“Strawberry Pretzel Salad” is the stuff of potluck legend. Fruit; Jell-o; creamy whipped filling; and then – surprise! – a crunchy salty bottom-crust. It requires just enough assembly to be special. It’s quirky enough to be memorable. It’s the kind of “Suzie Homemaker” recipe that gets frequently requested from newspapers, and that people love to claim is of their own inspired invention.
Pretzels used as a crumb crust for pies may not be as ubiquitous as graham crackers, but the idea is not unheard of. 1950s recipe columns encouraged home cooks to give pretzel crust a try. “Sounds dizzy but tastes great,” the Orlando Sentinel declared in 1953. The Warren County Observer in Pennsylvania promised readers that they would “say it has a crunchiness and toasty taste that’s perfect for a lemon meringue pie” in 1954. Pretzel crust lemon chiffon pie became a new twist on lemon pie and other desserts.
Many online sources incorrectly state that the salad originated with the 1963 “Joys of Jell-o” cookbook. L.M. Zoller of the “I’ll Make It Myself” food blog wrote a great little zine on the topic and debunked this. L.M. noted that the earliest known (as of this post) instance of the dish in the 1960 “Brentwood Civic Club Cookbook” from Brentwood Pennsylvania, contributed by Gerry Franz Sullivan, a daughter of second-generation German immigrants in the Pittsburgh area.
Some sources also refer to this as a “Southern” dish for whatever reason, but we won’t bother with that. I believe that the layered strawberry concept may have appeared in Jell-o recipe books – but the pivotal flourish- the pretzel crust – was not included. Without that it’s just a Jell-o fruit salad.
The first newspaper appearance of Strawberry Pretzel Salad that I found was in 1972, in the Chicago Tribune, as “Pretzel-Crust Strawberry Dessert,” attributed to Mrs. Paul Meiners. I can’t identify Mrs. Meiners for certain, but I found a Paul Meiners in the Chicago area, the son of German immigrants.
In June 1974 the recipe appeared in the Bemidji, Minnesota Pioneer “Cooking with Candace” column under the more fetching name “Strawberry Pretzel Surprise.”
