Name: Easy Salted Caramel Sauce
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 15 min
Ingredients: 200 grams granulated sugar (white sugar); 90 grams salted butter; 120 ml double cream; 1 teaspoon salt (1/2 teaspoon if you prefer a less savoury flavour)

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This recipe for salted caramel sauce is one of the easiest recipes with sugar I've ever made. Made in just a few minutes with cream, butter, sugar and salt. Great versatile recipe, you can pour it on top of your favourite pudding, ice cream, use it as a filling for chocolate truffles, cakes or puddings or just dive in with a spoon!

Similar to my old-fashioned chocolate syrup recipe, this salted caramel sauce is much better homemade than bought in a shop and very budget-friendly too!

Why make this recipe?

Easy to make & taste delicious
No need for thermometer to make this recipe
Great to give as a present

My top tips on making this recipe successfully the first time round

Leave the sugar to dissolve properly before boiling it
Don't stir the boiling sugar too much as this might re-crystalise the mixture.

What makes this recipe work

The rich flavour comes from the butter and double cream. I also prefer to use sea salt flakes rather than table salt to keep the salty and sweet flavours separate until you taste it.

Any specialist equipment needed?

The great thing about this recipe is that you don't need any specialist equipment or digital thermometer. Just medium sized saucepan, wooden mixing spoons and pastry brush.

Time saving tip

Double up the recipe if you are thinking of making this as gifts for your family or friends.

My tips on choosing the right salt to get the perfect flavour

To get sweet caramel with a sharp (but very pleasant) taste of salt, use sea salt flakes. These won't dissolve completely and you will end up with a separate flavour of caramel and salt, which will only come together when they dissolve in your mouth.

If you are after all round mixed flavour of sweet/salty caramel, use fine salt. This salt will dissolve into the caramel and you will end up with salted caramel.

Which one you choose is a personal choice. I know that there are people who find the salt blended in sweet caramel fairly repulsive, but they are O.K when it's more localised and added in.

I have to say, that I always use salt sea flakes when I'm making this sauce as a chocolate truffle filling and the combination with chocolate is just perfect.

Ingredients you will need

granulated white sugar (can be brown sugar for a deeper flavour)
salted butter (can be unsalted butter)
double cream (can be single cream, but the sauce will be slightly thinner)
salt (seasalt flakes or table salt)

How to make my easy salted caramel sauce recipe

1. Dissolve sugar

Heat the granulated sugar in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. The sugar will form clumps and eventually melt into a thick brown, amber-colored liquid as you continue to stir. Be careful not to make the liquid too brown or even burn it. It's easily done.

2. Add butter

Once the sugar is completely melted, add the butter. The mixture is going to bubble and increase in volume. Stir the butter gently into the caramel until it is completely melted.

3. Add Double Cream

The next job is to add the double cream - pour it in very slowly and watch out as the caramel sauce bubbles even more. Be careful, because the caramel has a habit of splattering around and hot sugar is no fun!

4. Boil & decide on your salted caramel flavour

Boil the caramel sauce for about 1 minute or shorter if the mixture looks like it starts to burn. You can always move the pan slightly to make sure the caramel mixture is boiling evenly. Not sure why, but our hob is always burning slightly more in the right top corner, even though it's a gas one!

You don't need to use a thermometer to decide when the caramel is ready, instead you check the colour of your caramel to see when it's done. The lighter the colour the lighter the flavour. If you prefer to have a richer flavour, keep boiling the sugar mixture for a bit longer, but don't let it to burn (otherwise the flavour could be spoiled).

5. Add salt & pot

Once done, remove from the heat and stir in 1 teaspoon of salt.

Pour directly into your prepared jam jars (if you'd like to preserve your caramel for later) or allow to cool down before using for other recipes.

How else you can make this recipe?

This is a great basic recipe, which you can use as a starting point for different variations of salted caramel. It's very easy to change the flavour of the salted caramel if you choose a different sugar. Darker sugar will result in a deeper flavour.

You can also add flavouring to complement the salted caramel flavour. For example I sometimes use spices to make the caramel more seasonal - a 1/4 of a teaspoon of ground cinnamon or ground mixed spice works really well with this recipe.

If you want to give your salted caramel a little bit of a spicey kick, 1/4 of a teaspoon of ground chilli powder works wonders. I usually don't want to make the caramel very hot, just add enough chilli to give it a light warm flavour undertones.

Salted caramel sauce is great with

And what are the possible uses for this amazing salted caramel sauce? I'm sure I don't need to list them all here, as this caramel goes with absolutely everything. Here are my recipes that I use my salted caramel sauce with:

Batch size

This recipe will give you 1 large jam jar of salted caramel.

Scaling up this recipe

This recipe can be scaled up - I've made batches 2x the size. You will need large saucepan and please be super careful when you are adding the cream as the cream will steam up and can splatter. The bigger the size, the bigger the splatter, so just take care.

How to store salted caramel sauce

It's best to store your salted caramel sauce in a closed jam jar and in the fridge. Because we've not used any preservatives, cold storage is the best.

What can I use salted caramel sauce on?

The taste of salted caramel is quite distinctive, so I would always use it sparingly. The best way to use your salted caramel sauce is to drizzle it on vanilla or chocolate ice-cream, hot or cold pudding, luxurious topping for your morning breakfast porridge.

You can also easily use salted caramel sauce for baking. I've used it previously for making my chocolate brownies (just drizzle 2-3 table spoons on top of the brownie mixture before you bake it).

Another great way to use your salted caramel sauce is to make a salted caramel truffles. If you have a chocolate truffle shells already made, you can just fill them with your caramel sauce. Alternatively, you can use your salted caramel to flavour the basic chocolate truffle ganache filling mix.

I'm sure you'll work out other fabulous ways of using up your salted caramel sauce!

How long does homemade salted caramel sauce last?

This is a tricky one, because we've used fresh cream, there is a slight chance that a bacteria growth might occur at some stage and spoil your caramel.

To be on a safe side, I use up my salted caramel sauce within 2-3 weeks of making it and I store it in a closed jam jar in a fridge.

To make sure that your salted caramel sauce doesn't go off too soon, boil your cream to get rid of any potential harmful bacteria, pot it whilst it's hot and store it in the fridge.

Can you freeze salted caramel sauce?

Yes, you can freeze it safely for up to 3 month, but you need to transfer it to a plastic container and then freeze it. Glass can be dangerous in the freezer, because cream tend to expand when it's frozen and could potentially shatter the glass container.

If you are pouring your hot caramel directly to a plastic container, make sure that it's suitable for both high temperatures and freezer. Leave to cool down completely and then place in the freezer.

How to fix runny or hard salted caramel sauce

If your salted caramel looks like it's too runny, carry on simmering your caramel for another 5 minutes or so. You can also return the caramel sauce back to the pan even if it's already cooled down. Just be patient and use a medium heat, so that you don't burn your caramel.

Remember that you are making caramel sauce, so the mixture ment to be slightly runny. You'll also notice that the caramel sauce will thicken a little when it cools down completely.

If your salted caramel sauce is to thick, just add a table spoon of double cream to thin the mixture down. If the worse comes to worse, you can always pour the harden caramel sauce on a small shallow tray lined with greaseproof paper and leave it to set. When nearly set, cut the caramel into small pieces and leave to set completely. Wrap into greaseproof paper and you have a homemade salted caramels!