Instant Pot Dulce de Leche
This sweet and delicious dulce de leche is so easy to make in the instant pot. It’s almost zero effort, and ready in less than an hour!
When my husband and I were first married, we spent almost every Saturday morning watching cooking shows on PBS. We were both busy students with full time jobs, and I looked forward to those lazy Saturday mornings all week! One of my favorite shows was Daisy Cooks, and I remember learning about so many new foods I had never tried before. Chipotles in adobo, chilaquiles, culantro – all things I and never heard of before, and suddenly couldn’t wait to try. I remember watching one episode in particular in which Daisy made alfajores with dulce de leche, and I couldn’t get those sweet little sandwich cookies out of my head! It was several years later that I made alfajores and dulce de leche for myself for the first time, and they were every bit as delicious as I imagined they would be.
If you haven’t tried dulce de leche before, it’s a sweet caramel-like sauce made from milk and sugar. You can use it anywhere you would use caramel sauce – as an ice cream topping, over waffles or pancakes, or poured over brownies or cakes. It’s completely delicious as a dipping sauce or filling for churros, and is totally amazing drizzled over crepes. We also like it as a dip for fruit, especially apples. The best part is that it’s surprisingly easy to make your own dulce de leche at home! My recipe has just one ingredient – sweetened condensed milk. I shared a slow cooker recipe for dulce de leche several years ago, but since my slow cooker mostly just sits on the shelf gathering dust these days, I decided it was high time to figure out an instant pot version. It’s just as simple and easy as the slow cooker method, but takes way less time. And the dulce de leche turns out just as delicious!
You’ll start by pouring your sweetened condensed milk into half-pint mason jars. (Technically, you can leave the sweetened condensed milk in the unopened can and make it that way, but it feels a little too risky for me. I’m still not quite convinced that my Instant Pot isn’t going to explode at any moment, so having an unopened can full of boiling caramel inside of it makes me incredibly nervous.) I had a little less than half a can leftover from another recipe, and added a full can to make two full half-pint jars. If you’re starting with two full cans of sweetened condensed milk, you should be able to divide them between three half-pint jars evenly. After 35 minutes at high pressure, the milk will be a pretty caramel color, and changed from regular sweetened condensed milk to dulce de leche deliciousness! Let it cool completely, then store it in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use it. This dulce de leche is so tasty, and so easy to make!
Instant Pot Dulce de Leche
Print Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 14 ounce jars sweetened condensed milk
- 3 1/2 pint size canning jars with lids and bands
- water
Instructions
- Open the cans of sweetened condensed milk, and divide evenly between the canning jars. Place the lids and bands on the jars. Place the jars on the trivet in the bottom of the instant pot. Fill the pot with water until it reaches about an inch below the top of the jars. Place the lid on the instant pot (make sure it is turned to seal) and cook on manual at high pressure for 35 minutes. Quick release the steam, then carefully remove the jars from the pot using tongs. Let cool completely, then store in the refrigerator until ready to use.
