Sweet Wheat Salad

I realize there are prettier jello salads out there. However, this is the most tasty one I’ve come in contact with lately, and I want to share it with you.

My Aunt Jan made this salad for a family reunion last summer and we’ve been taking it to reunions and potlucks ever since.

I keep a fair amount of wheat around our house and I am always looking for ways to sneak it into recipes. I can guarantee you a fruit salad was the last place I ever thought I would be using wheat and even more surprising….it is delicious!

When Aunt Jan brought the wheat salad to the reunion, it got scarfed up in no time. Everyone begged her to make more for lunch the next day. She did, but instead of pistachio pudding she used vanilla pudding and it was really good too. In fact I can’t decide which flavor I prefer, vanilla? or pistachio? I used pistachio in the picture above, but you really can’t go wrong using vanilla.

Sweet Wheat Salad

1 cup uncooked red wheat berries

1 can pineapple tidbits or crushed pineapple

1 Tbsp lemon juice

1 large box pistachio or vanilla pudding

1 8 oz container cool whip

1 8 oz softened cream cheese

Boil wheat berries for 20-30 minutes. Cover and let sit over night. Combine cooled wheat berries and softened cream cheese. In a separate bowl combine dry pudding mix, lemon juice and pineapple (do not drain the pineapple.) Mix in wheat and cream cheese mixture and then gently stir in cool whip until well combined. Chill and serve.

*Low-fat or nonfat cool-whip and cream cheese can be easily substituted in this recipe.