This dish has been a Thanksgiving and Christmas staple made by my mother for three generations. The salad is so light and the dressing is gently cooked that you can serve it anytime.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 15 mins |
| Additional Time: | 8 hrs |
| Total Time: | 8 hrs 30 mins |
| Servings: | 16 |
| Yield: | 16 servings |
Ingredients
- 8 ounces uncooked orzo pasta
- ¾ cup white sugar
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 (8 ounce) cans pineapple chunks, drained with juice reserved
- 1 (11 ounce) can mandarin orange segments, drained
- 1 cup shredded coconut
- 4 cups frozen whipped topping, thawed
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook until al dente, 5 to 7 minutes. Drain, transfer to a large bowl, and cool.
- Whisk the sugar, eggs, flour, salt, and reserved pineapple juice together in a saucepan until smooth. Cook and stir over medium heat until the mixture thickens. Pour over cooled pasta, and toss to coat evenly. Cover and refrigerate overnight, or at least 8 hours.
- Stir the pineapple chunks and mandarin oranges into the pasta mixture. Mix in the coconut if desired. Stir in the frozen whipped topping until evenly blended. Chill until serving.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 205 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 34 g |
| Cholesterol | 23 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 3 g |
| Saturated Fat | 6 g |
| Sodium | 101 mg |
| Sugars | 22 g |
| Fat | 7 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
This was just okay. We felt the orzo didn’t belong here.
The texture of the Orzo is the best part. Love it.
I’m making this as written, I think the other reviewers are thinking of Watergate Salad
The addition of orzo pasta was an odd choice. I’ve had many types of ambrosia but none had pasta. Not a fan.
Interesting with Orzo. I use the Frog-Eyed Salad recipe from a creamettes Acini de Pepe box.
Thought it was going to be our old family favorite ambrosia where everything is simply mixed together and refrigerated and the mini marshmallows soften and become one with the universe, I mean sour cream. til I saw the pasta. I’d put this in a class with adding chick peas to chocolate chip cookies. It just doesn’t belong.
Just like my mom used to make when I was a kid. I added mini marshmallows to mine. I made it for some co-workers. They loved it and some of them took the recipe home to make for their families.
The texture of the addition of the orzo was unpleasant an weird. I will make something similar in the future but I will NEVER EVER consider putting pasta in it
The combination of flavors is good (I like coconut, so I added it too). However, the frozen whipped topping is way too much and it doesn’t enhance, but rather spoils the taste. I would use half or even less of it.
Huge hit. I did use the crushed pineapple and omitted the coconut because no one except me likes it. I used to have this growing up, but did not have the recipe, so I had been making a different fruit salad for holidays. Not any more if my son has anything to say about it. He has been talking about if since Christmas. He came home from the store with his dad and brought home the ingredients to make it yesterday. It is as good as I remember.
This is our new family recipe for special breakfasts. Everyone loves it and it’s not insanely sweet.
Made this for Christmas and everyone loved it! I really liked the different textures and the orzo added more depth to the dish.
Real popular with my guests at christmas. I had to give it away cause one of them loved it soo much! I think its pretty good but it was a little weird eating pasta in there lol. I might leave the flavor of the cooked sauce out and try it to see what its like with just pasta. Overall a big creative hit. Thank you!
Yummy! This is the kind of dish you take to a party and hope no one likes it so that you can take it home and have it all to yourself! The next time I nwill increase the orzo to 12 oz uncooked. This is really good!
I use acini pasta in this. It is wonderful but Acini is hard to find in my area so this year i am going to try Tapioca pasta balls. Wish me luck i am sure it will be fine but we will see. Happy Thanksgivign all.
Ok I opps’ed, I bought the crushed pineapple instead of chunks. It still worked out well. Instead of trying to drain the juice out I just added the pineapple to the pot too. I have had a variation of this salad with the pineapple chunks and I think I like it better with the crushed. What a great mistake this was. I also missed the part about letting it sit for 8 hours or overnight. I needed it in a couple of hours. If was just as good. I did make sure it was cold before completing with the mandarin oranges and whipped topping. This was absolutly the best.
Delish. I made this w/o the coconut & there were no leftovers from a company potluck. I might add more mandarin oranges next time, but otherwise quite fab.
Let me start by saying that I have never made an Ambrosia salad before and this receipe sounded good. I was easy to make, tasted OK but I think that my family & I were “thrown” by the texture of the pasta in the salad. I reminded me of tapioca and I hate tapioca. I didn’t dislike this, in fact the leftovers (alot) are good, but I don’t think I’ll make it again.
Delicious, and even better as “leftovers”! Thanks!
Fantastic recipe! I used light frozen whipped cream instead and also only let it sit with the pineapple juice mixture for about 6 hours. It turned out great! I love the texture of the orzo pasta in it and that it wasn’t overwhelmingly sweet.
This is SO delicious and my lunch guest LOVED it as well.