Hold my earrings. It’s about to get really really real. If you’ve followed my blog for any amount of time, like, say… 4 days, you’ll notice how entirely obsessed I am with caramel. I’d caramel absolutely all the things if I could, and, in fact, I pretty much have! From my caramel apple paleo microwave cake (FANNING SELF SO GOOD) to my 5-minute paleo caramel sauce to my vegan salted caramel ice cream, my vegan pumpkin donuts with salted caramel glaze, paleo iced caramel macchiato, raw caramel apples, and paleo raw salted caramel dip, it might be a problem. But hey, at least I don’t have a nickname yet; that’s my husband. His best friend’s always called him Caramel Thunder, because of his, uh, rich and creamy skin? So, it might not be his obsession with carefully burnt sugar, but I’ll take what I can get. As long as people don’t call me The Caramel Lady, I feel like my obsession is still balanced slash not taking over my life entirely.
That is… until I created the Instant Pot caramel sauce. With coconut cream, coconut oil, and maple syrup. Translation: healthy, quick, and easy. This might become a serious problem, y’all. So, when my Instant Pot arrived, I searched high and low, caramel obsession in hand, for a proper healthy caramel recipe made in my newfangled cooking machine. No luck. While I wanted something entirely hands-off, made with the pressure cooker part of the Instant Pot, I decided I’d still settle for a sauce made on Sauté mode, considering how beautifully and evenly that cooks such a variety of foods. I grabbed my organic Costco maple syrup, a few cans of Sprouts Coconut Cream, and went to work, all Doctor Finkelstein in the kitchen. (We’re really into The Nightmare Before Christmas right now. Except Oogie Boogie is positively terrifying to my child, but I let him watch it anyway. I’m a horrible mother.)
And if you’d like a couple Instant Pot caramel sauce absolute fails, I can surely set you up with a pair, free of charge. I was almost completely convinced that a delicious, thick, rich, sweet, and creamy Instant Pot caramel sauce was impossible, until… Until! Until the winner bubbled up in my stainless steel pot, the scent of complex sweetness wafting through the air, luckily suppressing the leftover smell of straight burnt from my previous attempts. It worked, and you know what? It’s my absolute favorite paleo or vegan caramel sauce I’ve ever had. My Instant Pot caramel sauce. Instant Pot! Like, this could not get any easier, y’all. And the outcome is basically ready for me to launch a Kickstarter page and deliver en masse to the Krogers of the world. It’s that good. You can’t quite see this, thankfully, but I’m rubbing my palms together over here and giggling menacingly, knowing just how many unbelievable recipes I have in the pipeline using this Instant Pot caramel sauce. Spoiler alert: paleo caramel cups (they’re also vegan for my vegan squad!), caramel apple cider, and paleo caramel apple coffee cake?! It’s almost too much!
If you have an Instant Pot, you’ve GOT to try this Instant Pot caramel sauce. And if you don’t have an Instant Pot, what in the world are you waiting for?! Pick one up ASAP, y’all. Life changing.
