This easy recipe for homemade caramel sauce is simple and delicious! It’s an easy 4 ingredient recipe that tastes so much better than store-bought.
Caramel Sauce
Something I’m proud of is the fact that I ALWAYS have a jar (or two) of this homemade caramel sauce in my kitchen! Once you make it, you’ll see why I like to keep it handy.
Besides keeping a jar in my kitchen, I also love making big batches of this sauce so I can jar them up and give them as gifts!
Homemade gifts can be hit or miss, but believe me when I say that giving a jar of this sweet dessert sauce to a friend is always a hit. After all, who doesn’t love caramel sauce?!
If you’re a caramel lover like I am, you also need to check out Salted Caramel Chocolate Fudge, Salted Caramel No Bake Cheesecake, and Caramel Cheesecake Stuffed Apple Bread.
Why You’ll Love this Caramel Recipe:
- Handy: Gooey, delicious caramel sauce is perfect on top of pretty much any dessert I can think of. I love always having a jar of caramel sauce to reach for!
- Easy: The steps to making caramel sauce are wonderfully short and simple. Oh, and it only has FOUR ingredients!
- Delicious: If you’ve had store-bought caramel sauce, you already know it’s tasty. However, that stuff can’t hold a candle to how delicious this homemade sauce is!
How to Make Homemade Caramel Sauce
Be sure to see the recipe card below for full ingredients & instructions!
- Boil brown sugar, butter, and heavy whipping cream.
- Stir in the vanilla extract.
- Remove the sauce from heat.
- Allow the sauce to cool and thicken before pouring into jars.
See what I mean? It’s really that easy! Between the short list of inexpensive ingredients and the easy to follow minimal steps, there’s no reason not to treat yourself to a homemade jar of caramel sauce.
Caramel sometimes becomes gritty when the sugar crystallizes, which can happen when some of the sugar gets stuck to the walls of the pan and dries out. I usually prevent gritty caramel by adding a splash of lemon juice to the whole mixture before heating it on the stove. The acid in the lemon juice prevents crystallization. To fix grainy caramel, add more milk (or some water), reheat to dissolve the crystals, and try again!
In an airtight container in the refrigerator, this delicious caramel sauce will stay fresh for up to 2 weeks. You’ll know yours has gone bad if there’s a strange odor or appearance to the sauce. However, in the refrigerator, it really should stay tasty for those 2 weeks. Mine never seems to last that long, though… Because no one in my house (including myself) can stay away from it!
Yes! In an airtight container in the freezer, homemade caramel sauce will stay fresh for up to 3 months. To thaw it, just place the jar of frozen caramel sauce in the refrigerator for a few hours, preferably overnight.
The better question is, how can I NOT use caramel sauce? Seriously, it’s delicious on everything! Here are a few of my favorite foods to drizzle caramel on.
– Homemade Apple Pie
– Easy Homemade Pumpkin Ice Cream
– Homemade Caramel Popcorn
– Homemade Brownies from Scratch
– Savory Bacon Pancakes
Recipe Tips and Tricks
- If you love salted caramel, add a few pinches of sea salt to this sauce. Or, you could use salted butter instead of unsalted. Either way, you’re sure to get a hint of salt in your caramel sauce.
- When you’re heating up the sauce, be sure to stir often! Stirring often ensures that the ingredients will fully combine and prevents the sauce from burning.
- Use dark brown sugar to get the richest caramel flavor. If you can’t find any, just combine 1 tablespoon of molasses with 1 cup of light brown sugar.
I really can’t get enough of this sticky sweet homemade caramel sauce! It’s pretty addictive – once you start drizzling it on popcorn, ice cream, and everything else, you won’t be able to quit it.
If you make this recipe be sure to leave us a comment or rating. Enjoy!
Caramel Sauce Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup brown sugar 213 grams
- ½ cup unsalted butter 113 grams (1 stick)
- ¼ cup heavy whipping cream 57 grams
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 4 grams
Equipment
- Kitchen Scale (optional)
Instructions
- Place the brown sugar, butter, and heavy whipping cream in a medium saucepan seet over medium heat.1 cup brown sugar, ½ cup unsalted butter, ¼ cup heavy whipping cream
- Stir often until it reaches a boil.
- Boil until the sauce begins to thicken, about 2 minutes.
- Stir in the vanilla, then remove from the heat. Transfer to a heat-proof container. The sauce will continue to thicken as it cools.1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Notes
- If you love salted caramel, add a few pinches of sea salt to this sauce. Or, you could use salted butter instead of unsalted. Either way, you’re sure to get a hint of salt in your caramel sauce.
- When you’re heating up the sauce, be sure to stir often! Stirring often ensures that the ingredients will fully combine and prevents the sauce from burning.
- Use dark brown sugar to get the richest caramel flavor. If you can’t find any, just combine 1 tablespoon of molasses with 1 cup of light brown sugar.
Can this be used for chocolate caramel pretzel rods? I usually unwrap caramels and microwave with some cream, let harden in fridge, roll out and cut strips with a knife.
I made the homemade carmel sauce today. I did as it called for and it got real gritty. What did i do wrong?
Hi Donna, it sounds like some of your sugar crystallized. This can happen when sugar gets stuck to the walls of the pan. The best way to prevent this is to add a splash of lemon juice in with the ingredients before heating, and the best way to fix it is to add more liquid and let the crystals melt.
You state that there are 155 cals in a serving of your homemade caramel sauce but it doesn’t say anywhere what size a serving is.
Please add?
Your recipes would be a joy to learn from but it’s more like suffer from due to the sheer number of ads – sometimes at BOTH the top and the bottom of the page Karen Depesoleaving little room for your purpose…
Hi Karen, this recipe makes about 2 cups of caramel (1 pint). A serving is about 3 tablespoons. Unfortunately, the ads are necessary in order to keep this site free for all. If you’d like to skip straight to the recipe, you can click on the “Recipe ⬇” button underneath the recipe title.