This Malaysian cooking caramel is going to be your new best friend! Once you make it, you will never want the shop bought variety again!
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
What is Cooking Caramel?
Cooking caramel sauce (karamel masakan in Malay), is a thick, dark and rich sugar and soy sauce based sauce that is used as much for the flavour it imparts, as its glorious hue.
This is the stuff you use when cooking KL Hokkien Mee, Penang Char Kway Teow and also for that dark dipping sauce for Hainanese Chicken Rice.
The last few months, I’d been focusing on Ramadan and Eid recipes. But now that Eid is over, I thought I’d spend some time focusing on our local Chinese recipes, like the ones mentioned above.
So I was going to start with KL Hokkien Mee. Then it occurred to me that if you’re not in Sg/My, you may not be able to get your hands on this Malaysian cooking caramel sauce. Here in the UK, there are so many online sellers, and perhaps your local Chinese grocer might stock it too. And I’m thinking the same could be said of the US and Australia.
If you prefer to buy it, this is the one to get, from Amazon, as seen in the image (affiliate link). It’s the standard bottle that’s been around for many, many years. I must confess that I much prefer the homemade version, it’s slightly sweeter than shop bought, but so much more delicious!
So in this post, I’m going to teach you how to make your own Malaysian cooking caramel sauce.
Sweet Caramel vs Savoury Cooking Caramel
They both start out the same, we use sugar and a little water to get to that, golden, auburn coloured liquid.
With sweet caramel, we stop at this beautiful autumn coloured shade, adding cream to get that delicious caramel sauce.
But with caramel sauce meant for savoury dishes in Asian cooking, we cook it for just a little bit longer, to get a darker, light coffee coloured stage. This extra cooking and darkening of the caramel gives us that incomparable bittersweet, smoky flavour that savoury cooking caramel is known for. In Asia, this dark caramel is synonymous with Vietnamese cooking, see below.
So is cooking caramel the same as kicap manis? Not quite. They both have sugar but while kicap manis is just sweet, sweet, sweet, our savoury caramel is a little sweet with salty, slightly bitter and smoky undertones.
Cooking Caramel Recipe
Making your own cooking caramel is so very easy. I’ve based this recipe on the one I’ve been using to cook Vietnamese for years, like in this Vietnamese Braised Fish recipe.
But while the Vietnamese cooking caramel is just sugar and water, for the Malaysian cooking caramel, I add dark soy sauce to finish it off.
This is what we’ll be doing:
- Cooking the sugar and a little water to a dark brown stage. This part may take as long as 12 – 15 minutes, depending on your heat. I cook it on medium to begin with, then turn it down to medium-low once it’s a brown colour, as it’s a fine line between the dark brown that we want and burnt!
- Add a little more water to stop it from cooking further. You need to be careful here, as the caramel will splutter as you add the water, stay clear of it.
- Add a pinch of salt and dark soy sauce, and cook it for another 3 minutes to thicken.
- Cool, transfer to a clean bottle and store with your other sauces. Will keep for a month in the pantry, 6 months if kept in the fridge.
It will thicken further as it cools. For this reason, if you are planning to keep it in the fridge, I suggest you store it in a jar (not a bottle), so you can use a spoon to get what you need. It’ll be too thick to pour easily.
Cooking Caramel in Pictures
The Ingredients
Sugar
The best cooking caramel is made with a combination of mainly white sugar and a little gula melaka (or dark brown sugar). You get a full bodied, well rounded flavour when using both types of sugar.
Having said that, I’ve often done without the gula melaka and the result is still pretty exceptional.
Water and Salt
We use a little water to lighten the sweetness of the cooking caramel and a pinch of salt just to complete the flavour.
Dark Soy Sauce
We add this right at the end and cook everything for just a few more minutes for the flavours to develop and for the caramel to thicken.
Dark soy sauce should be easily available wherever you are, next to the light soy sauce. But this is not the same as kicap manis.
How to use Cooking Caramel
As mentioned right at the start, we use this Malaysian cooking caramel when cooking KL Hokkien Mee and Penang Char Kway Teow. Look out for those recipes in the next couple of weeks. Here are how you can use this Malaysian cooking caramel sauce:
- in a stir fry, whether noodles or vegetables.
- as a dipping sauce in an East or South East Asian meal. Chop up some chillies, onions, add some lime juice or vinegar, and you’re good to go.
- as a marinade. I make a Chinese/Eurasian pot roast that I use this cooking caramel in. I’ll post that soon!
- you can also use it to add depth to stews, like in this Eurasian Corned Beef Stew. When a stew recipe calls for dark soy sauce or kicap manis, this cooking caramel makes a better ingredient! But a little goes a long way.
Right then, shall we get cooking?
If you enjoy the recipe, drop me a comment and let me know. And if you are feeling like a star, don’t forget that 5-star rating!
If you make this recipe, post it on Instagram and tag me @azlinbloor and hashtag it #linsfood.
Lin xx
More Ingredients on SMR
Homemade Malaysian Cooking Caramel (Karamel Masakan)
Equipment
- 1 saucepan
- 1 measuring cup
- 1 ladle
- 1 small-medium jug to transfer cooked caramel to cool
- 1 bottle or jar for storing
Ingredients
- 200 g white sugar
- 2 Tbsp gula melaka (or dark brown sugar)
- 185 ml water
- 1 pinch salt
- 4 Tbsp dark soy sauce
Instructions
- Heat the sugar and 4 Tbsp of the water in a small saucepan on medium heat. Stir the sugar to help it dissolve, then leave it untouched for a good 5 minutes. Bubbles will start appearing at the edges, slowly moving in to the middle.
- When the whole surface of the caramel is covered in bubbles, reduce the heat to medium-low and leave to cook until it changes colour to a light golden brown. You may need to swirl the mixture if it starts browning only on one side, because of hot spots on the base of the pan.Stir in the gula melaka and keep a close eye on it, we are going for medium -dark coffee coloured caramel.
- As soon as the mix starts to turn a darker shade of brown, take it off the heat. I just moved it to a cool hob.
- Standing away from the saucepan, pour in the rest of the water. Be careful as the hot caramel will splutter. Give it a stir.
- Add the dark soy sauce and place it back on low heat and bring to a simmer.
- Cook for another 3 minutes, then take it off the hot hob to cool. I prefer to decant it to a cool jug to stop it from cooking further.Or you can just transfer it to the bottle for storage, ensuring that it's heat proof. Cool to room temperature, then store as described above in the article.
I need this item immediately is there anyone who can provide me this in Bangladesh?
Why don’t you make it yourself with the recipe I’ve provided?
It’s really very easy to make with your step by step instructions and I love how glossy and syrupy the finished sauce looks!
Thank you, Maria. Very handy sauce to have at home.