Have you seen the trauma salad trend that’s been going viral this year? I love the idea, but honestly… all the candy mixed up like that gives me a little OCD crazy feelings.
Instead, I opted to create this fun new take making it into an organized and pretty rainbow candy salad!
The rainbow party treat is crazy simple to make and creates a pretty display of candy for any party table.
The best thing about this salad is that the candy coloring does the rainbow design work for you.
Instead of having a heap of candy to dig through you get layered lines of colors that are appealing to every eye from kids to adults.

Rainbow Candy Salad
Equipment
- 1 Big bowl For mixing up the salad.
Ingredients
- 5-10 bags Candy in colorful hues
Instructions
- Buy candy in a rainbow of hues, or have friends all bring over a specific color if you are creating this as a group.
- Divide any mixed rainbow candy up into bowls based on the color scheme.
- Place candy in rainbow color scheme into bowl for serving. If doing a dump salad you can either dump the candy into the colored bowls and then lay out for the salad, or you can dump into the big bowl and arrange in a rainbow as you go.
Best rainbow candy for mixing
One thing I learned was important about this candy salad is to not mix the wrong types of candy.
What might be the wrong things to mix?
- You don’t want to include any candy that is hard candy.
- Don’t mix anything with chocolate as it could easily melt.
- Be careful not to mix too overpowering of a taste to your bowl.
- Don’t include anything that is wrapped for obvious reasons.
Here are the candies that I used for my own rainbow candy salad:
Large rainbow marshmallows, Peach rings, gum drops, Swedish fish, licorice pieces, and skittles. You can pick them all up in one easy store run.
Trauma dump salad
To create the salad as the viral trauma dump trend you’ll have each friend bring a specific color of candy.
You can assign this or have them pick based on color matching with their own story.
Once you are all together, you stand in a circle and add your candy to the salad as you share your trauma story.
Afterwards, everyone digs in!
This trend is so popular because it’s connecting, helpful and tasty.
This big shallow serving bowl makes a great candy salad holer.
Obviously, this rainbow candy salad is perfect for a Saint Patrick’s Day party treat. It would be great though all year around at rainbow birthday parties.
In pastel hues you could make it for easter, or really any day you need a party table pick me up in very sweet treat form.
Happy “salad” making!