What Exactly Is Company Fruit Salad?

Who doesn't welcome new, creative ways to use colorful produce? Beyond chowing down on a whole apple or eating countless spears of watermelon, many fruit lovers enjoy colorful bowls of fruit salad. Company fruit salad is essentially chopped fruit mixed with a dressing that includes sour cream, sugar, cream cheese, and mayonnaise. While this mixture may sound strange, it's a great side dish to serve at potlucks and holiday gatherings due to its versatility. 

There's no one-size-fits-all recipe for company fruit salad. But what most variations of this fruit-based dish have in common is that one-of-a-kind mayo-infused dressing. Instead of enjoying fruit salad plain or with a simple citrus dressing, why not level up this sweet snack with a creamy component?

Next to being mindful about pairing sweet and tart fruits together and adding a well-rounded dressing for an extra hint of acidic sweetness, you may be up for trying a completely new method of enjoying a bowl of chopped mixed fruit. If that's the case, company fruit salad could be the answer.

Traditional recipes for company fruit salad include diced red delicious and golden delicious apples, green and red grapes, and canned and drained pineapple and mandarin chunks. Once these fruits have been mixed together, a dressing made of equal parts mayonnaise and sour cream, along with a bit of cream cheese and sugar, is added. 

Feel free to get creative and cater this creamy side dish to highlight the fruits of the season. Instead of saving your apples to make a cinnamon apple sheet cake, make them the star of this veritable side dish and add more seasonally appropriate foods, such as pomegranate arils, pear chunks, and toasted walnuts. Keep the canned mandarin slices not only for the zing of flavor but also for the help in preserving the color of your apples and pears.

While company fruit salad may remind you of classic Waldorf salad, a Manhattan staple composed of apples, grapes, celery, walnuts, and mayonnaise, company fruit salad has a sweeter overall flavor. If you want to try making this sweet variation with less mayonnaise, you can cover your fruit with an ultra-thin layer of the creamy condiment and then mix in sweetened or unsweetened homemade whipped cream. And if you want to ditch the mayo altogether, there are plenty of creamy alternatives you can use.

You can give fruit salad a creamy consistency without slathering diced produce in mayo. All you need to do is consider the flavor differences of the alternative ingredients. 

It's important to remember that mayonnaise has a distinct savoriness, thanks to whipped eggs, lemon juice, and salt. To maintain the perfect balance of sweetness, keep the sugar and cream cheese but use extra sour cream or plain Greek yogurt instead of mayonnaise. (You may need to adjust the amounts of each ingredient until the flavor suits your taste buds.) Sour cream and plain yogurt don't exude salty flavors, so you may want to add a squeeze of lemon juice and a small sprinkle of salt to highlight the added sugar in your creamy salad dressing.

If you're up for trying a sweeter salad, you can always sub in vanilla yogurt, or take a completely different angle and let the creamy base of traditional ambrosia salad serve as inspiration. You can even turn company fruit salad into a veritable dessert by using a mixture of thawed whipped topping and plain yogurt. (Feel free to let loose and add in those nostalgic maraschino cherries and a bit of shredded coconut as well.) What sets company fruit salad apart is the addition of a creamy dressing, so get creative and choose the fruits (and condiments) that work for you.