The Sweet Side of Salty: 20 Salted Dessert Recipes (2024)

Salted desserts — they’re all the rage these days. It’s all salted caramel cheesecake this and salted peanut butter hot chocolate that. Okay, maybe that’s just the convo going on in our heads. Here are just a few of our recent favorites that will have your taste buds tingling with confused delight.

1. Salted Caramel Apple Cheesecake Pie: The country’s favorite just got a makeover. Take the most delicious apples you can imagine, sauté them with cinnamon and brown sugar, layer them over a salted-caramel graham cracker crust and top them with fresh cream. This isn’t your Grandma’s apple pie, that’s for sure. (via Brown Eyed Baker)

2. Salted Caramel, Nutter Butter, Bourbon and Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream: The name of this frosty dish may be a mouthful, and when you get a real mouthful of it, you’ll find a wonderful combination of ingredients and textures. Best of all, you don’t need one of those fancy-schmancy ice cream makers to create it. (via Averie Cooks)

3. Salted Buttered Popcorn Macarons With Salted Caramel: These pretty little things combine your favorite movie time treat with a delicate macaron and delicious salty caramel filling. (via Lady J’s Musings)

4. Pretzel Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars: We have one huge problem with a sweet treat that combines crunchy salted pretzels and chocolate chip cookie bars: You can’t stop at one. But with something that looks this good, we’re prepared to break out the stretchy pants. (via Just a Taste)

5. Salted Chocolate Caramel Popcorn: You know when you just can’t choose between salted or sweet popcorn? Well, now you don’t need to. This crunchy snack is coated in caramel and combined with sweet chocolate chips and seasoned with salt to your liking. (via Diethood)

6. Salted Caramel Apples: No trick, it’s just all treat here. Combining the tart crunchiness of a shiny apple with a salted caramel glaze, these sweet, and slightly healthy, delights are our new way to keep the doctor away. (via Butterfly Food)

7. Salted Caramel Filled Molten Chocolate Cakes: You had us at molten. If you like your desserts to be of the oozing kind (who doesn’t?), these individual chocolate cakes filled with a salted caramel sauce will be right up your alley. And because they’re individual, you don’t even need to share. (via Top with Cinnamon)

8. Grilled Vanilla Bean Mascarpone Peaches With Salted Bourbon Caramel: Would you believe us if we told you that when you slather fruit with a mascarpone cream and salted bourbon caramel sauce that it still counts as one of your five-a-day? One of your deliciously sweet, alcohol-laced five-a-day, that is. (via In Sock Monkey Slippers)

9. Dulce de Leche and Nutella Thumbprints With Sea Salt: Thumbprint cookies aren’t just for kids. These deliciously grown-up cookies feature a smooth combination of dulce de leche and Nutella, sprinkled with a sea salt topping. They look great, they taste great and that’s all we could ever ask for. (via A Spicy Perspective)

10. Salted Rose Honey Pie: Hearty and filling, yet delicate and delicious, this pie features a cinnamon rosewater crust and a custard-like salted rose and honey filling. (via Adventures in Cooking)

11. Cinnamon Applesauce Oatmeal Pancakes With Salted Peanut Butter Maple Syrup: Phew, we’re tired just reading that title, but tired is the last thing you’ll be when you wake up to these beauties in the morning. Healthy yet delicious, these pancakes will have you flat out flipping. (via Ambitious Kitchen)

12. Salted Dark Chocolate Nutella Cookies: It’s up to you how much Nutella you want to slather on these decadent dark chocolate cookies. Maybe take our advice and don’t buy the super-size tub, just in case. (via The Faux Martha)

13. Salted Maple Pecan Pie Bars: It may not be Thanksgiving, but that shouldn’t stop you from drowning in the deliciousness that is these sticky and sweet pecan pie bars made with maple syrup and sprinkled with sea salt. (via Pinch of Yum)

14. Mezcal Spiked Caramels: Just when you thought caramel couldn’t get any better, we go and spike it with tequila’s ultra-sexy cousin, mezcal. You won’t mind raiding your liquor cabinet for these stringy, sweet and salty bites of happiness. (via Brit + Co.)

