You know, some families just have a wealth of really good cooks in them. I was blessed to grow up in such a family. My great grandmother, Lela, could take scraps of this and that and turn out one of the most delicious feasts you ever tasted. Grandmama (her daughter) loved to make desserts of all shapes and forms. I had 13 living grandparents when I was born and all the grandmother’s were just as gifted in the kitchen. Of course, each day of my childhood, my own mother set our supper table with the traditional Southern style of a “meat and three” along with hot cornbread, iced tea, and dessert.
This was always the norm to me. Then, as I got older and started spending time at friend’s houses, I came to realize just how special and rare these wonderful suppers were. Out of just about all of my friends, I can only recall one whose family ate like we did. If you were ever at their house around supper time, the Mama would call you to the kitchen and we’d all sit down to fresh vegetables, a platter of some wonderful meat, hot cornbread, and iced tea. Just like my home, which happened to be right down the road.
Do I do this for my family? In a modified way, yes. We are a generation or two removed from working in the cotton fields and my husband and I both work on a computer all day so that much food just doesn’t make sense for our lives. I generally use the rule of three for my suppers: Three things on a plate. Either a meat and two veggies or a meat, a veggie, and a bread. Dessert is once or twice a week. It works for us, doesn’t waste food, and gives us plenty for variety. I’d love to hear about what suppers were like for your family growing up and how you manage them now in the comments below, if you have a few minutes to visit after you finish reading this.
Today, I’m sharing a recipe with you from another one of those “Good cooking families”. I first met Shannon when she attended one of my cooking classes and me and my Mama just fell in love with her joyful spirit. Shannon is an encourager – and a generous one at that! She painted me a beautiful picture, which hangs in front of my desk so I see it throughout the day. She also shared one of her family cookbooks with me and offered free reign to share some of those delicious recipes with you. Today I am sharing the best grape salad I have ever had IN MY LIFE. Seriously folks, this recipe must have been blessed and prayed over at countless church suppers because that is the only logical explanation for how one dish can taste so good.
This is perfect for a springtime brunch, bridal or baby shower, a treat for yourself or anyone else you love enough to serve this earthly manna to. Make sure you save this recipe, print it off, share it to your Facebook wall, or pin it to your Pinterest boards. And if you enjoy Southern Plate, I would consider it a personal favor if you would tell your friends to come join us here. There is always room at my table. Let’s get in the kitchen…
To begin with you’ll need: Cream Cheese, Pecans (optional), Sour Cream, Vanilla, Seedless Grapes (I prefer red for color), White Sugar, and a little bit of brown sugar to top it all off.
These ingredients are so simple, so staple, so normal – and when combined they become something so wonderful!
Take your softened cream cheese and put it in a mixing bowl along with the white sugar, sour cream, and vanilla.
Beat that with an electric mixer until it accepts its fate of becoming the wondrous dressing for this salad. Sometimes bad situations transform us into better things, as has just happened to that cream cheese here. #creamcheeselifelessons
Take a large spoon and stir in your whole grapes. Hopefully you remembered to wash them. If not, consider this a boon to your immunity!
To anyone freaking out after reading that last sentence: Hey there, friend! It’s gonna be okay. We used to eat dirt as kids. It’s all good. For reals. Exhale.
When you’re done, sprinkle the top with a little brown sugar and some chopped pecans, if you’d like.
Now step back, look at it, and smile.
Awww! Such a pretty dish.
Okay, admiring time is over. ENJOY!
- 2 pounds seedless grapes
- 8 ounces sour cream
- 16 ounces cream cheese (2 - 8 ounce boxes)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- ½ cup white sugar
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- Chopped pecans
- Allow cream cheese to come to room temp by leaving on counter overnight. In large mixing bowl, combine cream cheese, sour cream, vanilla, and sugar. Beat until well blended and smooth.
- Stir in grapes to coat.
- Move to serving dish and sprinkle top with brown sugar and pecans.
Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness.
~Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Yum
My Mama cooked a delicious balanced meal every day. Daddy arrived home from his office at 5:15 and we sat down to eat at 5:30. If Mom was running a little late, she would tell me to get the table all set before he came in, so he wouldn’t know supper wasn’t quite ready!! LOL!!
