Dulce de Leche: So Much Better Homemade

If you’ve never had dulce de leche, the glossy thick milk-based caramel sauce from Latin America, you’ll want to try this easy caramel made with just 5 ingredients.

Taste	Texture
Caramel	Glossy, smooth

Active time	Total time	Yield	Difficulty
10 minutes	2 hours, 10 minutes	2 cups	Easy

Whether you use it in Banoffee Pie or to fill some sandwich cookies, you’ll love having a jar of this sauce in your fridge.

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What is Dulce de Leche?

Dulce de Leche (“sweet milk”) is a caramel sauce made from sweetened milk that hails from Latin America. Different countries call this sauce slightly different things: Dulce de Leche in Argentina (it’s used here in the amazing sandwich cookie Alfajores), Uruguay; Cajeta in Mexico (often made with goat’s milk); and Arequipe in Columbia and Venezuela.

Dulce de leche can be used as a filling for cakes and cookies, a dessert sauce, or as a way to sweeten up coffee or whipped cream.

How is Dulce de Leche Made?

Homemade dulce de leche can be made in a Dutch oven

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, skillet, slow cooker

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or with sweetened condensed milk right in the can.

As the milk simmers over a low heat the milk sugars and the sugar in the mixture slowly caramelizes as the water in the milk evaporates, eventually leaving you with a smooth caramelized sauce that is more spreadable and softer than traditional caramel made only with sugar like Vegan Caramel Sauce or Coffee Caramel Sauce.

Why Homemade Dulce de Leche Beats the Can

1. Cheaper: A can of dulce de leche is currently $5.29 at my local grocery store. A recipe makes about 18 ounces (a can is 13) worth of sauce for a fraction of the cost.
2. Better quality ingredients; no additives: There’s no thickeners (agar) or emulsifiers (Disodium Phosphate) in our homemade dulce de leche. Want to make it dairy-free? You can do that too with coconut sweetened condensed milk.
3. You can add extra flavor: Cinnamon stick adds some extra depth to the flavor, but you could also add in Pumpkin Pie Spice, Apple Pie Spice, or Chai Spice Blend for more complex flavors.
4. You control the consistency: Dulce de Leche straight out of the can it rather thick, light a glossy peanut butter. If you want it a little thinner so as to drizzle it, you’ll have to mix it with more milk. When you make it yourself, you can decide when it’s done just like if you were making homemade jam.

Stovetop Method vs. Slow Cooker vs. Sweetened Condensed Milk in the Can

You can make dulce de leche on the stove, in a slow cooker

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, or even boil sweetened condensed milk right in the can in water. Here are the advantages and disadvantages of each method.

Cooking Method	Good	Bad
Stovetop	Quickest, easy to monitor the progress	Can burn towards the end of cooking faster than other methods, so you must pay attention towards the end.
Slow cooker	Almost completely hands off, can make a large batch	Cleaning the pot is more difficult than other methods, slowest method by far.
Boiling sweetened condensed cans in water	Glossy smooth consistency, 1 ingredient	No way to monitor the progress of caramelization, potential for burns, must keep boiling water on hand to add to the pot.

Various Methods for Making Dulce de Leche at Home

How to Make Dulce de Leche on the Stove

1. Mix: Mix the milk, sugar, baking soda, salt in the bottom of a Crock Pot or wide skillet. Add in the cinnamon stick if you’re using it, breaking it into a couple pieces.
2. Bring to a Boil: Heat the milk over medium heat until the milk just starts to boil. Reduce down to low heat.
3. Whisk and Watch: Whisk the milk periodically. After about an hour, you’ll start to see the milk turn a French vanilla color. Closer to 90 minutes, you’ll see the milk begin to brown. Somewhere between 90 minutes and 2 hours, the water in the milk will have reduced by almost 3/4 and you’ll need to stay close to the stove, whisking more frequently. If you see honeycomb-like sticky structures on the bottom of your pan or if the mixture looks curdled, don’t panic.
4. Finish the Sauce: Fish out the cinnamon stick. Scrape the milk and anything sticking to the bottom of your pan into a blender. Dark brown bits are just fine in your milk-based caramel, but do not use any blackened bits. Whiz the sauce in a blender until silky smooth.

How to Make Dulce de Leche in Crock Pot

1. Mix: Mix all the ingredients in a slow cooker. Leave the lid open or place it across the slow cooker to allow for evaporation.
2. High: Turn on high for 8 hours: Stir the milk occasionally.
3. Low: Turn on low for 8 hours: It’s okay to do this overnight if your milk hasn’t started browning after 8 hours.
4. Blend: Scrape everything (minus any black bits) into a blender and blend until smooth.

Making Dulce de Leche from Sweetened Condensed Milk in Cans

I don’t recommend this method since you have no way to check on the color of the caramel as it cooks and the cans must be cooled completely before opening to avoid spraying hot caramel all over you and your kitchen. Caramel of any kind is no joke and can make for serious burns. Nonetheless, here’s how to make dulce de leche with canned sweetened condensed milk.

1. Remove Labels: Take the labels off the cans.
2. Cover with Boiling Water: Set the cans in a large pot and cover with boiling water by about 2″. It’s okay if the cans are on their sides.
3. Simmer and Refill: Turn the heat down to a level where the water is at a constant simmer. Cover the pot and check the water level periodically, adding more boiling water to keep the cans covered. Cook for 2.5-3 hours for the best colored dulce de leche.
4. COOL: Use tongs (canning tongs are great here) to fish out the cans from the water. Set them on the counter to cool COMPLETELY, about 3 hours.
5. Open and Mix: Open the cooled cans and whisk everything together to even out the color and consistency of the sauce. You will not need to blend this as you might with the other methods.

Tips for Making the Best Dulce de Leche

1. Blend the Sauce: Because no heat source is 100% even, you’ll probably notice uneven coloring of the milk around the pan with the sides of the pan looking much darker than the center. On a crockpot, you might even notice that your sauce looks curdled. To even this out, just blend the sauce in a blender. This will even out the color and the texture for the whole batch.
2. Adjust the Consistency: If you want to use your homemade dulce de leche for coffee or as a drizzle, you’ll probably want it a little more liquidy than if you were using it for a cake filling or for Banoffee Pie. For a thinner dulce de leche, turn off the heat and blend the sauce before the outer edges of the pan turn deep brown. If you want a thicker sauce and it feels too thin after blending, place the sauce in a non-stick pan and stir it frequently over low heat until it thickens enough that it sits on a spoon without falling off.
3. Time a Slow Cooker Batch: Try to time the low cycle with your sleep. Since nobody wants to wake up to stir a batch of dulce de leche, shoot to turn your slow cooker onto low before you go to bed. If you’re really worried about it burning overnight, use the keep warm setting. Also know that you can use the stovetop trick in tip #2 if your batch seems too thin.

Ideas for Using Homemade Dulce de Leche

1. Banoffee Pie
2. Coffee: Make your own caramel macchiato at home for so much cheaper.
3. Ice Cream Drizzle: So many good choices, but Pumpkin Ice Cream is my favorite choice from all my Ice Cream Recipes.
4. Cake Filling or Frosting: Add a thin layer of dulce de leche under the frosting on Vanilla Sheet Cake.
5. Add to Whipped Cream: Add in a spoon of dulce de leche to the Best Whipped Cream Frosting instead of powdered sugar for a touch of caramel flavor.
6. Cookie Filling: Spread a little between two Whole Wheat Butter Cookies or Chocolate Cutout Cookies.

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