A 1-ingredient recipe showing you how to make dulce de leche at home! All you need is a can of sweetened condensed milk and a little bit of patience. Be sure to read the post for tips and tricks!
Dulce de Leche
Well, here’s the easiest “recipe” I’ve ever shared. Just one ingredient and a couple of hours and you can have your own sweet, caramel-ly dulce de leche. This is a key ingredient in many recipes (including one I have coming up for you on Wednesday).
I talk a lot more in this post than you would think is necessary for a one ingredient recipe, so without further ado let’s get to it.
What IS Dulce de Leche?
Dulce de leche is actually quite similar to caramel (or, when it’s heated, to caramel sauce). It’s gooey, sweet, and is essentially caramelized milk and sugar. It’s of Latin American origins (originating in Argentina, or Uruguay, depending on who you ask… here’s a short dive into its history)!
What You Need
Literally all you need for this recipe is a can of sweetened condensed milk. Make sure the only ingredients on the can are milk and sugar. And no, you cannot substitute evaporated milk for this recipe, it just won’t work!
If you’d like, after cooking you can add a splash of vanilla extract and a sprinkle of sea salt to taste.
How to Make Dulce de Leche:
- Pour the condensed milk into a pie plate.
- Place this in a large pan (I use a roasting pan) and add enough water so the water level is higher than the condensed milk (but not higher than the pie plate, of course).
- Cover with foil and bake for 2-3 hours.
I’ve never been a big fan of water baths (you know I proudly don’t use one with my cheesecake!), but unfortunately it’s necessary here. Without one, the condensed milk is very likely to burn.
Tip: Cover the pie plate tightly with foil but don’t fold it under the plate or let the foil touch the water. Remember, you’ll need to check that the dulce de leche is the right color, so make it easy for yourself to peel back the foil and take a peek at 2 hours.
Other Methods of Preparation:
There are other methods to prepare dulce de leche, but they aren’t as simple. You can boil a can of condensed milk for several hours, but there’s the chance the can could explode and there’s no way to check if the dulce de leche is cooked enough without opening it (and there’s no going back if it’s not!).
Alternatively, you can make it completely from scratch with milk and sugar. Typically, completely from-scratch is my preference with things (I make my own chocolate sauce, lemon curd, and just about everything else), but I found it to yield results that weren’t much better and frankly weren’t worth the effort. Additionally, if you make dulce de leche from scratch it requires at least two hours of active stirring. I prefer the more passive method of simply letting the oven do all the work.
How Long Should I Cook the Condensed Milk?
Many dulce de leche recipes recommend cooking in a water bath for 2 hours.
While this will work, I personally prefer 3 hours. One hour is not long enough: it turns the condensed milk a light caramel color, but as you can see in the photo above it’s still thin and runs off the spoon. Two hours is better; the color is deeper, the flavor richer, and the dulce de leche holds its shape better, but it’s still a bit messy. Three hours is my personal preference, it’s thicker, deep in color, richly flavored, and it has the perfect thick consistency (great for using in alfajores!).
I still recommend checking your dulce de leche at two hours. This way you can add water if needed and it’s better to check early just in case your oven runs hot. Take a peek at two hours and then assess from there.
Frequently Asked Questions
Whatever you do, do not try to use evaporated milk instead! Lots of people have made this mistake with my easy fudge recipe because the two are sold side by side and look so similar, but they are not the same and you won’t get the same results.
If you don’t have a pie plate, a glass, oven-safe 8×8, 7×11, 9×9, or 9×13 pan will work instead. It just needs to fit in your roasting pan!
It’s not uncommon for it to seem lumpy at first, but as you whisk the lumps should disappear and it should be smooth. If you’ve whisked for 15 seconds and things are still lumpy, you might have burnt your dulce de leche, unfortunately (did the water level get too low?).
Refrigerate in an airtight container for about two weeks. You may also freeze.
What should I do with dulce de leche?
- Swirl it over a batch of blondies or brownies! A few tablespoons swirled into the top of the batter with a butter knife just before baking is SO good!
- Drizzle it over Tres Leches Cake. Is it traditional? No, it’s not. But it is delicious!
- Use as a filling in Petit Fours or drizzle over your favorite cake recipe!
- Pour over pancakes, crepes, or waffles for a decadent breakfast treat!
- Make a batch (or two) and save it for Wednesday’s recipe (hint, hint)!
More Recipes/Tutorials You Might Like:
As with all of my recipes, I’ve included a how-to video in the recipe card, but honestly I felt a little silly making a video for such a simple recipe! Hopefully it’s helpful so you can see the color and consistency.
Enjoy!
Let’s bake together! Make sure to check out the how-to VIDEO in the recipe card!
Dulce de Leche
Ingredients
- 14 oz (396 g) sweetened condensed milk (one can)
- 8 cups water for water bath, you may need more or less depending on the size of your pan; only use it to fill the roasting pan as indicated.
Recommended Equipment
Instructions
- Make sure your roasting pan will fit in the center rack of your oven (adjust racks if needed) and preheat oven to 425F (220C).
