Sea Foam Salad (Creamy Pear Jello) (2024)

This creamy Sea Foam Salad recipe is perfect for the holidays! It combines pears, jello, cream cheese, and fresh whipped cream to make a light and spongey, perfectly-1950s jello side dish. The recipe isstraight from my great-grandma Doris, and we’ve made it at every Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter dinner for as long as I can remember!

When the first of us kids left for college, my mom typed up a recipe book so wewouldn’t starve to death on ourown. She called it “Some of My Favorite (and Easy) Stuff to Make and Eat,” and she updated it every time another one of us left for school. Here’s what she put at the bottom of the entry for Sea Foam Salad: “This was a recipe my grandma made, and we still make it every Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, and whenever else we can find an excuse.” It’s definitely a family classic.

I asked my extended family how they would describe Sea Foam Salad, and got these responses:

Laura said, “Part of my favorite food group, the semi-solid food group. Ice cream, pudding, mashed potatoes, sea foam salad, jello. All the good stuff.”

Sandi said, “Sea foam salad is a study in paradox. Light and dense. Unhealthy with just enough fruit you can fool yourself. Pretty and unappealing. You find yourself pondering these seemingly impossible attributes until one question breaks through the haze: how have I eaten so much??”

Nikki said, “I was going to say, ‘It looks like it’ll taste like raspberries and mostly does. Oh, it’s not tart, though.’ That sounded so dumb, I refused to type it until just now.” [You can see the jello-haze taking it’s effect on Nikki, and she was only trying to describe it.]

April said, “Maybe we could call it ‘Guilty Pleasure,’ or ‘Pink Shame,’ or ‘Dazed and Confused…'”

So there you have it my friends. Sea Foam Salad, nicknamed “Pink Shame” because you will never understand how you have eaten so much of it, on Thanksgiving day no less.

Jello salad seems so old-fashioned, yet I don’t know anyone who turns it down. It’s just so delicious. Also, can I get a round of applause over here for doing my part to keep the jello-salad-side-dish tradition alive. Somehow our grandmother’s generation was duped into thinking that jello salad was meant for the turkey plate and not the dessert plate, and I’m so totally okay with that. Don’t let the Paleo generation get you, guys. Embrace the jello-is-salad movement.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner! Check out my Thanksgiving Board on Pinterest for menu ideas. Have a great weekend!!

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Here a few other Jello ideas I love! Thanksgiving ain’t Thanksgiving without some Jello I say.

Creamy Strawberry Banana Jello << this one uses sour cream for a little tang!

Coca-Cola Jello Salad with Cherries << the flavors in this one are so fun.

Strawberry Jello Pretzel Salad << There is a Pretzel crust on the bottom. It’s so good!!

Here are some other Jello ideas from the blogosphere!

Polly’s Pink Stuff from Lana’s Cooking, read about Lana’s grandma Polly. Cool story.
Red Hot Jello from Gimme Some Oven–it really does have Red Hot candy in the jello! So fun!
Cherry Fluff from Mom on Timeout, or better yet her Ambrosia Salad. They both look amazing!