Homemade Dulce de Leche recipe with only 5 ingredients. This sauce is great for cakes, ice cream, cookies or just eat it with a spoon on its own.
What is Dulce de Leche:
It is a sweet sauce made with sugar and milk, very popular in Latin America. In Colombia is also known as Arequipe and Mexico as Cajeta. You will find this delicious dessert by different names, but the sauce is practically the same. You can also add cinnamon and vanilla extract for extra flavor.
Now days you can find it in canned at the Latin aisle in a lot of supermarkets in the United States, but I love making it from scratch it's always better than store-bought and very easy to make.
Homemade Dulce de Leche Recipe (Arequipe)
Ingredients
- 96 oz whole milk (12 cups)
- 1 ½ of pounds sugar
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cinnamon stick
Instructions
- In a medium pot, combine all the ingredients and bring to a boil.
- Reduce the heat to medium-low, stirring often with a wooden spoon for about 3 hours or until the color changes to caramel and the mixture is thick as a pudding. Let it cool.
- Pour into a glass container and cover. Refrigerate up to a week.
Notes
Nutrition
Dulce de Lehe is creamy, sweet and delicious on top of ice cream, to fill cakes, pastries, frosting or just eat it by the spoonful. My favorite way!
I grew up eating dulce de leche and it’s one of my favorite desserts. This delicious and traditional sauce is called Arequipe in the region of Antioquia, Colombia, manjar blanco in other parts of the country and in the rest of South America it has different names such as dulce de leche, manjar Blanco and cajeta. In Colombia we also serve Arequipe with obleas or saltine crackers or just as a base for some typical desserts.
Recipes with Dulce de Leche to try:
Chocolate Cake Filled with Dulce de Leche
Dulce de Leche and Coconut Cake Roll
Mar
Hi!
Love the recipe!
Is it really 96 oz of milk? (roughly 12 cups?) seems like a lot, for just 1.5 lb of sugar and for the "medium pot" the recipe calls for... can you clarify this please?
Erica Dinho
Yes...12 cups = 96 oz and 1 + 1/2 pounds of sugar.
Lillian
Use a LARGE pot, not medium! When bringing to a boil in a medium pot it quickly spilled over and made a huge mess. I’ve been scrubbing the burnt mixture off the stovetop for days. It tastes good, though.
Paula
I am very excited to make this,, just a question .. Is it really 1 1/2 pounds of sugar???
Erica Dinho
Yes!
Nancy
Hi, my mom's family was from Colombia, and she used to make this the short-cut way using Eagle Brand. I'm excited about making it your way. Try it with berries, it's delicious!
Stephano
Wow thank you so much, my girlfiend is Colombian and she loves arequipe so much, now I know how to make it
Joanna
My husband and I lived in Colombia for two years, 1964 & part of 1965, as Peace Corps volunteers. I really really really loved Manjar Blanco, Dulce de Leche, Araquipe, etc. I first had it served as a dessert after dinner in a restaurant. It was served in a little wooden box that I think was nailed shut at the top, and you ate it with a tiny spoon. Later I found boxes like that in the tiendas or neighborhood groceries. When I asked a friend how it was made, he said it was mainly milk cooked slowly with sugar, and a little rice! Note: When I came home, I had gained a lot of weight! p.s. Are Obleas and Alfajores the same thing?
Nicki bar Ste
Is that 11 and a half pounds of sugar????
Erica
No- 1 and 1/2 pounds of sugar!
Luz Adriana
Only 1 cebolla en rama, solo 1 palito.
Luz Adriana
Hi Erica, I'm from Medellin and mi mom also added 1 "cebolla junca" when se made arequipe, she never added cinnamon sticks and her arequipe always was delicious!! You should try it and let me know how was.
Erica
That sounds very interesting!!!!The arequipe taste la cebolla?
