The Best Strawberry Pretzel Salad Recipe

After Matt’s taste test of my strawberry pretzel salad on Instagram Stories last night, my DMs blew up with requests for my recipe.

This is a dish that’s been at parties and BBQs for my entire life and it’s always, always a crowd pleaser.

This dish is very common in Ohio.  If you look it up on Pinterest, there are about a million recipes for it and they’re all pretty much the same. 

I just have two things that make my recipe different:

• Sugar in the crust.  Most recipes call for less sugar in the pretzel crust…  DON’T DO IT!  This crust is true perfection.  Honestly, I will double my crust ingredients next time I make this dish in order to make the crust thicker.
• Cream cheese filling.  Nothing different in the ingredients, just make sure that the pretzel crust is fully covered by the cream cheese filling, edge to edge.  If the Jell-O makes it down to the pretzel layer, it will make the crust soggy and that destroys the crust.  The cream cheese filling is a barrier, so make sure it’s doing it’s job!

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Strawberry Pretzel Salad

Course Dessert

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes minutes

Total Time 30 minutes minutes

Servings 12 slices

Ingredients

Pretzel Crust

• 1 1/2 cups pretzels (crushed)
• 3/4 cup butter (melted)
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar

Cream Cheese Filling

• 2 8 oz. packages cream cheese (softened)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 8 oz tub Cool Whip

Strawberry Topping

• 1 6 oz strawberry Jell-O
• 2 cups boiling water
• 1 16 oz frozen strawberries (sliced)

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350º. Combine pretzels, sugar and melted butter. Press into the bottom of a 9x13 pan. Bake for 10 minutes. Set aside to cool completely.
• Beat sugar and cream cheese with mixer until a smooth and creamy consistency. Mix in Cool Whip until fully combined. Spread over cooled pretzel crust. Cover crust with cream cheese mixture edge to edge, leaving no open spots (if Jell-O topping mixes with pretzels, the crust will end up soggy.) Refrigerate for 30-60 minutes.
• Mix Jell-O and boiling water. Stir in frozen strawberries. Continue to stir until strawberries are thawed. Pour over cream cheese mixture (after refrigeration!) and refrigerate for another 2+ hours, until topping is set.