Don’t want to turn on your oven and bake?
These salty-and sweet bars are your saving grace.
The bars combine sweet with tart, smooth with crumbly, salty with sweet.
And you can knock them out in 15 minutes flat.
The best part of these freezer bars, in addition to being pink, is the use of one of my favorite ingredients, COOL WHIP Whipped Topping.
Copious amount of COOL WHIP in the freezer for a rainy day was totally normal in my household growing up.
This recipe is a play on something my mom used to make called Lemon Lush and when I saw this recipe on the Kraft site for No-Bake Raspberry-Lemon Bars, it got my wheels turning.
In addition to my love for the fluffy stuff, I love a good crumble topping. Actually, I am one of those people who picks off the crumble topping pieces from blueberry muffins or peach cobbler.
They are concentrated little balls of butter and sugar so of course that’s what I go for.
Except this crumb topping is not made from butter and sugar and flour.
It’s made from butter and sugar and Ritz crackers.
I have spring fever, badly. Maybe if I keep making frozen desserts spring and summer will arrive faster.
This is the type of refreshing dessert you want after a hard day at the beach.
In between that beloved crumble topping and the buttery, slightly salty Ritz cracker crust is the tangy-yet-sweet COOL WHIP middle that’s fluffy without being airy.
Gather the goods.
Place the crackers and powdered sugar into the cracker pulverizing container.
If you don’t have one of these or don’t have a food processor, place the crackers and sugar into a large ziptop bag and roll a glass or a rolling pin over it until you have crumbs.
Or hit the power-on switch for about 5 seconds.
How do you make Ritz crackers better? You crush them and add butter and sugar.
Stir until it combines and a dough forms.
Press slightly less than three-quarters of the dough into the prepared pan, reserving the remainder for the crumble topping.
Crack the seal on the thawed container of COOL WHIP.
How do you make a can of pink lemonade juice concentrate become amazing?
Add a can of sweetened condensed milk and a container of COOL WHIP. That’ll do the trick.
Pour the pink mixture over the crust, add the crumb topping, and freeze.
Allow this to set up for at least four hours. While waiting, remember that patience is a virtue.
The middle pink layer never quite freezes solid so you don’t have to struggle to slice it, yet it has a surprisingly long room temperature “shelf life” before it begins to melt.
Must be one of those magical properties of COOL WHIP.
I always go for that bite of softserve that is just slightly melty. This dessert tastes even creamier when it just begins to melt and is going to be my summertime go-to dessert.
Or my put-a-smile-on-my-family’s-face-in-a-hurry-dessert.
Pin This Recipe
Enjoy AverieCooks.com Without Ads! 🆕
Go Ad Free
Pink Lemonade Freezer Bars
Ingredients
- 120 crackers Ritz, about 3 cups crumbs
- ½ cup confectioners’ sugar, heaping
- ¾ cup unsalted butter, melted (1 1/2 sticks)
- one 12-ounce can pink lemonade concentrate, thawed to liquid
- one 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
- one 8-ounce container Cool Whip Whipped Topping, thawed to room temperature
- red or pink food coloring, optional (I used about one dozen drops of red food coloring)
Instructions
- Line a 9-by-9-inch pan with foil and spray with cooking spray.
- Place the crackers and powdered sugar in a food processor or blender to pulverize. Alternatively, cracker-crushing can be done by hand by placing crackers into a large ziptop food storage bag, zipping it shut, and rolling over the bag with a large glass, coffee can, or rolling pin).
- Place the cracker crumbs into a bowl, add the melted butter, and stir to combine.
- Press a little less than 3/4 of the mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan, set the pan aside, and reserve the remaining 1/4 of the cracker crumbs.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine pink lemonade concentrate, sweetened condensed milk, and stir until combined.
- Add the Cool Whip and stir until smooth.
- If desired, add food coloring drops to desired shade and stir until color is uniform.
- Pour the mixture over the crust, noting that you may have an extra half cup or so of the mixture depending on the height of your pan; do not overfill the pan. Use the extra mixture for a mini-tartlette, as a dip for fruit, or just eat it.
- Top with the reserved cracker crumbs by sprinkling evenly over the top.
- Place pan into the freezer to set up for at least 4 hours before slicing and serving. Store extra dessert in the freezer with a sheet of foil over the top. It will keep for up to 3 months.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
©averiecooks.com. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited.
Related Recipes
Ritz-Stuffed Peanut Butter Cups (Vegan, use a GF cracker to make GF)
Related Sweet ‘n Salty Recipes:
Pretzel Peanut Caramel Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Truffles (with Vegan & GF options)
Peanut Butter Cookie Dough, laced with pretzels, encased in chocolate, and topped with more pretzels.