Katherine
How much does this recipe make?
gigi
hi erica, I love your recipes, I am colombian, from cartagena and i moved to the states about 4 years ago and all I use to cook was "patacones" jejejje, my favorite food, but since i am pregnant i got cravings for everything from colombia, so i have been cooking full time, lol. my husband is so excited that i have found this website, he is american and he is discovering the real deal now.
yesterday i made the hallacas, they came out great i use the plantain leafs and the taste just took me back to cartagena. ohh God!!
i have an easy recipe for dulce de leche, i just did it 2 days ago and is boiling a can of condensed milk "la lechera" for 2 hours in a pot, always adding more boiling water to cover the can. then let it rest till gets cool off and listoooo you can enjoy delicous arequipe...yummy!!!
Gina C.
Erica, I've seen this made with a can of sweetened condensed milk in a pan on a stove burner. Do you know how to make it using that technique?
Apz
Put an unopened can of condensed milk in a pressure cooker for one hour (and whatever minimum amount of water required by the PC). This is how everyone makes dulce de leche in Brazil. My entire family is Brazilian, I lived there for the first half of my life and have never known anyone to stand at a stove for 3 hours to make something that can be done in less than half the time. They used the old-fashioned, stovetop pressure cooker for everything except rice (but I now prefer making rice in an electric PC to free up space on the stove), making guava pieces in syrup, corn pamonhas/tamales, chicken stock, getting beans and tough meats ready for lunch every single day. Each recipe can be cooked in less than an hour.
I feel the same about the French crème caramel and the Mexican flan. One can be done in a pressure cooker in 30 minutes while the other takes so much more time and the right technique to get right.
They're equally delicious custards that I'm going to shove in my mouth in a matter of minutes. I don't see the point in over-complicating it.
Liz
Erica!
I found your recepie a while back and had not had a chance to try it until last night. Im not very good in the kitchen, i just make simple stuff that the kids will eat. My son had a project for a cultural food (dessert, or whatever) & I figured, why not try it. We did, but the only thing is that it did not thicken enough. I think maybe I needed more baking soda b/c it wasnt like pudding when we finally turned it off, approximately 5 hrs after cooking. Im not giving up though, it tastes delicious, like the arequipe that I love so much, but the consistency is not there. Like everyone else that's found this site, Im thrilled to try the familiar dishes. Thanks!
agnes
Hi,
I havejust put all the ingredients in a saucepan and cant wait to see the result.
However, I did not have any white sugar left at home so put some dark brown.
Do you think this will do any good???
i am glad to find your website
agnes
Erica
Agnes- In Colombia we use white sugar! You can try it, but won't be the same!
Gina @ Skinnytaste
Hi, My mom is Colombian, love arequipe!
Two questions, can you make this with fat free milk? And can you make this in the crock pot?
Erica
Gina- I don't know if you can use fat free milk or the crock pot, because you have to stir often!You can try it and let me know 🙂
Apz
In Brazil people just put a can of sweet condensed milk in the pressure cooker for 1 hour. Easiest dessert ever. Ain't nobody got time to stand at the stove for 3 hours!!!
The only difference is that we can't add cinnamon while it's cooking, but I'm sure that can be arranged and still be done in a pressure cooker.
Oceanbeat
wow this one has the real caramel color of arequipe...yummm
Annee
In Baranquilla where I lived '70-'73 I often went to an open cafe (for lack of a better term) they had huge caldrons of piping hot grease going all the time. There was an item I loved there. It was like a raw, very moist, thick (minimum 1/2") corn tortilla that they dropped into the hot grease. Very quickly it would poof up and float to the top. Then they would scoop it out, cut a slit in the edge of it, crack a fresh egg. They would open the slit in the poof and drop in the raw egg and back into the grease it went for several minutes until it was golden brown. What are these called and do you have a recipe?
Erica
Annee- Arepa de huevo and this is the link https://www.mycolombianrecipes.com/arepa-filled-with-egg-arepa-de-huevo/