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 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 caramel sauce primarily because of this grainy crystallization you get from using sweeteners like erythritol or xylitol.
But 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 caramel sauces were made with 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 keto caramel sauce 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.
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.
a bit about the sweeteners
Alright, here is the thing, there really are no options for this recipe. Allulose is the only way to go.
You can make this keto caramel sauce with xylitol or erythritol, but it 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.
Traditional caramel is made by heating sugar to 350 degrees, adding in the cream, vanilla, and salt, and blending in cubes of butter until melted. I tried this 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 method that worked the best. A slow simmer over low heat for 15-17 minutes created a beautiful keto caramel sauce without any bitterness.
A few more tips:
- 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.
- Keep the heat on low, don’t be tempted to turn the heat up to speed the process. I already tested this for you! It’s a no go.
- Don’t be tempted to stir your caramel sauce while it is cooking. Stirring causes 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 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% gelatin. 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.
Thick and Sticky Keto Carmel Sauce That Won't Crystallize
Thick and gooey sugar-free salted caramel sauce. This low carb caramel only takes a few ingredients and creates a wonderfully sweet and sticky caramel to top all your low-carb and gluten-free desserts.
Ingredients
- 1 cup allulose
- 1 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla
Instructions
- Add all ingredients to a high walled saucepan.
- Turn the heat on low and allow ingredients to melt. Stir to combine before caramel starts to simmer.
- Allow to simmer on low heat for 15-16 minutes, or until the caramel turns a light amber brown. Do not stir while ingredients are simmering.
- Working carefully, pour caramel into a heatproof jar.
- Cool to room temperature and then place in the fridge to firm.
Notes
**The entire recipe has only 3.3 net carbs from the heavy cream. The net carb count is too low for the recipe card to add a number on a single tablespoon serving. **
Optional Step to make caramel thick at room temp
Caramel is thick out of the fridge, and a bit thinner at room temperature. If you want a caramel sauce that is also thick at room temperature add 1 1/2 Tsp of Pomona's 100% pure pectin.
Low sugar required pectins, like Certo, or Bernadin will also work, but each teaspoon does have a bit of sugar; this is why I prefer Pomona's as the only ingredient is pectin.
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Nutrition Information:
Yield: 32 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 57Total Fat: 6gSaturated Fat: 4gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 2gCholesterol: 18mgSodium: 98mgCarbohydrates: 0gFiber: 0gSugar: 0gProtein: 0g
Hello,
Can I substitute allulose with erythritol?
Hi Yvette, the challenge with using erythritol in this recipe is it will turn grainy and hard in the fridge. If you want a truly smooth caramel, that will stay sticky and smooth under cold temperatures, allulose is the only one I found that actually works. Now with that said, you can substitute erythritol, just know that your caramel will eventually harden and will be grainy. If you use it warm it will soften back up again. I tested recipes until I found one that would stay smooth in cold desserts but if that’s not your challenge, and you don’t mind heating up your caramel before you use it, you can swap the sweeteners out. There is a lot of sweetener in this recipe too, so that cooling sensation from erythritol is fairly pronounced in the final product. You don’t get that at all with allulose. Cheers!
Hi! I am so excited to try this recipe! Can I substitute the allulose with powdered stevia?
Hi Sarah, I am sorry, but stevia will not work in this recipe, unfortunately. In the middle of the blog post I talk about why allulose is the only sweetener I have found that will cook to sticky and not turn grainy in the fridge. Stevia lacks the properties to cook and turn sticky.
what is allulose. where do you get it.
google couldn’t give me an n answer
Hi Suzanne, Allulose is a sweetener https://allulose.org/allulose-info/about-allulose/ – you can find it on Amazon, or in health food stores if you are in the US. If you are in Canada you can find it Amazon.ca, or through GTAnutrition. If you are outside of the US or Canada, Allulose may still be pending approval in your country. It’s a relatively new form of sweetener gaining popularity in North America.
How can you claim this is zero carbs when the allulose has 10 carbs per tablespoon?
Hi Kathleen, Allulose is not absorbed by the body. It’s a different type of sweetener vs something like sugar alcohols. In April of 2019, the FDA permitted the change in label, you may have an older label. You can read all about it here https://allulose.org/consumers/health-wellness/reading-the-label/. On some labels it is listed as “sugar”, or “added sugars” – but if you read the article, and check out any research on allulose it’s very well tolerated for low carb diets and the effective carb load is zero.
Just wondering how the caramel sauce turns brown if using a white sweetener? I made a different recipe and used brown Swerve. Your correct about it turning grainy and hardening and having an aftertaste so I would like to try allulose but wondering if it comes in a brown format. Having a real hard time finding it in Canada.
Hi Kassandra. Allulose shares properties with sugar, and it actually caramelizes. As you cook it it will go through a sticky phase, start to brown, and eventually turns that rich caramel color.
You can sometimes find Allulose on Amazon.ca – Hoosier Farms often has it, and then it sells out. You can also find it on https://www.gtanutrition.ca/product/sensato-allulose-all-natural-sweetener-454g/ it’s where I have been purchasing from lately. GTA nutrition has really fast shipping. The only thing though is if you can find it on Amazon from Hoosier Farms it’s cheaper.
Because Allulose is expensive, especially up here in Canada, I tend to only use it in recipes where I know if I used another sweetener I would get graininess.
Hope that helps!
Thanks for including the link to the allulose you use. I’ve never heard of it before, but I love the idea of no weird aftertaste like some artificial sweeteners, and this recipe looks DIVINE!
This recipe is awesome! I used unsalted butter and only 1/2 tsp of Himalaya Pink Salt and it was perfect! It came out pretty runny. Not sure if that was due to needing a thickening agent or if I needed to cook it longer (I did 16 minutes). The next batch I would like to try adding the pectin and I’d like to see which version I like better.
Hi Becca, it will be runny until it’s cold in the fridge. It’s runnyish at room temp, but when it’s cold, it’s pretty thick. If you want it thick at room temp, the pectin trick works really well.
Bought 2 pkg bottles of liquid Allulose and trying to figure out how to use them. Would you think this would work, sweeten and cook down like the granular? As it’s a liquid would I need to reduce other liquids in the recipe? Hate just giving it a go and wasting all these yummy ingredients if it won’t work. Thanks
Hi Heidi, I actually have never seen or tested liquid allulose so I cannot say for sure, or even give you a recommendation on how to do it. I’m in Canada, so even granular Allulose is hard to get my hands on – what’s the brand? I’m really interested in the product and would like to test it. What are the ingredients listed?
Mine is forming a hard white layer at the top when put in the fridge. Tried twice. Don’t get it.
Hi Jessyka, I never had that happen, so lets to try to figure out why. A few quick questions, are you using allulose and no other sweeteners? Is the film like hardened sugar, or like hardened butter?