Vegan Dulce de Leche
Here’s how you can make a delicious, vegan dulce de leche and enjoy it with your favorite desserts! You’ll need just 5 simple ingredients to make this Latin American recipe! Give it a try!
Dulce de leche is a caramel-flavored sauce very popular in Latin American countries. It’s often drizzled on churros, so when I made the vegan churros recipe last week I decided to give it a try.
It is amazing. It tastes just like the original dulce de leche recipe, made with milk the only difference is in how it looks, as mine turned out white rather than caramel-colored, but I actually prefer it this way – looks “milkier”. 🙂
The basic dulce de leche recipe is so simple, all you need is a couple ingredients and patience. You’ll have to simmer the milk and sugar and then stir constantly. The water in the milk will evaporate and it will start to thicken.
Maybe it was because I didn’t use cow’s milk, or maybe because I used less sugar, but trying the original dulce de leche recipe with just replacing the milk with a veg milk type, didn’t work for me. So I decided to adapt it. I used coconut milk, the canned / full-fat type which is thicker. Then, I also added a tablespoon of tapioca starch/flour to thicken t even more. The result was this perfect vegan dulce de leche which you can see from the photos it has a great texture. 🙂
How can you use this vegan dulce de leche? In so many ways! You can store it in the fridge in a jar for a couple of weeks. I used it for my vegan churros, but there are a bunch of other awesome recipes you can try.
You can use vegan dulce de leche to flavor candies, cakes, cookies, waffles, pancakes and even ice creams! Imagine a dulce de leche ice cream – heavenly!
So here it is, my vegan dulce de leche recipe. Hope you’ll give it a try. It takes less than 30 minutes to make and you can double the quantities to make it in a larger batch and store it in the fridge. Enjoy!
Vegan Dulce de Leche
Ingredients
- 400 ml coconut milk canned, full-fat
- ½ cup sugar
- ¼ tsp sea salt
- ½ tsp pure vanilla extract
- ½ Tbsp tapioca starch/flour sifted
Instructions
- In a medium pot, combine the coconut milk and sugar.
- Heat the pot over medium heat and whisk until the sugar dissolves.
- Add a pinch of salt and the vanilla extract. Continue to whisk.
- Add tapioca flour/starch, sifted, and whisk to combine.
- Increase the heat until the liquid comes to a boil. Lower the heat afterward.
- Let it boil for 20 minutes on low heat while stirring occasionally.
- Let it cool and serve or store in the fridge.
If you make this, please leave a review and rating if you liked this recipe! ★★★★★
I don’t happen to have tapioca flour (starch) in the house. I do have both cornstarch and arrowroot powder. Would one of those work, or would really I be better off buying the tapioca for a half-tablespoon (and then discover other uses for it)?
Hi, Nicola. I’m not sure. Tapioca has a specific reaction to heat, different from corn starch – it doesn’t just thicken, it makes things sticky as well. I have multiple recipes using tapioca on my blog. Check them out!
I really missed dulce de leche as a vegan and I’m so happy I found your recipe! Made it today because I had all the ingredients in my pantry and loved it! Used muscovado sugar instead so it had a caramel color. Thank you, Ruxandra!
What a great idea! Thanks, Alexis!
Could you use turbinado sugar or even a hint of molasses to tint the color perhaps?
Sure! Or muscovado sugar like Alexis suggested. I think even light brown sugar will work. 😀