- Pour condensed milk into a glass, oven-proof 9.5-10" pie plate¹. Cover tightly with foil, but don't wrap the foil below the pie plate (make it easy for yourself to lift the foil after cooking to check if the dulce de leche is ready, you don't want the foil touching the water or difficult to remove).14 oz (396 g) sweetened condensed milk
- Place the pie plate in a roasting pan and add enough water so that the water is about ½" above the level of the condensed milk (you do not want the water to get into the pie plate, but it should be higher than the level of milk).8 cups water
- Transfer to the center rack of your preheated oven and bake on 425F (220C) for 2-3 hours. Check at 2 hours, and if the dulce de leche is not dark enough, add another 30 minutes, then check again and add another 30 minutes if desired (see post for a visual of how my dulce de leche usually looks at each point). Keep in mind it will continue to thicken as it cools.
- When desired color and thickness is reached, remove from oven and whisk the dulce de leche to remove any lumps (it may seem quite lumpy at first, just keep whisking!). Allow to cool completely, then use as desired!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
Leslie
Delicious and SO EASY. It may be a very bad thing that I now know how to make this so effortlessly!
Coley
So I didn’t think about the fact that I only have copper and glass cookware and don’t even know if I can put a pie plate in my roasting pan?!
Sam
I use a glass pie plate when I make mine. 🙂
Coley
I meant to put in! Like I want to use the glass pie plate to put the condensed milk in but I only have copper roasting pans to hold the pie plate and the water so I didn’t know if that was okay? Weird question I know.
Sam
I don’t think the copper roasting pan would cause any issues here. 🙂
Dixie
Easy to make and incredibly good
Jenn
Looks good! My son loves dulce de leche on his ice cream.
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Thank you, Jenn! Let us know if you try it 😊
Mickey
Can you tell me where you get those cute jars you show to store this in?
Sam
Hi Mickey! They are Weck 762 tulip jelly jars. You can find them on Amazon. 🙂
Katie
Is it necessary to have a glass pan?
Sam
Hi Katie! I haven’t tried it but I don’t see any reason you couldn’t use a different pan. 🙂
Sisi
Thank you!
Hard to believe it was just that easy
Suzzette
Hi Sam, I love your sugarspun everything. I have 2 questions about this… First can you do this in an electric roaster, just add water into it? 2nd could you use the Pyrex glass dishes with glass lids, instead of aluminum foil? Thanks for any help you can give me. I found this recipe while looking at the brownies with deluce de Leche and wanted to try both.
Sam
Hi Suzzette! I’m not familiar with using an electric roaster so I’m not sure exactly how it would work. A glass lid should work here. 🙂
Javier
Don’t call this Dulce de leche! This is just caramel, but not dulce de leche at all. Using this method you get something similar but you’re missing ingredients that will change the flavor, color and consistency.
Sam
That’s not true though, and this is dulce de leche. Dulce de leche and caramel are very similar and both get their color and flavor from the maillard reaction, but they’re not quite the same thing and this does not taste the same as caramel. Vanilla and salt are optional additional ingredients and a great addition to either dulce de leche or caramel, but not necessary. Some recipes also use baking soda, which wouldn’t work here with this method with canned condensed milk, but is a great (while not mandatory) ingredient when just cooking milk and sugar.
John OKeefe
A question: why does the oven need to be so hot? Sitting in a water bath, the sauce should never get above 212 degrees F. So why does the oven need to be 425?
I love almost every recipe of yours that I have tried. Thank you!!
Suzzette
Sam is correct Javier. Deluce de Leche is caramelized milk. That’s exactly what this recipe is.
Brenda
I put my sweetened condensed milk into a glass canning jar and cover with foil and put in the crock pot overnight on low with water over the top of where the condensed milk line is but not over the top of the jar. Comes out nice and caramely in the morning.
Sue
Will this work with sweetened condensed coconut milk?
Sam
Hi Sue! While I haven’t tried it myself I think it should work. 🙂
Helen Singleton
Can you let us know how it turns out?
Anna
Your recipe doesn’t.do a lot of good without the oven temperature
Sam
Hi Anna! See step 1 for the temperature. 🙂
Dave Pandolfi
Could I double the recipe and still keep the same temp and time of cooking?
Sam
Hi Dave! You would cook it on the same temperature but it may take a little bit longer to bake. 🙂
Madeline
I was in need of a dulce de leche recipe! I’m so glad you posted this. I’m going to try it tonight! Thank you!
Sam
I hope you love it, Madeline! 🙂
Laura
I may try this! I wanted to comment that your instructions were so clear. It’s as if you anticipated each question I had along the way. 🙂
Sam
I hope you love it, Laura! I’m so glad it was helpful. 🙂
Victoria A Shaw
I use my instant pot to make it, too.
Marina Gusmao
Hello from Brazil! I love your recipes. Around here, we always make dulce de leche using a can of sweetened condensed milk and a pressure cooker. Just put the can (without the label) and just enough water to cover the can inside de pressure cooker and let it cook in pressure for 30-45 minutes. Saves a lot of time and it tastes delicious.
Sam
That’s a great tip! I will have to try it sometime. 🙂
Judy dunn
Hi sam im makeing a recipe that calls for melted carmels
In whipping cream and butter.
Once the carmel is melted you dip marshmellow into it and then coat with rice crispies
Im cant find the mcintosh carmels that i normally use wondering if this dulch recipe would adhere and hold it shape
Sam
Hi Judy! This will hold its shape much like melted caramels do. It will still be soft and sticky.