Sticky Keto Caramel Sauce Recipe That Won’t Crystallize or Harden

Salted caramel. It’s the best topping for desserts.  Period. There are all kinds of keto caramel sauce recipes out there, but they have one thing in common.  They crystallize in the fridge.  I mean hard as a rock until you heat it back up again.

But traditional caramel sauce is the best cold. The fats from the butter and cream solidify to give caramel sauce that slow dripping thick and gooey feel with a slight bit of chew.  That’s what I want on top of my cheesecake, or muffins, or you know what, my spoon. 

The texture is a big thing for me and I have avoided making keto homemade caramel sauce primarily because of this grainy crystallization you get from using sweeteners like erythritol or xylitol.   

But after a long time I did find a solution, and after 5 batches, I finally got the recipe right.  A perfectly thick and gooey salted caramel you can store in the fridge. 

Sticky salted caramel sauce Made without Sugar

Look at that caramel! Isn’t it a thing of beauty?

I have so many good recipes that I would love to recreate without sugar and carbs but some of then are difficult to do.  Any recipe that calls for a cold caramel has been tricky up to this point.  Adding a low carb caramel to ice cream for example never worked out all that well.  Since most of the sugar free caramel sauces were made with artificial sweeteners like erythritol, or xylitol, the minute you added the caramel to the ice cream – boom hard as a rock and grainy. 

But what if you could make a homemade keto caramel sauce recipe that didn’t seize up when cold?  It would open a whole bevy of recipes to try out.  

So that’s what I did, I mucked about with this recipe until I finally arrived on a caramel sauce that worked when cold and tasted like the real thing. Watching it drip off the back of a spoon is a thing of beauty.

A few simple ingredients 

Butter, cream, salt, vanilla, and allulose are all you need.   You could even skip the vanilla or even the salt, but I like the depth of flavor they both bring to the dish.   

I also like to use unsalted butter in this recipe because I feel unsalted butter is sweeter.  Call me crazy, but I have always felt that way about butter, especially in baking.  If you only have salted butter, you can use it.  Make sure if you do use salted butter you reduce the added salt in the recipe. 

While we are talking about salt, I like my caramel salted so I added additional salt to the recipe.  You don’t have to make this a salted caramel.  If you want to make a simple keto caramel sauce simply omit the additional salt.  Easy peasy.  The removal of the salt will not at all change the recipe. 

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a bit about the sweeteners 

Alright, here is the thing, there really are no options for this recipe. Allulose is the only keto sweetener for this recipe.   

You can make this keto caramel recipe with xylitol or erythritol, but these sugar alcohols will firm up when cold and change the texture.  

Allulose works exceptionally well in this recipe because it does not crystallize when cold.  It also browns and thickens much like regular sugar so the caramel you make with allulose mimics the real thing pretty well. 

Allulose has no cooling sensation or weird aftertaste either.  The caramel flavor is not at all dulled by “extra” notes that tend to be added when we use sweeteners like xylitol, swerve, or erythritol. 

Tips to make sure your caramel turns out perfect

There are several ways to screw up a caramel recipe. Ask me how I know.

So long as you follow these tips, this is actually a very easy recipe!

Traditional caramel is made by heating white sugar and corn syrup to 350 degrees, adding in the heavy whipping cream, vanilla, and salt, and blending in cubes of butter until melted.  I tried this the first time, and although I ended up with a beautiful batch of caramel, it was bitter. The allulose over browned, and made my caramel a bit too “burnt” for my tastes. 

Slow heating the allulose with the ingredients was the best way to make a perfect caramel sauce.  A slow simmer over low heat for 15-17 minutes, until it had a wonderful golden color, created a beautiful low-carb caramel sauce without any bitterness. 

A few more tips: 

1. Caramel is HOT.  Be sure to wear gloves and be very careful working with the caramel as it will stick to your skin and give you one terrible burn.  Ask me how I know. 
2. Keep the heat on low, don’t be tempted to use high heat to speed the process.  I already tested this for you! It’s a no go. High temperatures will over cook your allulose, making it bitter.
3. Don’t be tempted to stir your caramel sauce while it is cooking.  Stirring causes brown bits of caramel to ride up the side of the sauce the pan, stick, burn and fall back into your caramel, creating bitterness.

Storage and serving suggestions

This sugar free caramel sauce will store in the fridge for 2 weeks.  Could you store it longer?  I am sure you could, I had one of the test bottles in there for 2 weeks and it showed no signs of spoilage, but 2 weeks is a safe bet.   

But guys, seriously, since this caramel sauce is keto-friendly, sugar-free, and low carb, go ahead and put it on all-the-things! Make your own caramel macchiatos, top your sugar-free ice creams, or add it to your arsenal of kick-ass ingredients for your low carb baking.  So many things! 

Hope you enjoy working with it as much as I have. 

One extra step to make the keto caramel sauce thick at room temperature. 

This is 100% optional

At room temperature, this caramel isn’t as gooey or thick as it is out of the fridge. 

If you wanted to make this recipe so that it was super thick while warm you could add 1 1/2 tsp of Pomona’s 100% pectin.  It would add a world of thickness without spoiling the texture. Pomona’s is 100% pure pectin has no added sugars, is non-GMO and works exceptionally well to thicken without sugar.   

Simply add the pectin to the allulose at the start of the recipe and blend in before adding the cream and butter.  Continue with the recipe as written. 

Uses for This Sugar Free Caramel Recipe

I mean, what couldn’t you use this stuff on? This sugar-free caramel syrup goes great on so many keto and low carb treats! Pour it over keto ice cream, use it in low carb dessert recipes, or eat it right off the spoon! Ok, maybe eating it off the spoon is a bit excessive, but I can’t say I haven’t done it!

Just because you’re on a keto diet doesn’t mean you can’t have sweets. So long as you plan ahead and have things like this perfect keto caramel sauce ready, you’ll be prepared when those cravings hit.

Editorial Note: This post was originally published on August 6, 2019, and was update on February 21, 2022.

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