The salted caramel sauce is a basic preparation useful for creating delicious and very particular desserts: with its salty and slightly bitter aftertaste, in fact, salted caramel has the ability to make any dessert special: an ice cream, a cheesecake or a simple panna cotta can become unforgettable desserts thanks to the addition of this particular sauce. Salted caramel is perfectly enhanced when paired with chocolate, especially dark chocolate, but its flavor also goes well with nuts, pears, or vanilla.
Preparing salted caramel sauce at home is not difficult, however, as always, when dealing with sugar in the caramelization phase, you cannot be distracted and you must pay the utmost attention to avoid burning it. In addition to sugar and obviously salt, caramel sauce is made with cream and butter and once cold it will have the consistency of a soft toffee, suitable for being spread on desserts or, if just warmed in a double boiler, poured over ice creams and desserts.
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- Difficulty: Medium
- Cost: Very cheap
- Preparation time: 1 Minute
- Portions: 12.3 oz
- Cooking methods: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
- Energy 747.60 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 79.63 (g) of which sugars 79.42 (g)
- Proteins 1.36 (g)
- Fat 49.22 (g) of which saturated 18.58 (g)of which unsaturated 10.08 (g)
- Fibers 0.00 (g)
- Sodium 556.83 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 100 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients for about 12.3 oz of salted caramel
- 1 1/3 cups sugar
- 3/4 cup fresh liquid cream (unsweetened)
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 tsp salt (approximately, to taste)
Tools
- 1 Pan with thick bottom
- 1 Whisk spiral; or a fork
- 1 Spoon
- 1 Jar glass
How to Prepare Salted Caramel Sauce
To prepare the salted caramel sauce, start by cutting the butter into cubes; keep it in the fridge until needed. Put the cream in a saucepan over very low heat (1). You will need to bring it to a simmer and try to keep it at this temperature until the end because it must be added hot to the caramel.
Meanwhile, pour the sugar into a thick-bottomed pan and put it on the heat (2). Also, in this case, adjust the flame to a low intensity. Patiently wait for the sugar to melt slowly, without ever stirring it.
If it starts to darken only on the edges, slowly rotate the pan holding it by the handle, to distribute the sugar more evenly (3), but resist the temptation to stir it with a spoon.
You will see it change from white to cream color and then take on a beautiful intense amber color, the typical color of caramel (4).
Turn off the heat immediately and at this point mix the caramel with a spiral whisk or with a fork (5). The aim is to ensure that the sugar is perfectly melted (6).
Then add the cold butter (7) and stir immediately. You will see that the caramel will produce quite a bit of steam, but this is normal. Add the salt at this stage as well (8). Continue to mix well until all the ingredients are perfectly combined (9).
Finally, add the hot cream (10) in stages. You will see that even in this case the salted caramel will produce quite a bit of steam, so be careful not to burn yourself.
After adding the cream, continue to mix with the whisk or a spoon (11) until you obtain a homogeneous sauce. It will still be rather liquid (12) but will thicken as it cools.
Transfer the salted caramel sauce to a glass jar and let it cool completely at room temperature; then, if you do not consume it immediately, store it in the refrigerator. If it hardens too much in the refrigerator, to make it more fluid it will be enough to immerse the closed jar in hot water for about a minute.
For the English version of this recipe click here!
Notes
There is also a video recipe of the salted caramel sauce, follow me on my YouTube channel!
Storage
The salted caramel sauce can be easily stored in the refrigerator for 3 or 4 days. If you want to keep it longer, you will need to jar it in sterilized jars.
Tips for Using Salted Caramel Sauce
The amount of salt can be varied to taste; with these doses, in my opinion, the salted caramel has a very balanced taste, but if you like it to have a more intense salty flavor, you can increase the salt up to 10 g.
The particular taste of salted caramel is able to enhance the most disparate flavors: the pairing with chocolate is among the most classic, and you can try it using salted caramel to garnish a chocolate ganache tart, for example; or a chocolate pudding.
A less known but equally successful pairing is with pears: try these baked pears topped with a bit of salted caramel sauce, which will give them a touch more.
Another possible pairing is with nuts and nougats, as in this semifreddo.
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