Speckled Strawberry fruit salad

 

We visited Red Robin on my daughter's birthday and some of us had their Freckled Fruit Salad. As I was eating it, I thought I'd like to try to replicate the recipe at home. It seems to have four ingredients. I wasn't sure if they just used strawberries or a sweetened strawberry sauce. I decided to try a sauce and think that is probably what theirs is too. 

I could only find cans of light syrup mandarin oranges, not the fruit sweetened variety. 

First I made up some strawberry sauce or topping. I followed a recipe here, but added just 2 tsp of lemon juice instead of the lemon zest. 

Then I put together the canned fruits, pineapple and mandarin organges. 

Next I chopped the apples into small pieces with the skin on. By mixing the apple pieces with the citrus fruits, the apples wouldn't brown. 

Finally I took the cooled strawberry sauce and using a slotted spoon, added the strawberries and most of the sauce. About 1/2 cup of just sauce remained and I saved it for waffles or maybe ice cream. 

After mixing everything together it resembled the fruit salad and tastes great too. 

Ingredients:

Pineapple tidbits - one 20 oz can in juice, drained

Mandarin oranges - two 15 oz cans in light syrup, drained

Jonagold apples - two large apples chopped

Strawberry sauce (16oz strawberries, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup cold water, 1 TB corn starch, 2 tsp lemon juice)