15. Salted Caramel Rice Krispie Squares: Turning kiddie creations on their head, these sophisticated Rice Krispie squares with a salted caramel topping wouldn’t look out of place at a grown-up dinner party. (via Butter With a Side of Bread)

17. Salted Caramel S’more Tarts: Why freeze by the campfire when you can recreate the deliciousness that is s’mores at home with these pretty little tarts and their layer of salted caramel. (via Gourmantine)

18. Salted Triple Caramel Cupcakes: These little beauties offer not once, not twice but thrice the amount of caramel! They are caramel cupcakes topped with salted-caramel frosting and an individual salted caramel. If there were such a thing as caramel overload, this would be it. (via Sally’s Baking Addiction)

19. Dark Chocolate Salted Peanut Butter Brownies: The PB and chocolate combination just went supersonic with the addition of crunchy pretzels. Best of all, this recipe only requires four ingredients. (via Living Locurto)

20. Salted Caramel Bourbon Milkshake: Spiked milkshakes are the new black, and this one combines chocolate milk, ice cream, salted caramel syrup and bourbon. With this recipe, your milkshake really will bring all the boys to the yard. (via Brit + Co.)

Have you salted something sweet and never looked back? Tell us all about it in the comments.

Julia Evans

Julia Evans is a travel, lifestyle and food blogger from England who has an insatiable love of chocolate, historical fiction and funny dog memes. When Julia isn't traveling the world, she can usually be found experimenting in the kitchen or attempting to create cute crafts she found on the web.

The Sweet Side of Salty: 20 Salted Dessert Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What is something that is sweet and salty? ›

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Cupcakes

These cupcakes, topped with salty peanut butter buttercream, crushed pretzels and peanuts, and a drizzle of chocolate ganache, have that sweet-and-salty thing down.

What does salt do in a dessert? ›

The main function of salt in cake recipes is to enhance the flavor of the other ingredients. Its presence perks up the depth and complexity of other flavors as the ingredients meld. Salt also provides a balance to the sweetness of cake batters—but a salty flavor should not be discernible.

What kind of salt do you sprinkle on desserts? ›

Flaky sea salt: These are large, crunchy flakes typically used for sprinkling on top of baked goods like brownies or chocolate chip cookies.

What are sweet foods? ›

There are a wide variety of desserts in western cultures, including cakes, cookies, biscuits, gelatins, pastries, ice creams, pies, puddings, and candies. Fruit is also commonly found in dessert courses because of its natural sweetness.

What is both sweet and savory? ›

Pumpkin, The King of Sweet and Savory. As declared by Felix Salmon in a 2012 New York Magazine, 'Pumpkin is the NEW Bacon! ' There seems to be a cult like devotion to pumpkin this fall.

What is the salty version of a sweet tooth? ›

A salt tooth is quite unlike a sweet tooth in that it doesn't create an appetite for itself at the hormone level. Sugar has a well-documented impact on blood glucose, which, unhelpfully, makes you want more sugar. If salt drives an appetite for anything, it's lager.

What is the best salt for desserts? ›

FLAKY SEA SALT: Preferred for their light, crunchy texture and delicate pyramid-shaped flakes, sea salts like Maldon provide the ideal finishing touch on cookies, ice cream, and apple pie.

Does salt make desserts sweeter? ›

The same way salt enhances the flavor in savory food, it makes plenty of sweets taste sweeter and also creates another dimension of flavor. Consider the recent phenomenon that is salted caramel, which is found everywhere from your morning coffee to the doughnut you might be pairing it with.

What is the best salt to bake with? ›

Fine Sea Salt

This is my go-to salt for baking. Whereas baking with some varieties of kosher salt can sometimes lead to bites that are way saltier than others, fine sea salt's small grain size dissolves evenly and readily into batters and dough.

Does salt expire? ›

Generally speaking, regular table salt has an indefinite shelf life, meaning it won't expire but its minerals may break down over time. This is because salt is a very stable mineral with very low water content, making it difficult for bacteria to grow.

Should you put salt in desserts? ›

To fully enjoy most sweets, whether they are chocolate, fruit or candy-based, a little salt goes a long way to make the flavors pop.

What are the six sweet foods? ›

Foods and herbs with the sweet flavour are considered to be tonics as they nourish us: licorice, shatavari and beetroot are all good examples as well as all sweet fruits, root vegetables, mung dal, honey, rice, milk and milk products.

Is sweet and salty a flavor? ›

The answer is taste. Every basic taste—sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami—is a message that tells us something about what we put into our mouth, so we can decide whether it should be eaten.

Why does sweet go with salty? ›

The flavor layer effect shows that the combo of two flavors creates an enjoyable taste two times greater than one flavor alone. Also, salt acts as a flavor enhancer, so salt enhances the sugar flavor. That's why the two flavors, sweet and salty, go so well together!

Which is sweeter salt and sugar? ›

Sugar:Medium crystals sized and sweeter. Salt: Small crystals sized and bitter or salty. while the taste of salt is sour.

Why are sweet things tasting salty? ›

Nutritional deficiencies: Sometimes, lack of nutrients, such as a zinc disorder, can lead to taste disorders. Medical conditions: Some conditions that affect the brain or nerves can also affect the tongue. This may lead to an odd or salty taste.

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