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overhead view of caramel sauce with salt in glass jar
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4.86 from 62 votes

Browned Butter Salted Caramel Sauce

Browned butter gives this homemade salted caramel sauce a deliciously deep flavor!
Prep Time5 minutes
Cook Time20 minutes
Total Time25 minutes
Course: Basics, Dessert, Sauce
Cuisine: American
Keyword: homemade caramel
Calories: 1914kcal

Ingredients

  • 6 Tbsp unsalted butter
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream + 2-3 Tbsp warmed up, or at the very least, room temperature
  • 1/4 tsp sea salt

Instructions

Prepare

  • You'll need a high-sided heavy bottomed saucepan for this recipe. Preferably one that is stainless or light in color, so you can use visual cues (the color) to determine doneness of the butter and caramel.

Brown the butter

  • Add butter to saucepan and heat on MED-LOW.
  • The butter will melt, foam up, then the foam will start to go away. Whisk or swirl the pan frequently as it cooks.
  • Brown flecks (the butter solids) will start to form at the bottom. Once they're golden brown (not dark brown or black), and the butter smells nutty, immediately remove pan from the heat.
  • Pour butter into small bowl and set aside to cool.
  • Wash out and dry the saucepan.

Melt the sugar

  • Add sugar to the saucepan and heat over MED-LOW heat, and stir often with a rubber spatula.
  • After several minutes, the sugar will start to melt into a whiteish, then light brown liquid and will look clumpy. More and more clumps will appear, then they will start to melt into a brown liquid. Remember, stir often, breaking up clumps if needed.
  • Make sure all the clumps of sugar have melted before moving on to the next step.

Make the caramel sauce

  • Pour the browned butter in slowly, whisking as you pour.
  • Turn off the burner and remove pan from heat. Add the cream slowly, while whisking continuously.
  • It will foam and bubble up like crazy, but keep whisking and it will settle down.
  • The bubbling will go down and become a glossy sauce.
  • Turn the burner back on to simmer for 1-3 minutes on LOW heat, whisking often.
  • Sauce will thicken as it cools, so if it looks thin, just give it time to cool some.
  • Once it cools for a little bit, stir in the salt.

Serve

  • Use right away or store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 2-4 weeks.

Notes

  1. Recipe makes approximately 1.5 cups, which you can portion into as many servings as you'd like.
  2. As always, all stove burners will heat differently, and all pans will distribute heat differently. Please use your best judgement and visual cues to decide what's best.
  3. If you notice the sugar starting to burn and get very dark while the sugar is still starting to melt, pull the pan off the heat for a minute while stirring. Turn down the heat and continue.
  4. Warming up the cream is essential to making sure the caramel sauce doesn't clump into a huge lump on the end of your whisk.

Nutrition

Calories: 1914kcal | Carbohydrates: 204g | Protein: 5g | Fat: 126g | Saturated Fat: 80g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 5g | Monounsaturated Fat: 32g | Trans Fat: 3g | Cholesterol: 361mg | Sodium: 636mg | Potassium: 176mg | Sugar: 204g | Vitamin A: 4443IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 128mg | Iron: 0.3mg