A quick and easy recipe for 4-ingredient date caramel sauce made from medjool dates. Perfect as a dip or topping for healthy treats. Vegan and gluten-free.
Just popping in with a quick recipe for my homemade date caramel sauce today. This recipe has been in my post drafts since last year and for whatever reason I never got around to posting it. I feel awful because I made you live an whole year without sharing this gem.
I’m truly sorry because it’s legit the perfect complement to a fresh picked apple. Speaking of which, have you been apple picking this fall yet? I went with a friend to Carter Mountain (right outside of Charlottesville) last month on the way home from the Veritas yoga retreat. The weather was blazing hot, but it was still fun.
I brought home a huge bag of fresh apples and polished them off way too fast. I totally had plans to bake something delicious, maybe this vegan gluten-free apple crisp or perhaps these apple pie squares, but I ended up just chopping up an apple (sometimes two) a day and eating them as a snack.
I blame this date caramel sauce.
It’s too good to resist. And I love that it’s made with real food, simple ingredients (fresh medjool dates, almond milk, sea salt and vanilla). That’s it!
This date caramel is sweet and delicious. It definitely still has sugar, but I love that the dates are able to provide the rich sweet caramel flavor along with fiber and host of other vitamins and minerals. Medjool dates are a great source of potassium, copper, magnesium, vitamin B6, niacin, calcium, iron and vitamin K.
Added bonus, there’s no heavy cream or butter involved so this caramel is dairy-free and vegan. Boom!
I hope you enjoy it as much as we do. I’ll be share some fun recipes that include this date caramel so be on the look out for those soon.
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A quick and easy recipe for 4-ingredient date caramel sauce made from medjool dates. Perfect as a dip or topping for healthy treats. Vegan and gluten-free.
Ingredients
- 16 medjool dates, pitted*
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk (store-bought or homemade)
Instructions
- Add all ingredients into a high powered blender or food processor (affiliate link) and blend until mixture is smooth and there are no date chunks detectable.
- Add more almond milk if needed to help the blending process or to thin the caramel. Use immediately or store in the fridge for later.
Notes
*Recipe works best fresh, soft medjool dates. If dates are dry or hard, you can soak them in water for about 30 minutes, drain and then use them in the recipe. If you’re using smaller dates, you’ll need to use more! This is something you can play around with to get the caramel sauce thickness you’re looking for.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 2 Tablespoons
- Calories: 137
- Sugar: 32g
- Sodium: 148mg
- Fat: 0g
- Saturated Fat: 0g
- Trans Fat: 0g
- Carbohydrates: 36g
- Fiber: 3g
- Protein: 1g
- Cholesterol: 0
Keywords: date caramel, date caramel sauce
If you make this date caramel sauce let me know how it turns out in the comment section and leave a star rating!
Aoife says
October 13, 2017 at 6:37 amCan this be done with cow’s milk?
Brittany Mullins says
October 13, 2017 at 4:02 pmI haven’t tried it, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work! Let me know if you try it. 🙂
Patricia @Sweet and Strong says
October 13, 2017 at 8:35 amYUM! I am obsessed with dates and had no idea that had so many health benefits too. More reasons to eat them!
Chelsea @ Healthy Fabulous Life says
October 13, 2017 at 8:42 amOk…I’m putting this on everything!! Can’t wait to see what you make with this!
Linda says
October 13, 2017 at 11:28 amBrittany, do you think coconut milk would work, as well? We have an almond allergy in the fam!
Brittany Mullins says
October 13, 2017 at 4:03 pmHi Linda. Yes, I think coconut milk (or any other milk) will work great!
Emily @ Pizza & Pull-ups says
October 13, 2017 at 1:09 pmYum, I had been meaning to try making date caramel, thanks for the recipe!
Mary Kay says
October 15, 2017 at 6:59 pmThis is amazing! Only problem I had was having enough volume of mixture in my Vitamix so I had to keep scraping it down. I was never really able to blend all the date pieces up, but that did not affect the taste. Dunked my fresh Honeycrisp apples in the “caramel.” WOW!!!
Umm Abdullah says
October 18, 2017 at 4:04 pmI live in Kuwait, and we love our dates! So I’m looking forward to making this… but it says “1/2 unsweetened almond milk”. Is that 1/2 cup, 1/2 TBSP, or what?
Brittany Mullins says
October 18, 2017 at 8:55 pmOops. I should be 1/2 cup. So sorry about that.
Judy Meyer says
October 18, 2017 at 4:30 pmIs that 1/2 cup Almond Milk? It just says 1/2 Almond Milk.
Danae says
March 3, 2018 at 2:36 pmDelicious!!! Tastes like real caramel only that it is super healthy. According to TCM dates are great for skin and tissues and rebuilding blood… great for women – all in moderation but now I have a way to integrate them in the most delectable way ever. Many THANKS!
Jacqueline says
April 14, 2018 at 2:43 pmCan the date caramel be frozen?
Amy says
May 4, 2018 at 2:18 pmOmg this caramel is so delicious! Thanks for sharing, I’m eating some with apple slices now and plan to put the rest into a vegan snickers cream pie later 😀
★★★★★
Jenn says
June 26, 2018 at 10:56 amHow long will this last in the fridge? I’m thinking of using it as an addition to ice coffee too.
Brittany Mullins says
June 27, 2018 at 9:40 amHi Jenn! It should last at least a week in the fridge and omg, I bet it will be delicious in iced coffee. Can you report back? 🙂
Richard Pascual says
August 28, 2018 at 7:57 amThis is so good and so easy!
I did find that 1tsp of salt could be too much, so I only added a bit over 1/2tsp and still find that I can taste the salt a lottle too much. I mean, I love salted caramel but the salty aftertaste on this was a bit much. I think 1/2 tsp, or even 1/4tsp, would be just perfect!
Thanks for the recipe!!
★★★★
Esther says
October 30, 2018 at 8:47 amCan I use water instead of milk? I’m all out lol!
Brittany Mullins says
October 30, 2018 at 10:07 amIt might be less creamy but it should still work! Let me know if you try it!
Mindy says
January 30, 2019 at 12:06 pmAmazing!!! I have to go dairy free while nursing and miss the sweets. This recipe was incredibly easy and tasty. I used some and added chopped pecans and shredded coconut…. tasted like the frosting for a German chocolate cake. Put it on a rice cake -so yummy!!!
★★★★★
Chelsie says
February 11, 2019 at 4:54 pmOh my goodness this is so so yummy! My 18 month old wants to eat spoonfuls of it! I had to cut him off haha! Thank you for this delicious recipe.
L Ann Stoeckl says
March 14, 2019 at 5:09 pmThis makes a terrific caramel latte.
★★★★
Linda Whalen says
April 8, 2019 at 2:05 pmDelicious! Might just be licking the lid of the food processor…just sayin’. Thanks, Brittany, for another scrumptious and healthier version recipe.
★★★★★
Linda Whalen says
April 8, 2019 at 2:08 pmForgot to mention, used unsweetened cartoned coconut milk. Superb!
★★★★★