What a wonderful vignette you just shared! I mentally sat down at your table beside you, I hope that’s okay 😉 I’m sure I took someone’s seat!
I Love, Love, Love Grape Salad. This Looks Delicious & Cant Wait To Try This. My Friend Makes This & Also Put One Pack Of Grape Koolade In It, Its Delicious. Thank You Ms Christy & God Bless You.
I made this grape salad yesterday. DELICIOUS is not the word. So simple to make and can be made in record time. Awaiting a church dinner where I can “show it off”!! Ruth in Hoosierland
That is the perfect place to show this dish off Ruth, because it sure is heavenly 🙂 !!!
I love grape salad, although it seems more like a dessert to me.
Growing up, we usually had a meat, starch, 2 veggies and bread for dinner. A salad might show up 2 or 3 times a week. If it was summertime with lots of fresh produce, we sometimes had 3 or more veggies. Desserts were usually reserved for Sunday dinner or special occasions, until I got old enough to start baking. Then we had them once or twice a week.
We were a family of 6 and everyone liked to eat, so my mother cooked hearty meals. It was normal for her to peel a 5 pound bag of potatoes for each meal. Then she’d mash them, fry them or boil them and serve with potatoes and parsley. Those were considered fancy potatoes. LOL
Occasionally we’d get a really fancy meal… like Cchicken Cacciatore or Beef Wellington, recipes that my mother would find in a magazine. But most of the time we had our favorite meals, like fried round steak, mashed potatoes, or meatloaf and macaroni and cheese. Or the family staple of ham and beans.
Not many of my friends had meals like this, either. I’d hear of them having tacos or pizza for dinner and was just amazed. Those were rare treats for us and certainly weren’t considered dinner food. I was always amazed at families in which they all just fended for themselves. I couldn’t fathom what they ate if no one cooked. Did they live on sandwiches and take out food all the time? Hearing that someone might just have a bowl of cereal for supper seemed like blasphemy to me. LOL
I had one friend whose family had a platter of sandwiches each night. But they would still sit down to eat them together so that is a plus 🙂 Sounds like a wondrous table set at your home!!!!!!
Re: the salad thing, Southerners love to make dessert and call it a salad, so we don’t have to wait til the end of the meal to eat it 😉 Just part of our charm, lol.
What do you think about adding a shreded rotisserie chicken to this grape salad?
It’s rather a sweet salad but as I wrap my head around the idea I find that I am entirely on board with it! lol
This sounds delightful – okay to make day before serving?
I have made this many times the day before. I actually like it better. The flavors have time to marry. Just make sure your grapes are well drained or it will be kind of soupy. Just wait until right. Encore serving to add the pecans and brown sugar.
I have made the grape salad many of times! I lay the grapes on paper towels and pat them before putting them in the mixture. Also my recipe has walnuts instead of the pecans. YUM
Meat, starch, vegetable. In my mind that is the perfect meal. In fact last night we had that (rare in our house as my husband is the cook and doesn’t really prize that style as much as I do). I declared “now this is a proper dinner!” I could eat that way pretty much every day and I think it’s why I get bored of one pot meals or pasta. I like a variety on my plate. A Southern meat and three restaurant is pretty much my favorite thing ever. Speaking of which have you ever been to Mary Mac’s in Atlanta? Lord. Have. Mercy.
I digress.
You really stirred up my Southern roots in this post and I love it. Loved it so much I sent it to my Mom. Now about that grape salad, I’ve never had it or heard of it and I want some right now, please!
Growing up, 5 kids and mom & dad sat together for a meal of meat and 2 veggies or meat, veggie, bread. Dessert was once a week and for special things. Best times were had at the dinner table.
When we started our family I kept up the same until my children started working and dinner wasn’t always the whole family, so I changed our family meal to breakfast. Put a little stress on me as I worked also, but it was worth it and now that they are grown and out, I don’t regret it at all!
Mom always had a good dinner for Daddy when he came home at midday. He was a mail man and walked his entire route. She knew he needed hearty but not overwhelming. They’d farmed before moving to town. Suppertime and especially Sunday suppers were just like yours even though we are in Kansas. Meat, potato of some kind, veggie and either a sweet or “sour, as Mom would say, salad. It could be an apple salad, jello salad, coleslaw, or some other concoction. Often during the week, a jello was dessert. Sunday dinners would have even more of the sides and a cake or pie for dessert. I started out doing this but have backed off as well. I still try to make Sunday dinners more like Mom’s.
