Date Caramel Sauce
3-Ingredient Date Caramel Sauce Recipe is a creamy, gooey sauce perfect for a vegan dessert topping! This dairy-free caramel sauce is a delicious, creamy, refined sugar–free sauce. Drizzle this creamy date sauce over sliced bananas, dairy-free ice cream, popcorn, sliced apples, and so many other desserts!
For a more traditional recipe, try this vegan caramel sauce.
What Makes This Recipe Shine?
- The use of dates means there are no refined sugars, making this a very healthy caramel option
- Adding peanut butter gives the caramel a creamy texture and consistency
- Minimal ingredients mean you can make this quickly any time you’re ready for a sweet, healthy treat!
Key Ingredients
You can find the full printable recipe, including ingredient quantities, below. But first, here are some explanations of ingredients and steps to help you make this recipe perfect every time.
Here are the ingredients you’ll need for this recipe, including substitution ideas:
- Dates — Medjool dates are the way to go with this recipe.
- Water — You can substitute almond milk, but trust me, water will work just fine. If your water has a favor, please use filtered water.
- Fat — We’ll want to add a fat source. You can use almond butter as I recommend in the recipe below. This has the most neutral flavor. Another option is cashew butter, but it’s more expensive. Another option is to use the fat from a can of coconut milk if you’re ok with a more coconut flavor. You don’t even have to use nut butter in this recipe, but I like the extra dash of flavor and creaminess that it adds.
- Flavoring — To increase the caramel flavor I add both vanilla extract and coffee extract. Both of these are optional but recommended.
- Salt — We want a salted caramel date sauce flavor and a pinch of sea salt makes all the difference.
How to Make Raw Date Caramel Sauce
You can find the full printable recipe, including ingredient quantities, below. But first, here are some explanations of ingredients and steps to help you make this recipe perfect every time.
It’s easy to make this creamy caramel date sauce recipe.
- Cook pitted dates and water for 1 to 2 minutes to make them good and tender.
- Pulse tender dates and water in a food processor.
- Add nut butter and remaining ingredients. Pulse until smooth.
- Test the flavor and consistency. For a thinner sauce add another tablespoon or two of water.
- Place in a lidded container and refrigerate for up to 1 week.
- Serve over vegan ice cream, oatmeal, bananas, you name it!
Storing Date Sauce
Place your caramel date sauce in a lidded container, cover, and refrigerate for up to 1 week.
You can freeze date sauce, too. To do this, store it in a freezer-safe container and store it in the freezer for up to 2 months.
Either way you store date sauce, it will thicken when it’s chilled. Heat it up in the microwave and that should thin it adequately. If you’d like it thinner, stir in another tablespoon of water of plant-based milk.
Marly’s Tips
- When blending dates, be sure to use soft dates. If your dates have firmed up from being stored too long or being refrigerated, soak them in hot water for 10 minutes first or microwave them for a few seconds (be sure and use that sweet date water in some other recipe like a smoothie)
- Add more water to the caramel paste if necessary to get the desired thickness and spreadability of your sauce. If you want to use this as a dip for apple slices, a thicker sauce is preferred. If you want to drizzle this over vegan ice cream, a thinner sauce might be best.
- You can use almond butter, peanut butter, or even a seed butter to add even more caramel flavor, however, this is an optional ingredient as the date puree tastes great too!
- You can change up the flavors in this Vegan Date Recipe by adding some chopped chocolate chips.
Frequently-Asked Questions
What to do with dates?
Use dates to make your favorite desserts refined-sugar free! Because dates are naturally sweet and have a natural “caramel” flavor, they make great additions to many of your favorite desserts, like these Chocolate Brownie Energy Bites!
Why do Dates taste like caramel?
Dates are dried fruit and when you bite into one, you’ll notice a sticky, sweet flesh and a distinct caramel flavor. The wrinkled skin might cause you to think that the dates are dried, like a raisin, but that is simply the texture of the fruit’s skin. Therefore, the caramel flavor is simply the flavor of the natural fruit shining through.
Are Dates Healthy?
Dates are a healthy alternative to refined sugars found in so many recipes like the standard caramel sauces. However, dates have many phytonutrients like fiber and more. For example, dates boast the following nutritional elements:
-Fiber
-Protein (yes, even dates have some protein!)
-Potassium
-Magnesium
-Copper
-Iron
…and more!
Even though dates are high in natural sugars (they’re 80% sugar), that dates may be an “ideal food” providing lots of nutritional phytonutrients.
Non-Dairy Healthy Caramel Sauce
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that all caramel sauce must be dairy-based. In fact, there are plenty of ways to make a non-dairy caramel sauce. For example, I use plant-based milk in my Vegan Caramel Dessert Bars. It works!
This recipe uses Medjool dates, which have a sort of caramel flavor in and of themselves. You can simply combine dates with water or add a little bit of peanut butter to create even more caramel flavor.
More Date Recipes
I love experimenting with using dates in place of refined sugar in my recipes. For example, here are some of my favorites:
Raw Date Caramel
This is a raw caramel date sauce. If your dates are firm, you may need to heat them up a bit to make them soft and tender. But otherwise, all you need is a food processor to make this recipe work.
Also, this Medjool date caramel recipe is versatile. You can make it thicker and it’s almost like fudge. I like a nice, thick caramel sauce as you can see from the photos. You can add more water to make a thinner sauce. That can be nice served over ice cream, or even as the topping for a slice of cake!
This is basically a date paste caramel infused! Who knew it could be so easy and delicious!
If you love simple, sweet recipes, try this Vegan Fudge. It’s made with minimal ingredients, but lots of flavor!
Healthy, Naturally-Sweetened Desserts
Do you love naturally sweetened desserts? Check out my Healthy Fruit Crisp recipe! It has a granola-type crust that’s so delicious! There’s also this simple Vegan Banana Ice Cream made with minimal, all-natural ingredients!
You can drizzle some of this caramel sauce over the top. Perfection!
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Vegan Date Caramel Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups Medjool dates pitted
- ¾ cup water (add more water for a creamy sauce consistency)
- ⅓ cup almond butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon coffee extract (optional)
- 5 tablespoons maple syrup
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
Instructions
- Place pitted dates and water in a small pot and bring to a simmer. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes. Turn the heat off and set it aside.
- Dates should be soft at this point. Place them in a food processor with the water, add nut butter and remaining ingredients. Pulse until smooth.
- Test the flavor and consistency. For a thinner sauce add another tablespoon or two of water.
- Place in a lidded container and refrigerate for up to 1 week.
- Serve over vegan ice cream, oatmeal, bananas, you name it!
Recommended Equipment
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Video
The nutrition information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator and should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
If you’re into caramel sauce desserts, then you’ll love these:
- Salty Chocolate Date Caramels by Heartbeet Kitchen
- Salted Raw Caramel Dip by Detoxinista
- Also, check out Cinnamon Poke Cake with Caramel Sauce
Whatever vegan caramel sauce you’re drooling over, enjoy!
I make a vegan caramel sauce very similar to this one. It freezes beautifully and lasts for quite awhile. The best part is that it doesn’t get hard so you can scoop out what you want and it is ready to use very quickly.
Hi Becky. Thanks for this comment. I love the idea of freezing it!
Can this be frozen? Ty.
Hi Teri, good question. I have never tried freezing this recipe myself, but I would definitely try it. I don’t see any reason it wouldn’t hold up. Just stir it up once it comes to room temperature (or warmer).
This looks like a great topping for my banana in the morning!
Thanks, Lyndsay! It is perfect on a banana! 🙂