon Pancakes