Mama’s Ambrosia Recipe – Lana’s Cooking

Mama’s Ambrosia is a cherished Christmas tradition in our family, showcasing a delicious, refreshing combination of Navel oranges and sweetened shredded coconut. Learn how to create this simple yet heavenly dessert that will brighten up your holiday table.

This is one of my favorite recipes of all time. Actually, it’s hardly a recipe. Just two, maybe three ingredients and a little work is all that’s required, but the result? Well, it tastes like Heaven to me.

Mama’s Ambrosia contains two simple ingredients, resulting in a bright, clean flavor. The bright, slightly acidic bite of orange paired with an almost creamy sweetness from the coconut. Yum. Yum.

I vividly remember this dessert being on our table for Christmas every year when I was a child. And I remember Mama standing at the kitchen counter peeling and peeling and peeling oranges. The kitchen smelled like an orange grove in bloom by the time she was finished.

Over the years, I’ve found that there are about as many recipes for ambrosia as there are cooks making ambrosia. And over those years, I’ve also never found another ambrosia recipe as simple as this one.

I believe most people think of ambrosia as a combination of oranges, pineapple, coconut, and other fruits, with some sort of sweet dressing such as “cool whip” or sour cream. In our family, we call that fruit salad. It’s quite different from our orange ambrosia, and it’s delicious, too, but for us…this is ambrosia.

But let me also make one thing clear – whichever way your Mama makes it…that’s the right way 🙂

— This post was originally published on January 8, 2013. It has been updated with additional information.