Compost Cookies – Chips of all kinds are included: Potato chips, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips. Sweet, a hint of salty, and full of texture.
Just wanted to say I made these yesterday and I had a little extra to taste test. Love the tangy/sweet/salty combo!
YAY!! Thanks for the report & glad you love them!
I make a recipe in a sound spring form pan with cool whip, frozen juice concentrate, cream cheese, icing sugar and a graham cracker crust. It is then frozen and delicious.
That sounds awesome. I have seen other COOL WHIP + cream cheese recipes but hadn’t ever combined it with sweetened cond milk. It never freezes *quite* solid; whereas I’d imagine it gets more solid/thick with cream cheese. I need to try your recipe!
These look amazing Averie! What a clever idea! I definitely look forward to making these to serve poolside this summer!
Thanks & thanks for the pin!
Hey – the recipe I posted today has CoolWhip!! These sound so delicious and refreshing – and your daughter is just way too adorable!!
I know I was drooling over it…and there have been so many C.W. recipes floating around the past week or so all of a sudden!
these look delicious and are such a cute color! love it!
Ohhh-pink fluffy stuff between a crust and crumble topping. Looks great and easy to make. I have used some cool whip in frostings to “lighten” them up for my husband. He isn’t a fan of rich buttercream like me. I also like to mix cool whip in with my banana soft serve, or just eat it straight out of the container (slightly thawed).
Ohh, I LOVE these!! Especially the no-bake aspect! Perfect after a day at the beach or a summer cookout!
they scream summer cookouts and potlucks, for sure!
Salty and sweet- can’t be beat! I’ll wait to try this on a day when we need some cooling off…but then I have it to look forward to.
The pink lemonade bars look wonderful, perfect treat for the summer for a day on the lake or beach. Awesome job and great pics, the colors are so vibrant and that’s saying a lot from my dinky laptop screen in a hotel! :-)
Love the pink lemonade bars, I am a sucker for pretty pink desserts, and I am a big fan of whipped cream!! Your daughter is very pretty :)
This looks like the perfect summer dessert! Love it!
I LOVE the sweet and salty taste combo- thanks for the recipes!
Cool whip definitely reminds me of being young (in Canada). My parents used to serve it on top of fresh summer strawberries. But they don’t sell it here in the UK!
These look amazing!! Cool whip is a favorite of mine as well :) It definitely reminds me of growing up and dipping strawberry after strawberry into the tub… mmm….. The cracker crumb is genius! I must try asap.
Your daughter is so cute too! That blonde hair, how could she not be yours? :)
Hi Averie. I love the lead-in to this recipe. I have totally had those moments when I needed to whip up a quick snack for those after school impromptu play dates.
I also love the step-by -step instructions and photos as you can see how easy this recipe is to make. You continue to amaze me with your creativity in the kitchen.
Oh I am SO GLAD you saw this and wrote in. You, and the mama/friend above you, Michele, are two mamas I respect so much and I am glad you can relate to my opening line. YES!
And the step-by-step is not something I do every single post in THIS much detail b/c it’s very time consuming, so a 15 min dessert isn’t really a 15min dessert :) But for this post, it was worth it!
Aww, you’re so sweet Averie. The feeling is totally mutual. I admire you because you actually create your recipes and they are stunning as well as delicious. Someday, I will have the confidence to be able to veer away from a recipe and create something of my own.
I know how time consuming step-by-step photos can be. I only do it because my friends need and enjoy them. It’s something they have gotten use to seeing on the blog so I continue doing it for them. Sometimes though, I just want to snap a photo of a finished product and call it a day. That is why I only post 2x a week because it takes so long for me to edit and write up a post.
Thanks for all the great tips on lightroom and the push to buy it. It has done wonders for my photos. :)
I just upgraded to LR4 about 1 week ago. Loving it! The finished images are just a little nicer than with LR3. For the 79 bucks, well worth it.
And doing step by step for others, my friend, you have a life. They arent bloggers and dont know what’s involved in ALL that goes into a post so you make sure you’re taking care of YOU and doing what you need to do :)
Great advice! I need to remember that more :)
I love the looks of these! Amazingly enough, my youngest was telling me yesterday how his favorite juice flavor is pink lemonade! That seems to happen a lot between my kiddos and your posts! Will keep you posted when I make these. Maybe for Fridays sleepover with the three other teenage boys that will be here! Missed u, Averie! :-)
I was hoping you’d see this post and want to make it b/c I actually thought about you when I was making it, thinking I bet Michele’s kids would like this and yes…that is TOO ironic about your kids and my desserts a day or two later. It happens LOTS!
Keep me posted on the results & reactions if you make it!
hillbilly icebox pie. one of my all time, my momma’s from west virginia, zomg I love this stuff.
I love that name! Never heard of that one but off to google it and see how close it comes to this!