🥄😍❤️ This Homemade Salted Caramel Sauce Recipe is creamy, buttery, rich, thick, smooth, and blows away anything you’ll ever buy. Best of all, it’s done in 15 minutes!
The BEST Homemade Salted Caramel Sauce
I love caramel sauce and could literally eat it by the spoonful. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, it’s fast and easy to make.
I’ve tried lots of recipes and methods, and I’ve found this is the best, easiest, least fussy way to make homemade caramel sauce, and it’s ready in 15 minutes with no need for a candy thermometer. The easy caramel sauce is creamy, buttery, rich, thick, smooth, and blows away anything you’ll ever buy. You’ll never want store-bought again, which is usually thin, runny, and lackluster in flavor.
I love salted caramel and for salty-and-sweet treats, and always add a pinch of salt to my caramel. Even if you don’t want it ‘salty’, a pinch of salt helps balance the sweetness so the homemade caramel sauce doesn’t taste overly sweet.
Salted caramel sauce makes great gifts and keeps for months, but I doubt it will last long enough to give away.
I’ve made this sauce several times over the past 3 years and it is fantastic. I even made it for Christmas gifts. The recipients loved it.
Billy
What’s in Salted Caramel Sauce?
To make this homemade caramel sauce, you’ll need just a few simple ingredients:
- Granulated sugar
- Water
- Corn syrup – The tiny bit of corn syrup in this recipe helps prevent the homemade caramel sauce from crystallizing, but you can omit it if desired
- Heavy cream – Having never made dairy-free salted caramel sauce, I can’t say for sure if a non-dairy alternative will work in place of the heavy cream. If you find a method that works for you, please leave me a comment so I can try it for myself
- Vanilla extract – There are pleasant vanilla undertones in this easy caramel sauce, which are heavenly for a vanilla fiend like myself, but the vanilla can be omitted or swapped with bourbon, rum, Grand Marnier, or a favorite liqueur. The alcohol burns off quickly, and it’s a mere 1 tablespoon for the whole batch, and what remains is an extra layer of subtle flavor
- Salt – I used regular table salt, but you can also use kosher or sea salt. Just note that salt with larger flakes tastes less salty than table salt, so you may have to play around with the amount you add in
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How to Make an Easy Salted Caramel Recipe
Once you realize how easy caramel sauce is to make at home, you’ll never go back to the store-bought stuff again!
- Combine the sugar and water with a tiny bit of corn syrup. This reduces the likelihood of crystallization! Then, whisk to melt until smooth.
- Boil in a saucepan over high heat until the mixture is amber colored. Depending on what size pot you use and the conductivity, the boiling time could range from about 5 minutes on the low end to about 10 to 12 minutes on the high end. I have an electric stove, and because I always use a pot much larger than I ‘need’ as insurance against bubble-overs, boiling usually takes about 10 minutes.
- Using a wooden spoon, whisk or stir in the cream, vanilla, and salt. While making this salted caramel sauce, you can swirl the pan gently every minute or two if necessary, but the less the sugary mixture gets on the sides of the pan, the better in preventing crystallization in the final sauce.
- Transfer the sauce to a glass jar or airtight container.
- Use immediately with your favorite desserts like ice cream, caramel chocolate chip brownies, New York cheesecake, or as a dip with apple slices, etc. Or, let the sauce cool completely, and store it for later.
Storage:
You can keep this salted caramel sauce at room temperature for up to a month. There’s no need to store it in the fridge or freezer! If you’re planning on giving it away as gifts, use your best judgment when figuring out how far in advance to make the sauce.
Ways to Use Homemade Salted Caramel Sauce
Here’s how to make caramel sauce from scratch!
Salted Caramel Sauce Recipe
Equipment
- 1 Medium to Large Saucepan
- 1 Glass Jar or Heat-Safe Container
Ingredients
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup water
- 1 teaspoon light-colored corn syrup, can be omitted but helps reduce crystallization
- ½ cup whipping or heavy cream
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract, optional (or substitute with bourbon, rum, Grand Marnier, or a favorite liqueur)
- ½ to 1 teaspoon salt, optional and to taste (for a true ‘salted caramel’ sauce, I use 1 teaspoon)
Instructions
- In a medium to large saucepan (use a pan much larger than you think you’ll need because the sauce will bubble very vigorously at the end), add the sugar, water, corn syrup and bring to a boil over high heat, whisking until sugar has dissolved.
- Allow the mixture to boil for 5 to 12 minutes, or as necessary, for it to turn caramel-colored, at which point it will likely be smoking slightly. The final stage where the mixture turns from pale amber to that perfect shade of caramel can go quickly, in less than 30 seconds, so keep a watchful eye and don’t let it burn. Super stinky and you’ll have to start over. Throughout the boiling time, you can swirl the pan gently every minute or two if necessary, but the less the sugary mixture gets on the sides of the pan, the better in preventing crystallization in the final sauce.
- As soon as the sauce has turned caramel-colored, reduce the heat to low.
