Looking for a unique salad or a dessert would fit better? Check out this Strawberry Pretzel Salad, its shine will definitely flatter!

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Pretzel salad is something that’s rooted into American cuisine deeply, yet no one ever heard of it, let alone tasting it around the globe.

Pretzel salad belongs to the group of recipes like monkey bread, egg roll or breakfast sausage where judging by the name alone, we would expect something entirely different to arrive onto our plates.

Pretzels are a type of German baked bread that shaped into a knot and treated with an alkaline solution, such as lye or in the coziness of our kitchen baking soda which gives the pretzel their recognizable shape and distinct flavor.

Although the best pretzels are undoubtedly the soft and fresh ones – some would say as soft as pretzel buns – the avid fair visitors probably have found themselves facing a different variety that may be a bit oversized and rather on the opposite end of softness with an almost infinite shelf life.

These hard pretzels were probably the inspiration for creating the prepackaged grocery store pretzels and pretzel rods that many of us cherished to love through the years in many forms and variety.

Various marketing campaigns over the years tried all sort of things with pretzels, including topping ice creams with the salty snack which turned out to be so popular that pretzel flavored ice cream cones were introduced to the market.

Most likely, this is how pretzels found their way into the widely popular Jello salads. The salad named after the most popular gelatin brand Jell-o, is a breed in itself capable of stretching across all spectrum of flavors.

Aspic that sits on the savory end, fell out of favor since its heyday in the sixties except for minor appearances like it’s the case with tomato aspic but that didn’t bother the advance of gelatin in desserts or in case of Pretzel salad, something between the two.

Pretzel salad or more precisely strawberry pretzel salad is a pretzel crust cheesecake that needed a pretty wild imagination to categorize it as salad, that or it was a desperate attempt to keep it away from people with innate phobia to salads.

Originally, the recipe is made using off the shelf ingredients such as pretzels, butter, cool whip, cream cheese, cream, gelatin, and raw strawberries.

By definition, salads are a mixture of mostly natural ingredients that at least consist of one raw ingredient, so strawberries are definitely a crucial ingredient in pretzel salad but butter and cool whip less so.

Depending on how long we plan to keep our pretzel salad or how far we need to carry it at the height of summer, we can substitute cool whip with cream and a bit of corn starch that will give it enough stability to live through its days in the fridge.

Although adding butter to pretzel seems like a clever way to preserve its crunchiness, it does little more than stuffing in extra calories even without the extra sugar that is used to rendering its saltiness redundant.

Folding the pretzels into egg whites and baking them will not just create a strong bond between the individual pieces, it also makes easier cutting them more uniform but the cooked egg white may help moisture seeping from the cream and cream cheese into our pretzels longer, thus preserve crunchiness longer.

Of course, we shouldn’t have false hopes of having a crunchy pretzel salad for eternity but that is rather because the waiting for the gelatin to set, is excruciating enough for anybody not to take the pain saving pretzel salad for another day.

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Ingredients

Gelatin sheet for 2 cups / 500g water (follow instruction on packaging)
2 cups / 500g Water
1 teaspoon / 5g Red food colorant
3 cups / 250g Pretzels
3 medium / 90g Egg whites beaten stiff
1 cup / 250g Cream cheese
1 tablespoon / 20g Honey
1 cup / 250 Heavy cream
1 tablespoon / 8g Corn starch
4 cups / 500g Strawberry

How to make Strawberry pretzel salad

We used gelatin sheets that need to be dissolved in water, similarly as any other gelatin. Follow instructions on packaging for exact measurements for 2 cups / 500g water. Food colorant is optional but it will look better in red. Let the gelatin cool to room temperature before pouring it on top of the pretzel salad otherwise it will ruin the underlying layer. We do this first so it has time to cool.
Crush the pretzels. There is no need for any extra equipment here.
Now it is the time to fry the pretzels on some butter but if saving calories is a thing then beat egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Mix egg whites with the crushed pretzels then spread them onto the bottom of a spring baking form. If we don’t want the pretzels to stick together too much, just spread the egg whites on top of the pretzels.
To stick pretzels together, put them into the middle rack of a 350°F / 180°C preheated oven until it dries out, about 10 – 15 minutes. The pretzels will become a bit more browned but mind not to burn them black. Let it cool down completely otherwise the cream would get runny.
Beat cream cheese and honey or sweetener of choice.
Beat heavy cream and corn starch. Beat in the cream cheese. Corn starch is necessary to stabilize the heavy cream. It won’t last as long as cool whip but it doesn’t need to either. Keep it in the fridge until needed.
Rinse and hull strawberries.
Slice the strawberries up.
Mix the strawberries with the cooled gelatin.
Once the roasted pretzels are cooled, spread the cream-cheese on top.
Gently pour the strawberries and gelatin on top.
Put strawberry pretzel salad into the fridge until the gelatin sets, for at least 60 – 90 minutes. The pretzels will take up moisture, not just from the cream layer but once the cake is sliced up, from the environment too. To preserve its crispiness longer, keep in on kitchen paper in an airtight container.