How to Thicken Caramel Sauce: 4 Tips for Thick Caramel Sauce

Caramel sauce is a dessert sauce for ice cream sundaes, cheesecake, brownies, caramel apples, and more. There are two methods for making caramel, and these methods will result in a wet caramel or a dry caramel. A wet caramel contains granulated sugar and water or corn syrup, while a dry caramel sauce is just sugar. To make caramel into a caramel sauce, you must add heavy whipping cream or unsalted butter to the hot caramel at the end of the cooking process. Some recipes also call for vanilla extract or sea salt for a flavored caramel sauce.

Caramel sauce should generally be creamy; however, the thickness of a caramel sauce ultimately comes down to personal preference. Some like a thicker caramel sauce, while others are fine with a thinner caramel sauce. That said, there are certain desserts, like caramel apples, that require a thick caramel sauce in order for the sauce to adhere to the other ingredients while also remaining sticky and chewy.

Runny caramel sauces happen. Here are a few reasons a caramel sauce might be thinner than it should be:

1. 1. Too short of a cooking time: It’s important to follow the cooking time laid out in the recipe for a specific type of caramel sauce. For example, a caramel for a flan recipe is much different than a caramel for a hot fudge ice cream sundae. Use a candy thermometer to monitor the temperature of a homemade caramel sauce to ensure it reaches the right stage. The recipe might also denote a certain color, like an amber color, to let you know what stage the caramel is at in the cooking process.
2. 2. Too short of a cooling time: Caramel sauce thickens significantly as it cools, so let the caramel cool for the appropriate time to achieve the right thickness. If the sauce is still too thin after cooling completely, place it back on the stovetop and reheat it on low heat for a few additional minutes. Then remove it from the heat again to cool and thicken further. Repeat this process until your sauce has reached the right consistency.
3. 3. Too much water: A caramel sauce recipe might call for brushing the sides of the pan with cold water to prevent sugar crystals from forming. That water will end up in the caramel itself, so if you’ve added too much it might result in a thin caramel sauce. Try adjusting the cooking time to allow the excess water to evaporate.

If your caramel sauce is too thin after it cools, you can try one or more of these four methods for thickening a caramel sauce, whether you’re making a salted caramel sauce or a regular caramel sauce.

• Add heavy cream. Some caramel sauce recipes call for milk, but if you find this still produces a thin sauce, you can add room-temperature heavy cream and return the caramel sauce to the stove for another few minutes. Heavy cream has a higher fat content than regular milk, so when the fat combines with the sugar in the caramel sauce, it thickens.
• Cook the sauce longer. Sometimes all a caramel sauce needs is more time on the stovetop to thicken naturally without the addition of thickening agents. However, you should let the sauce cool completely before you determine whether it’s too thin. With the stove on low heat or medium heat, depending on the amount of caramel sauce, simmer the sauce for additional time until the excess liquid cooks out and the caramel thickens.
• Make more caramel. To thicken up a batch of caramel, you can try making a second, thicker batch to mix into the first batch. Use a larger amount of sugar than the first batch to ensure it’s thicker the second time around. Also, try using brown sugar instead of white sugar, or lessen the amount of milk you use in the second batch.
• Use a slurry. A slurry is a mixture of starch and water, and cooks use slurries to thicken all types of dishes. To thicken a caramel sauce, use one tablespoon of cornstarch or tapioca starch (sometimes known as tapioca flour) and one tablespoon of water per cup of caramel. Then simmer the caramel, stirring it constantly with a wooden spoon until it becomes thick.

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