You only need four ingredients to make this easy homemade salted caramel sauce recipe. It is the BEST and good on just about everything. Make in 10 minutes and take your desserts from wow… to WHOA!
Caramel Sauce: an Insta-Sensation
A few weeks ago we made Salted Caramel Sauce and I shared a photo of it on Instagram. The photo went wild and we got several requests for the recipe. The recipe is on our site, but combined with other recipes –Salted Caramel Apple Crumb Bars and Brown Butter Pumpkin Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting.
I guess the recipe was sort of in hiding. I decided it was time to give our homemade Salted Caramel Sauce it’s own post. Today, I am going to teach you how to make Salted Caramel Sauce! It is SO easy! You only need 4 ingredients!
How to Make Salted Caramel Sauce
If you haven’t made caramel sauce before, don’t be scared. It really is easy, you just have to pay close attention to the caramel. With a little tender love and care, you can create the most amazing homemade Salted Caramel Sauce. Here’s a couple tips:
- There are only four ingredients needed: sugar, butter, heavy cream, and salt. Simple as can be and with those four ingredients, you know it’s going to be good!
- Make sure you have all of your ingredients ready to go before you start making the caramel sauce.
- You don’t have to use a candy thermometer with this recipe, but you do have to watch the caramel sauce VERY closely! You don’t want to burn it and it can start turning dark in color quickly. The caramel sauce should be a dark amber color.
- Add the butter and stir until it melts into the sauce.
- Carefully pour in the heavy cream. The caramel sauce will be hot and you don’t want it to splash.
- Add the sea salt. We use fleur de sel, “flower of salt,” because the salt crystals are fine, delicate, and have a high concentration of minerals, making them the perfect finishing salt. They dissolve instantly when sprinkled into the caramel, adding the perfect touch of salt without interfering with the smooth caramel texture. And if for some reason you don’t like salt in your caramel, you can omit it, but it’s pretty amazing:)
- Let the caramel sauce cool for about 10 minutes in the pan. Pour the caramel into a large jar and cool to room temperature. Put the salted caramel sauce in the refrigerator. Store the salted caramel sauce in the refrigerator for about a month.
- You can make the salted caramel sauce in advance. We always like to have a jar in the refrigerator.
Using Salted Caramel Topping
- This recipe makes about two cups of Salted Caramel Sauce. It will keep in the fridge for about a month…ours never lasts that long:) So what do we do with it? I am always tempted to drink it straight from the jar, it’s that good, but I usually stop myself. Notice I said usually:)
- This Salted Caramel Sauce is great drizzled over ice cream, cookies, brownies, bars, cake, pie, cheesecake, etc. I think I would eat anything that had this salted caramel sauce drizzled all over it. We also use it to make frostings and glazes.
- For an afternoon snack, I like to dip my apple slices into a bowl of Salted Caramel Sauce. An apple a day keeps the doctor away-the doctor never said I couldn’t add caramel:)
More Recipes with Salted Caramel
Everyone needs this Salted Caramel Sauce recipe. It can be used for so many things. It’s a keeper for sure! If you like this homemade caramel topping, you might also like:
- Brown Butter Salted Caramel Snickerdoodles
- Salted Caramel Pretzel Brownies
- Salted Caramel Pretzel Fudge
- Salted Caramel Pretzel Chocolate Chip Cookies
Watch How to Make Salted Caramel Sauce
Salted Caramel Sauce
Ingredients
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into pieces
- 1 cup heavy cream, at room temperature
- 1 to 2 teaspoons fleur de sel or Maldon sea salt flakes* see note
Instructions
- First, make sure you have all of the ingredients ready. Once you start the caramel sauce you have to pay close attention so you don't burn it. To begin, heat the sugar over medium high-heat in the bottom of a heavy 2-3 quart saucepan. When the sugar starts to melt, start whisking the sugar. The sugar will clump up, but keep whisking. It will continue to melt. When the sugar is melted, stop whisking. You can swirl the pan to move the sugar around.
- Continue cooking the sugar until it reaches a deep amber color. Make sure you watch the pan very closely. This is where it is easy to burn the caramel.
- As soon as the sugar reaches the dark amber color, carefully add the butter. Stir until butter is melted.
- Remove the pan from the heat and slowly pour in the heavy cream. Whisk until cream is incorporated and caramel is smooth. Whisk in the fleur de sel or Maldon sea salt flakes.
- Let the caramel sauce cool for about 10 minutes in the pan. Pour the caramel into a large jar and cool to room temperature. Put the salted caramel sauce in the refrigerator. Store the salted caramel sauce in the refrigerator for about a month.
Notes
Nutrition
Have you tried this recipe?
Leave a comment below and share a photo on Instagram. Tag @twopeasandpod and hashtag it with #twopeasandtheirpod
This is delicious but once I put it in the fridge it was no longer “sauce”. I assume I can warm it in the microwave and it will soften back up but did I do something wrong?
When you put it in the fridge it will thicken up. Heat it up in the microwave and stir!
For one like myself where mom over salted everything she cooked. I learned to hate that taste. So for me caramel is perfect as is. But now it is hard to get any caramel without salt. It is a shame.
Why the heck would I use fancy salt for this? They taste the same as table salt, and the only thing different about them (the texture) is getting dissolved away! I used about half the amount of salt called for, since I used table salt, which is saltier than flaky salt, and it was perfect.
Thank you.
Hi I’m Abigail I love salted carmal tis is amazing but is there water i did not see it in in the 4 ingretins
No water in this recipe. Just the 4 ingredients she listed. It does not need water. Just make sure you follow her cooking instructions. 🙂
I wasn’t sure about trying to make this.. and I actually thought I had burnt and ruined it, but I didn’t. And it was the absolute MOST DELICIOUS topping for the brownies I made! You MUST make this if you’ve stumbled across the recipe!!
I have some Peter’s Caramel. Do you think it would work to melt that and just add the amount of salt called for?
I have made this recipe several times. It is delicious and easy to follow. It is also a pretty good arm workout with the constant stirring, but completely worth it!
Glad you love the recipe.
This looks great! My question, would this be similar to ghirardelli sea salt caramel sauce? I use it in my coffee and am trying to start making my own. Thank you!
I’ve never had their caramel sauce so I am not sure.
Once I added the butter, the sauce hardened, and would not mix with the butter or melt back down. Tips on avoiding this?