- Very carefully and slowly, add the cream. Stand back because mixture will bubble up considerably.
- Optionally, and very carefully, add the vanilla and salt, to taste. Stand back because mixture will bubble up again.
- Whisk until sauce is smooth and combined, and let it boil another 1 minute, which helps thicken it up.
- Transfer sauce to glass jar or heat-safe container (easiest to pour into a 2-cup measuring cup and then easily pour into glass jar). Allow sauce to cool uncovered to room temperature; sauce thickens considerably as it cools.
- Sauce will keep airtight at room temp for at least 1 month, although will likely last much longer; use common sense if giving as gifts with storage considerations.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Recipes That Use Caramel Sauce:
Salted Caramel Buttermilk Brown Sugar Muffins — These easy, one-bowl, no-mixer muffins are soft, wonderfully moist, and the crumb has the perfect balance of density and lightness.
Peanut Butter Twix Caramel Bars — In these bars, there’s buttery shortbread, rich and dense peanut butter, sweet and intense caramel, and smooth dark chocolate.
Salted Caramel Pretzel Blondies — Salty-and-sweet, soft and crunchy. If you enjoy contrasting flavors and textures, these easy blondies are just for you!
Caramel Apple Sheet Pan Pancakes – Craving pancakes but not the work of standing at the stove flipping them? Make these EASY sheet pan pancakes!
Caramel Macchiato Banana Bread – Banana bread that tastes like a caramel macchiato! Soft, tender, infused with salted CARAMEL and topped with a brown sugar glaze!
Caramel Apple Crumble Foil Packs – EASY, zero cleanup, made on the grill (or oven) in record time, and tastes amazing! Juicy apples, chewy crumble topping, and luscious salted caramel…SO irresistible!
Caramel Cream Poke Cake — Poke cakes are always supremely moist and this one reminds me of a cheater’s version of Tres Leches Cake because it’s sweet and creamy.
I keep coming back to this recipe, year after year. It’s simple, quick, and delicious, especially the bourbon variation!
Thanks so much for letting me know that you come back to my recipe year after year! I love the bourbon variation too!
the recipe for salted caramel sauce calls for granulated sugar. To me,
granulated sugar.is white sugar but one of the comments mentions brown sugar.?
Follow what I wrote in the recipe card section which is using white (granulated) sugar. While brown sugar may work, I haven’t tested it. Your white sugar will turn brown, and then into caramel, but with this recipe, better to just follow what I wrote to do rather than experimenting.
Wondering if this can be “canned” ?
I bet it could BUT I am not your girl for that :) I am not a canner and so you’d have to do some investigating on your own for that.
Does this set up if put in fridge. Want to try dipping green grapes in caramel with toothpicks and then dipping the grapes and caramel in chopped nuts.
It gets quite firm in the fridge if you cook as directed. I think it would work fine for the grapes-chopped nuts project you have in mind. If you’ve ever tried store bought thick caramel sauce, such as Trader Joes version, this is similar.
Thank you!
I’ve made this sauce several times over the past 3 years and it is fantastic. I even made it for Christmas gifts. The recipients loved it.
Thanks for the five star review, Billy, and I’m glad this has been a hit! Your recipients are very lucky 😉
This caramel blew me away. You’re right when you say I will never buy it from the store again. I use it in my coffee and so does my teenager. We swirl it around the edges of the cig and the coffee just melts it. So flavorful. I also used the advice to gift it. Small jars is a sweet novelty. Great teacher gifts!
Thanks for the 5 star review and glad this is a winner for you and your family! Always nice when you don’t need to buy a certain thing from a store ever again!
I love this recipe. I’ve made it many times. I’ll never go back to store bought!
Thanks for letting me know it’s a winner and you’ll never go back to storebought!
It is too good. I am literally sitting here with a jar and spoon eating it!
Thanks for the 5 star review, Lisa, and I have been there! With my spoon and a jar. Glad you know how it is :)
Can I make this into a coffee caramel
Perhaps, I have never tried though. I don’t know what you’d exactly do but my guess is a couple teaspoons of very strong instant espresso stirred in at the very end.
Is it supposed to stay soft after it cools? Mine hardened. Wonderful flavor, though!
What I love about a ‘problem’ like this is then having caramels to eat and the second batch for syrup 👀👀❤️ Think I will go accidentally cook a batch too long for caramels myself;) with a second for the caramel oatmeal bars I’m making for a picnic;) great recipe!!
great
Excellent! Perfect consistency and flavor! Burnt my fingers licking the spoon!
Excellent! Perfect consistency and flavor! Burnt my fingers licking the spoon!
Thanks for the 5 star review and glad it was excellent (minus the burn!) !
I haven’t tried this yet. I was wondering, can I use light brown sugar instead of dark brown?
You probably can but I have never tried it, only with dark brown. My only worry if you use light brown is that the caramel flavor won’t be as rich but then again, maybe not. I haven’t tried it.