I was a single mom when my dad came to live with me. We had gotten into the habit of eating on the run and eating in the living room. He shamed me immediately and reminded me that I was raised to sit down to a meal AT THE TABLE with my family every night. I got back into the habit and was blessed tremendously. Now, many years later, I still sit down with my dad, husband and stepson and we recount our day and just visit over a good hot meal. I work a lot so sometimes it is tough but I have learned that with some good time management skills I can make it happen. My son and his friends still love to come and visit, especially during supper time, not because I am that great of a cook but because they will be surrounded by love and laughter.
Christy,
Do you think this would be just as good with vanilla Greek yogurt? I’m out of sour cream but think if I backed off on some of the sugar and possibly vanilla, it would have the same taste and texture.
I love your blog and am happy to be in the fb group!
I think that would be an excellent substitution following your exact thinking with it! Thank you for being here!
Christy….thank you so much for the grape salad recipe….will be making that real soon! When I was growing up my mom would prepare meals every night and we would all sit around the table….the TV was off and no phone calls were received during the meal….there were 5 in my family! She would fix a meat and two or three veggies, bread and sometimes dessert! Such good memories! We had to drink milk but since it made me I’ll I had water! We eventually graduated to iced tea!
Terri, I think we should start a movement to go back to those kind of suppers!
I have been making that grape salad for many years. However, I do not add extra sugar as the brown sugar topping is enough for me. I also add the brown sugar before serving so it seeps down into the grapes/sour cream, etc mixture. However, if in the fridge too many days with the brown sugar on top, it will get soupy. Best to eat up right away within a day or two.
Good tip BJ, thanks for sharing it with us!!
We love this salad! I always use two colors of grapes, red and green, and cut them in half. So pretty and so good. 😀
I bet that is pretty! Thanks for sharing your tip with us!!
Sounds delicious. Thank you so much.
I hope you get the chance to try it Linda, it really is delicious! Blessings and Hugs!
I’m going to the store tonite and buy it all. It sounds so good that I am salivating. I’m going to buy the red, green and black grapes and cut them in half. Will let you know how much I loved it. Love you Christy.
I can’t wait to hear!! Love you too!
HOW many servings does this recipe make?
How hungry are you? Sometimes it only serves one 😉 Sometimes it would serve 5-8. But a lot of times it only serves one, if that one is diligent, faithful, and willing to stick with a job for perhaps a few days.
Christy, love this blog post. So much like the ones you wrote when you were first starting out — a little bit of Southern family story and a good recipe. We, too, had the threesome: meat, starch, veggie, and sometimes fruit. Always iced tea. I can’t help myself, but it is to me a proper meal, which I still serve today.
Go for it! It sounds wonderful♡♡
My grandma made a salad with fruit and mayo every holiday. Since I don’t eat mayo, I suggested whipped cream. It was delicious! We had dinners as often as we could with a restaurant to run. We were in Nebraska. Meals at grandma’s were beef stew, pork chops with milk gravy and mashed potatoes we were able to go out to eat after I moved a few hours away. I Was Lucky. I Still drool Over the Memory of those Pork Chops. She would Braise I Guess? them In an Electric skillet until Fall Apart Tender. That gravy. Mm and she would make potatoes baked style then they were mashed They Always Had Canned Fruit. Beef Roasts or Roasted Chicken.. How I found your blog was because I was looking for a recipe for them! At home since I lived With A Restaurant Cook. it was Spaghetti and meat sauce, homemade Sloppy Joes With Homemade French Fries, polska kielbasa with fried sliced potatoes and carrots and bacon, hamburgers with the fried potatoes and carrots and bacon. We had them alot. We had Salisbury steak with onions in Hamburger Patties too. We had fresh corn during the fall on the cob (still do) in The Summer. They Would Grill Hamburgers And Hot Dogs and Split A Watermelon For dessert. If It Was the 4th we had Steaks And baked Potatoes. The holidays were Always a ham and a turkey. Instant potatoes. Corn. Pies. we called it stuffing not dressing And It was Made With Croutons. Good memories Thanks! Its a Good Thing I Ate!
