Everyone needs a good caramel sauce – it’s a basic like chocolate sauce or aioli, these things are essentials!
Don’t be fooled by the double coconut in the title, because it doesn’t really taste like coconut, just a deep caramel flavor. The coconut part of this recipe comes from the coconut sugar and coconut cream, which is what makes this recipe healthier than a traditional caramel sauce. It’s dairy free but it doesn’t loose any of it’s richness, and coconut sugar is a great alternative to regular sugar. It’s not that I’m saying alternative sweeteners are healthy – they’re ‘healthier’ which is good enough for me!
For caramel sauces, it’s best to use the lightest colored pan you own so you can clearly see the color. If you try to cook caramel in a black nonstick saucepan, you’ll really struggle to tell when it’s done, and it’s really easy to burn it if you can’t see the true color!
I found making caramel with coconut sugar to be easier than regular sugar, (which I’ve burned on a number of occasions). It starts off brown and thin in consistency like the left hand photo above, and after a bit of simmering, it turns just slightly browner like the right hand photo above and gets thicker (refer to photo below). The best way to tell if it’s done or not, is to taste it over and over again, (it’s a rough life but someone has to do it) until it tastes like caramel which will happen after about 8-10 minutes of simmering depending on how vigorous of a simmer you’ve got going on.
Tip: Any sauce you make needs to thicken a little, from a cream sauce to caramel sauce, you’ll know they’re done by the way they stand up on their own. In the photo above, you can see the caramel sauce isn’t spreading around, it ‘sits up’ by itself.
I highly recommend serving this with the Caramelized Banana Vanilla Bean Ice Cream I posted earlier this week. Both recipes are great used separately, but when they’re put together it’s too good for words.
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Double Coconut Salted Caramel Sauce
- Total Time: 15 mins
- Yield: 1 1/4 cups sauce 1x
- Diet: Gluten Free
Description
This caramel sauce is perfect with so many desserts and made with alternative sweeteners!
Ingredients
1 – 13.5 ounce can coconut milk, refrigerated, (only the cream)
1 cup coconut sugar
1/4–1/2 Teaspoon sea salt (start with the lesser amount and add more to taste)
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
Instructions
Choose a light colored saucepan so you can see the color of your caramel while you’re cooking it.
Skim the hardened coconut cream from the top of the refrigerated can of coconut milk, reserving the liquid for another use.
Combine the coconut cream, coconut sugar, and the sea salt together in the saucepan.
Bring the mixture to a boil, and lower the temperature until the caramel it at a rolling simmer, which means it’s bubbling across the entire surface.
Simmer, stirring every couple minutes until it begins to thicken and darken slightly. This will take about 8-10 minutes on average, but you’ll need to taste your sauce once you notice it thickening up.
Once it takes on a caramel flavor, remove it from the heat. Let the sauce cool for a few minutes before whisking in the vanilla extract.
Serve the sauce as desired, or refrigerate to use within 10 days.
- Prep Time: 5 mins
- Cook Time: 10 mins
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Stove Top
- Cuisine: American
Hi Kari,
Could you replace the coconut milk in this recipe with cashew milk instead?
I think you could replace the coconut milk with cashew milk, but the end result might not be as smooth and rich in texture because cashew milk doesn’t have as much fat in it as canned coconut milk. I hope you enjoy the recipe, and be sure to let me know how it goes, or if you have anymore questions!
Normally that’s completely true, but this recipes uses coconut sugar which already has a caramel flavor and color to it. I’ve made this sauce many times that way it’s written and it always comes out with a perfect caramel flavor. If you were to use cane sugar, you would definitely need to caramelize it before adding the cream! 🙂
The flavor was amazing, but I ended up with 20 minutes of cooking before caramelization of the sugars started, and then in lieu of sauce I had toffee I had to bust up with a hammer. The toffee was excellent, but not sauce. Has this happened to you before? Do you know what I did wrong?
From the little I know about candy making you must have cooked the caramel a little too long, it goes from being caramel to ‘hard crack’ stage where it becomes more like toffee. This sauce usually takes around 10 minutes, but because the coconut sugar is already brown the only way to really tell if it’s done is to taste it, (be careful though because caramel is super hot). I’m glad it turned out as a toffee anyways, and I hope you get to enjoy the sauce next time. Be sure to let me know if you have anymore questions! 🙂
i absolutely love this. tried it today and it was a hit amongst my friends!!
I’ll have to admit I really love this caramel sauce too, I almost always have a squeeze bottle of it in the fridge for fancy coffee drinks and drizzles for ice cream!
This was SOOOO easy and delicious! Sauce was a little runnier than I wanted, but I was afraid to cook too long because I didn’t want toffee. Lol. I cooked 12 minutes.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
This looks like melted heaven! I will definitely make it soon.
I hope you enjoy it, I seem to find endless uses for it!
Hi Kari
Ive just come across your lovely website. Ive been looking for a beautiful picture to accompany my recipe for double coconut caramel sauce and I came across yours. Id like to ask you if I may use your picture an include full credit to you and a link to your site? I look forward to hearing from you. Best wishes
Dianne
Thank you so much for your kind words about my website! It would be best if you used your own photo for your recipe to best represent it.
Hi there,
Is coconut cream just as effective? I accidentally purchased coconut cream instead of milk 🙁
Thanks for the recipe. I will hopefully make this today and try it out 🙂
I think coconut cream should work instead, but I’m not sure how much you’d need to use. My grocery store just started carrying it so I’m really excited to start using it for all kinds of desserts! 🙂
wow this sauce looks delicious, i probably could just eat this sauce by the bowl full.. it looks that good!
It is remarkably good by the spoonful directly out of the fridge!
I know it’s weird but I don’t like audiobooks. I don’t know why but I gets super irritated, even when the narrator is awesome. Maybe I’m old fashion…
But I do love me some caramel sauce made with coconut milk, it’s one of the best things ever!
I know a few people that don’t like them! I like them best for house chores and such! 🙂 Hope you like the caramel sauce.
MMMMMMM! Pinned!!!
Thanks Adrienne, I hope you enjoy it!