Raspberry Jello Dessert Recipe (2024)

This Raspberry Jello Dessert is our all-time favorite! A variation on the famous “strawberry pretzel salad”, but with a thick graham cracker crust and raspberries instead. This is a simple-to-make and crowd-pleasing treat or addition to your holiday table.

Easy Raspberry Jello Dessert

Being born and raised in Utah, strawberry pretzel salad has been a staple in my diet. They show up at just about any potluck, party, or holiday dinner. Sometimes they’re served for dessert, but more often than not, we pass them off as a salad as if they were filled with leafy greens.

It may be one of my favorite things ever about the place where I live. Because it means I can have a scoop of this “salad” next to a pile of mashed potatoes and green beansplus dessert later on. It’s a beautiful thing.

I mean, there are raspberries in there so that’s got to count for something right?!

This recipe is adapted from the famous Strawberry Pretzel Salad/Dessert Bars. We’re swapping the often-troublesome pretzel crust with my reliable Graham Cracker Crust, thickening the center layer a bit to avoid seeping, and swapping strawberries for raspberries. Truthfully, this version is my favorite! And you can bet this Raspberry Jello Dessert is always on my holiday table!

And a side note: Jello®is a brand name of a type of gelatin dessert. Any prepared gelatin dessert mix will work.

Graham Cracker Crust

Raspberry Jello Dessert starts with a thick, sweet, and buttery graham cracker crust. These tips below will help to ensure a perfect crust every single time!

• Let the melted butter cool. Once the butter is melted, it needs to cool back to room temperature. If the butter is hot, it will melt the sugar and crushed crackers, which will cause a greasy crust.
• Measure the crumbs. While it’s easiest to just add graham cracker sheets to the blender and hope for the best, there can be a good amount of variation from cracker to cracker and brand to brand. Measure the crumbs instead of counting out graham cracker sheets.
• Blend graham crackers thoroughly. To ensure there aren’t large chunks of graham cracker in the crust, which will affect how nicely these Raspberry Jello Dessert bars cut out, thoroughly blend the graham crackers until they are fine crumbs. Add any chunks that didn’t blend completely back into the blender and blend again.

Cheesecake Filling

This Raspberry Jello Dessert does not work well with lower fat products (particularly lower fat cream cheese or whipped topping). Low-fat products won’t thicken up or set properly, which can cause a watery filling that allows the Jello to seep through and cause the crust to become soggy. We need all the firmness in this layer!

• Cream cheese: For best results, use full-fat brick-style cream cheese. I also recommend a good quality brand; We love Philadelphia Cream Cheese® best.
• Whipped topping: Be sure the whipped topping is fully thawed through so it can fold in nicely with the other ingredients.
• Sugar: This ensures a sweet cheesecake-esque filling. We think the amount of sugar is perfect, but if you’d prefer a tarter filling, reduce this amount a touch.
• Vanilla: This adds a nice complexity and “finishing touch” to this layer.

Raspberry Jello Topping

The last layer of this layered Raspberry Jello Dessert is only 3 ingredients:

• Raspberry Jello: Watch the ounces on the box to ensure you grab the right size — we’re looking for the big box (a full 6 ounces). Avoid lower-sugar alternatives here.
• Boiling water.
• Frozen raspberries: We don’t recommend fresh raspberries in this recipe — we’re relying on them being frozen to help quickly set up that top Jell-o layer!

More Raspberry Treats

• Raspberry Jello Fluffmade with only four ingredients
• Thumbprint Cookies raspberry-almond flavored
• Sparkling Raspberry Lemonadewith frozen raspberries
• Raspberry Barswith lemon
• Cheesecake Filled Raspberriesdipped in chocolate