Dear Christy,
I always love to get e-mails from you. I love your recipes!
I, also had the every night sit down at the table supper. My Daddy was an electrician and worked very hard. He would get home around 5:20 every day, and once he got cleaned up his request was for a DP (Dr. Pepper)! Mama was always in the kitchen fixing something wonderful. I was always the biggest eater of the family and managed to stay thin because I was so active.
Ahhh, just love to remember those days with the meat, potatoes, veggie and bread!
Blessings,
Linda H
I love this grape salad! I make it frequently, and then I hide whatever is leftover behind stuff in the refrigerator so I can eat up the rest myself!
Christy, a friend brought this Grape Salad to our house for Christmas and we fell in love with it. I have made it many times since then. I have trouble leaving it alone, it is so tasty! I also use red and green grapes, and I mix the brown sugar and chopped pecans in with the cream cheese and sour cream mixture so everyone gets their good flavor.
I don’t think I’ve ever eaten Grape Salad, but it certainly “sounds a treat”.
Even though I spent most of my childhood in the Pacific Northwest, my grandparents that raised me were Southern bred, Southern-born and Southern raised, and stayed pretty true to their roots and heritage. Suppers for us almost always included meat, potatoes, [fried, mashed or boiled “in the jacket”], some kind of [dry] beans, even if it meant Granny had to open a jar of home-canned pintos or butter beans. There would be a vegetable of some kind, and in the summer, fresh sliced tomatoes, cucumbers and green onions. Tossed salads were a rarity, but we often had sweet pickled cabbage, especially with pork. Desserts were served a few times a week, usually a pie or cobbler, or Granny’s “Plain Scratch Cake” topped with her Homemade Chocolate Syrup & freshly whipped cream [from cream skimmed from our own fresh milk]. Sometimes dessert was one of Granny’s big ol’ biscuits, split and buttered, sprinkled with sugar and topped with fresh berries and whipped cream. Frosted cakes were reserved for birthdays and holidays, and cookies were seldom seen until I got old enough to start baking…even then, they were usually bar cookies, because I didn’t have the patience for baking several batches. One exception were the tea cakes I’d bake for my Grandpa.
For most of my adult life I cooked the basic “meat, potatoes, 2 veggies”, but these days I’m a big fan of one-dish meals, especially stir-fries and stove-top skillet casseroles.
What a wonderful memory of your childhood!! I hope you get the chance to try the Grape Salad, I jut know you are going to love it!
Wow! What a yummy and delicious recipes, my mouth is already watering and i can’t wait to try this at home asap.
We call those “separate meals,” and we have thrm once a week or so. Growing up, that’s what we ate every night, but my kids definitely consider them grandma food.
We tend to eat a lot more ethnic food than I grew up with, and I cook a lot more recipes and new stuff, too. Tacos are a staple, and they were never served growing up. But just like growing up, we set the table and eat together every night
Thanks Christy for your posts, emails and recipes! Love your positive outlook and encouragement of others-it really is our “choice” of how we start our day! My parents stressed the family dinner and our meals were always balanced. Meat, potato or starch and veggies. Desserts were there but we had to clean our plate and had only 3 foods we didn’t have to eat. Liver wasn’t included so, I had to cover mine in mustard to eat! Mom always said you have to keep trying things as your taste changes as you get older. My Mom was a Home Economics major and I was too-we joked “Becky Homebecky” My kids know the value of the “family meal”-family sharing and we continue the balanced meals. It was hard at times but we ate together as much as we could and say grace.
The TV show Blue Bloods shows “Sunday Family Dinner” and they say it is the most popular part of the show–rings true! Thanks and blessings!
Ok, if liver was on the had to eat list I am almost scared to ask what the 3 things that you didn’t have to eat were. But I am curious 🙂
I love liver
Well, my three things were turnips, beets and I think sweet potatoes-but true to my Mom, your tastes change and it depends on how they were fixed. I like sweet potatoes now but not fond of the other yet..
Daddy always said my mom could cook a leather boot and make it fit for a king! We think this looks delicious and want to try it!
