Easy, silky, salty, & sweet homemade salted caramel sauce that is so versatile. Use to top cheesecake, ice cream, brownies, and more!
How to make salted caramel sauce
This salted caramel sauce takes only 5 minutes to make and is SO good. Plus, it goes with pretty much anything.
You just need:
- Sugar
- Butter
- Heavy Cream
- Sea Salt
There are two ways to make traditional salted caramel sauce – the wet version or the dry version. The wet version is just by adding water as you melt the sugar. This is the dry method, as I don’t add water. The sugar just melts and turns into basically liquid gold. There are pros and cons to using both methods, but the wet method tends to be prone to crystallization and I don’t have problems with the dry method so I like to stick to that!
To make salted caramel sauce:
1. Melt down the sugar into a medium sauce pan, stirring occasionally (pan needs to be big enough that there’s some room to grow, as adding butter and cream makes it bubble up). The sugar will look clumpy, but that’s normal, continue to slowly stir and it will all melt down.
2. Turn off the heat and immediately add room temperature butter, stirring constantly. Followed by adding room temperature cream, again, stirring constantly.
3. Stir in salt. Pour into a heat safe container, such as a mason jar.
4. Store in fridge until ready to serve. Will thicken in the fridge and can easily be reheated several times in the microwave to get back to a warm sauce consistency.
*Using room temperature ingredients is CRITICAL. If you don’t use room temperature ingredients, it can cause the caramel to seize up.
Ways to use salted caramel sauce
- Use it as a topping for my favorite Classic Cheesecake
- Stir in a cup of it to my Brown Butter Rice Krispie Treats to make it a caramel version
- Turtle Rice Krispie Treats
- Salted Caramel Apple Pie
- Loaded Salted Caramel Pretzel Pizookie
- Add it to ice cream
- Add it to frosting
- And so so much more!
Salted Caramel Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup unsalted butter*
- ½ cup heavy cream
- 1 tsp sea salt
Instructions
- Make sure all of your ingredients are room temperature. This is critical to keeping a smooth caramel sauce. Pre-measure ingredients so everything is ready to go. Things happen quickly once the caramel gets cooking.
- Heat a medium sized sauce pan to medium high heat on the stove. Heat up sugar, stirring occasionally, until it melts into a golden brown liquid. The sugar will clump up as it begins to melting process - this is normal. Continue to stir and it will melt down to liquid.
- Add butter and stir vigorously until combined. Turn off heat.
- Add room temperature cream and stir vigorously again. It will bubble up, just continue to stir. Remove from the heat. Stir in the salt.
- Pour in a heat safe container, such as a mason jar. Let it cool and store in the fridge for up to 1 month. To reheat, put in the microwave for about 30 seconds, or until warm and melted. You can reheat it several times.
Notes
- You can use salted butter, instead of unsalted. Add 3/4 tsp salt instead of a full tsp, unless you love a strong salted caramel, then you can use recipe as is with the salted butter.
- Make sure you don't cook the sugar too long. Don't step away from the stove - watch it because the color turns very quickly. If it becomes to dark, you've burnt the sugar and it will have leave a bitter taste to the caramel.
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[…] OPTIONAL: For a caramel version – fold in 1 cup of caramel when you add the initial marshmallows! You can use store bought caramel or my easy homemade caramel sauce. […]