This Gluten-Free Vegan No-Cook Homemade Caramel Sauce is an easy and healthy recipe made with only 5 clean, real food ingredients. It's the perfect plant-based staple recipe for so many desserts and it's ready to enjoy in under 5 minutes with no stovetop cooking!
Here's Why This Recipe Works
My top 3 favorite reasons:
- A Versatile Plant-Based Staple Recipe - Use it as a drizzle or as a spread.
- Ready In Under 5 Minutes - No stovetop cooking or special equipment needed!
- Made With Only 5 Clean, Real Food Ingredients - Healthy ingredients such as almond butter, coconut oil, maple syrup, vanilla bean powder, and Himalayan pink salt.
Traditional store-bought and homemade caramel sauce usually have ingredients like these:
S.A.D. (Standard American Diet) Breyers Caramel Flavored Ice Cream Sauce Ingredients: Corn Syrup, Sugar, Water, Maltodextrin, Corn Starch Modified, Arabic Gum, Butter (Cream, Salt), Salt, Flavoring Natural, Carrageenan, Lactic Acid, Caramel Color, Potassium Sorbate, Yellow 6, Yellow 5
S.A.D. (Standard American Diet) Homemade Salted Caramel Sauce Ingredients: 1 cup white sugar, 6 tablespoons butter, ½ cup heavy cream, 1 teaspoon salt
You can feel good about making my healthy plant-based recipe because it's raw, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, lectin-free, soy-free, paleo-friendly, contains no refined sugar and is Medical Medium® Compliant.
How To Make This Recipe: Step-by-Step Instructions
Here is how to make this recipe and I'll show you how easy it is with step-by-step instructions below.
Step 1: Add All Ingredients + Whisk
Firstly, add all the ingredients to a small mixing bowl and stir or whisk everything together until it's well combined and smooth.
The consistency of the coconut oil will determine how thick or thin the sauce will be.
- "Soft" or slightly melted coconut oil - will give a thicker, spreadable sauce
- "Melted" or liquid coconut oil - will give a thinner, drizzle-type consistency
Step 2: How To Store
Secondly, since all the ingredients are shelf-stable, you can store the caramel in an air-tight container at room temperature or in the refrigerator.
If you store it in the refrigerator, it will become solid and will need to be slightly warmed under running water to melt the coconut oil and re-whisked before using.
Karielyn's Expert Tips + Ingredient Substitutions
Here are some of my expert tips to make this recipe perfectly:
Coconut Oil: If you don't like the taste or smell of coconut oil, use organic refined coconut oil which has zero coconut taste or smell.
Maple Syrup: Use organic date nectar to keep this recipe 100% Lectin-Free.
Vanilla Bean Powder: Can be substituted with organic pure vanilla extract in the same amount.
Himalayan Pink Salt: This is my salt of preference, however, it can always be substituted with sea salt.
Serving Size: This recipe will make approximately ½ cup of caramel. Nutritional information is for (1) tablespoon which (1) serving.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I Use This Sauce as A Drizzle?
Yes! The great thing about this recipe is you can change the consistency of the caramel sauce just by how "melted" your coconut oil is, which gives you so many options! For example:
- Completely melted and water-thin - you will have a thinner consistency caramel sauce which is perfect for drizzling.
- "Soft" but not completely melted - you will have more of a thicker "spread" type caramel sauce to use as a dip for apples, spread on muffins, cookies, etc.
Is It Easy to Make Caramel from Scratch?
Traditional S.A.D. (Standard American Diet) recipes are very fussy and are easy to mess up. This is because you have to heat the ingredients on the stovetop and be extra careful to not let it burn or harden.
But not mine! With my no-cook plant-based recipe, all you have to do is stir or whisk the 5 simple ingredients together in a bowl - that's it!
Is Caramel Vegan?
Typically, store-bought and homemade caramel are not vegan because they can contain butter and sometimes cream.
In addition, not all sugar is vegan. Non-organic white sugar is whitened using animal bone char, which is why this is the only brand of organic sugar I will buy.
Gluten-Free Vegan No-Cook Homemade Caramel Sauce
Equipment
Ingredients
- ½ cup organic almond butter
- ½ cup organic refined coconut oil
- ½ cup organic maple syrup
- ½ teaspoon organic ground vanilla bean powder
- ⅛ teaspoon Himalayan pink salt
Instructions
- Add all ingredients to a small mixing bowl and whisk together with a whisk until it's creamy and smooth and everything is well combined, especially the coconut oil.
- Store in the pantry or refrigerator in an air-tight BPA-free container. If you store it in the refrigerator, it will become thick and may even be solid due to the coconut oil. Just run your container under warm water to melt it again and re-stir.
Recipe Notes
Nutrition Information
Copyright Notice
The instructions, notes, and photographs for this recipe by Karielyn Tillman of The Healthy Family and Home™ website are copyrighted material. This copyrighted work is protected and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 International License and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) and cannot be legally used without my written permission.
Want More Healthy Vegan Staple Recipes?
Check out these:
- No-Cook Cranberry Sauce
- How to Make Homemade Almond Butter
- How to Make Homemade Coconut Milk
- or my CLEAN EATING Cookbook with 75+ plant-based recipes made with clean, real food ingredients just like this one that you will love!
Did You Make This Recipe?
I'd love to hear about it! Please give it a rating and leave a comment below...it would make my day! 🙂
Share Your Thoughts Below