LOL, I love that!! I hope you get the chance to try it soon!!
Forgot to mention…we always had a balanced meal; meat, a veggie and a starch; never two starches! If we served ourselves, we had to clean our plate but if Mom served us, we didn’t.
What a creative way to teach portion sizes!! Well, I am guessing that is why your Mom did it that way 🙂 .
Sounds good . Pecans are pricey , has anyone used pretzels instead ?
I haven’t tried it but I would love to hear if someone has and how it turned out as well!
My family pretty much grew up the same, with the meat and two or three vegetables, some type of homemade bread, whether it was cornbread, biscuits or rolls. During the summer when there was a garden there would be lots vegetables and the glorious wilted lettuce, made from simpson lettuce, radishes, green onions, bacon and the dressing was vinegar and bacon grease heated to a boil and poured over the salad. GLORY! Both my parents and my grandparents were all fantastic cooks. A lot of my memories are of being at my grandparents house, because my parents divorced and we stayed with them for a time. Those were some of my favorite memories. We always ate around the dinner table. The television went off at supper time and we would enjoy the meal and each other’s company. To be fully present in the moment, was what I noticed about my grandparents. There was no where else they were thinking about or wanted to be. People today seemed, like they are always divided and never present in your company. I like the meat and three meal, but that is a lot of food for me to eat unless I eat small portions, and I have no self control! At my grandparents, there was always something for dessert, even after lunch. My grandparents love sweets and ate them everyday. I have a huge sweet tooth too, but I limit my sweets to Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I enjoy cooking and making things that other people eat around the world, so I can explore their culture through food. It makes me happy. I do wish people could get back to the family table, turn off the television and THE PHONES and just be together and talk to one another. I think that would make a big difference in our society that is so fractured at present. We should focus on how we are all alike instead of how we are different and love each other.
As for this salad, my mother makes a version of this, but her version uses cream cheese and marshmallow crème. Then you fold in the grapes and pecans. It is good, but I think I would like this better. Brown sugar makes everything better! I will try this version very soon.
Christy, I love your recipes! I made this Grape Salad & it is delicious! I could eat it all myself! I have 3 boys & the middle one is allergic to nuts, so I took some pretzels & crushed them up as a substitute for the pecans! It is still awesome! Growing up my Family was myself & my parents & 2 sisters, we ate just like your family…. I still try to make at least 4 big dinners a week, life is busy but we love home cooking! Thank you for all your great ideas….
I grew up on the same fare–a meat, a starch, a couple of vegetable choices, unless it was summer and the garden was booming, then there were all the vegetables you could want! spring lettuce was about the first thing we could pull come fair weather, and after winter, we craved it! Most of our meals were seasonal. We ate a lot of apple pies, cobblers, and applesauce when the orchard was coming off, likewise the dew weeks a year we looked forward to blackberry cobblers, blueberry pies, and pear crisps, depending on what we were picking at any given time. Dessert wasn’t a given, and always involved some kind of fruit until us kids got older and started baking (birthday cakes were the exception). In winter we ate a lot of what mom had canned or frozen, plus a lot of beans (white, pinto), purple-hull peas and cornbread. These are the same reasons I start craving a good cold tomato when the summer starts heating up, fried squirrel when October turns crisp and pan-fried perch when the springtime starts showing her face. The seasons had everything to do with how we ate. We did occasionally have spaghetti, but it wasn’t until we were teenagers that we introduced “exotic” foods like tacos and lasagna to our family table. Young people and their crazy ideas. Ha ha!
I grew up on the same fare–a meat, a starch, a couple of vegetable choices, unless it was summer and the garden was booming, then there were all the vegetables you could want! spring lettuce was about the first thing we could pull come fair weather, and after winter, we craved it! Most of our meals were seasonal. We ate a lot of apple pies, cobblers, and applesauce when the orchard was coming off, likewise the dew weeks a year we looked forward to blackberry cobblers, blueberry pies, and pear crisps, depending on what we were picking at any given time. Dessert wasn’t a given, and always involved some kind of fruit until us kids got older and started baking (birthday cakes were the exception). In winter we ate a lot of what mom had canned or frozen, plus a lot of beans (white, pinto), purple-hull peas and cornbread. These are the same reasons I start craving a good cold tomato when the summer starts heating up, fried squirrel when October turns crisp and pan-fried perch when the springtime starts showing her face. The seasons had everything to do with how we ate. We did occasionally have spaghetti, but it wasn’t until we were teenagers that we introduced “exotic” foods like tacos and lasagna to our family table. Young people and their crazy ideas. Ha ha!
We did sit down together every night and any friends or neighbors that might be around were invited to sit and eat as well. Some of my most cherished memories are from that table, so I made sure my kids had the same. And you’re so right about visiting other people and getting a culture shock! I had a couple of friends I loved dearly, but when I’d get home from an overnight at their house, I was STARVING and rummaging mama’s kitchen for something.
I don’t know about you Susan but I always felt so bad for those friends. I use to worry they were going to dry up and blow away, LOL.
I have been making this salad for a few years now!! It is expected at every family gathering!! I do one thing different, we like to use green and red grapes More coloroful! This is truly a gem of a recipe!!
Christy, my recipe for grape salad has a cup of shredded cheddar cheese mixed with the pecans and brown sugar as the topping. It is delicious!
That is interesting, I will have to give it a try! Is everything else the same?
I love grape salad. Had it for the first time when I visited my sister in law in Texas. No one up here really knows what it is. I occasionally make it as a desert when the mood strikes for my family. Certainly not a WW item. Yumm.
Oh my goodness, we have a new mission Sue! We have to let everyone up there know about Grape Salad!! I think everyone should get to at least try it once in their lifetime!!
First of all what a beautiful and comforting story. It brought back so many memories of my childhood. I grew up on a farm. We had all kinds of farm animals that we fed to feed our family of 4 kids and my parents. We grew tobacco to provide for us all. We were in the tobacco fields from sun up until dark in the summertime until early fall. My mom always fixed 3 meals a day. Breakfast was a meat, homemade gravy, homemade biscuits and eggs. For dinner and supper was always a meat and 2 vegetables with homemade biscuits or cornbread, alot of times both and a dessert. We had sweet tea and milk. Milk, buttermilk and butter from the cow we milked every day. This was 365 days a year. Needless to say we never went hungry. We were truly blessed. Fast forward 40 yrs and although it’s just my mom and dad at home, she still prepares meals for my dad and herself with 3 square meals a day. Their in their late 80’s and I’m so thankful and blessed to still have them in my life. They provided a loving home where we put God first and family.
Thank you for this recipe. I made this with the only added addition being I added 1/2 cup of chopped pecans in the salad. I shared it with my mom and dad and they loved it so good my mom is now making it. My mom uses Splenda in place of sugar. My sister-in-laws are making it also. It’s a homerun no matter how you hit it. Thanks so much.
So excited to try this grape salad! I recently came across your cook book in a used bookstore. My husband and I are from South Carolina, but are currently stationed in Alaska through the military. I made your fried chicken, sweet and sour green beans, and baked mac n’ cheese last night. It was AMAZING! It has been a long time since we have had good, true southern food, and it was a balm to our souls. I am excited to work through your cook book as well as follow your website for additional recipes. Thank you!!
This is absolutely delicious and so easy to prepare. Can be a salad or dessert.
Thank you sooo much for the recipe
Okay….so I left out some of the sweet and added some left over baked chicken all cut up. Then it was a nice supper salad, a few pieces of broken up fresh broccoli adds a nice fresh crispness too!
I love to make grape salad. This is the recipe I use all the time.
This grape salad has become a new favorite in our house! I would never have thought to put that combination together, but….wow! It is so delicious! Thanks so much!
Thank you for sharing this grape salad recipe. I have been looking for a recipe for quite some time and here it is, finally. I think this will be on the Easter menu—great-grands (sibs who are 11 mos apart, ages 2&3) love fruit and grapes are their “go-to” fruit.
I am so glad you found it!! I hope everyone enjoys the Grape Salad!!!
Excellent recipe, Christy! I decided to make it more of a “fruit salad” by also adding pineapple and mandarin oranges. The “dressing” proportion is what makes the dish and would be great with any fruit.
I bet that was wonderful!!