You’ll love these easy no-bake vegan caramel slices made with whole food ingredients. This indulgent treat features gooey caramel, dark chocolate and a simple almond crust. Perfectly textured in each sharable bite!
How about an indulgently rich and decadent no-bake dessert that’s totally whole food plant-based?
This vegan caramel slice comes with a dark chocolate topping, almond cookie base and a creamy date caramel center that’ll make you forget about unhealthy sweet treats from the first bite.
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The delicious combination of cold chocolate and melt-in-your-mouth almond cookie layer will impress any of your guests or friends.
The salted caramel filling is undetectably vegan and adds the perfect texture to this no-bake caramel slice!
We love to make this delicious dessert especially during the warmer months, just like our mini no-bake fruit tarts or chickpea cookie dough.
Recipe overview
- Creamy caramel center & soft almond cookie base
- Perfect for meal prep & picnics
- Crunchy dark chocolate almond topping
- Crowd-pleasing treat
- Undetectably nutritious & vegan
- Everything you want a dessert to be
Instead of featuring a traditional shortbread crust, our easy no-bake caramel slice recipe features a 4-ingredient healthy crumbly base that’s not overly sweet and comes together in a breeze.
But no worries, it’s still incredibly delicious and even kid-friendly!
15+ Date-Sweetened Desserts →
Ingredients needed
- Oat Flour & Almond Flour — these create the base for the cookie layer and can easily be made at home.
- Dates — our natural sweetener of choice for both the cookie layer and the vegan caramel filling!
- Almond & Coconut Milk — these help the components stick together and taste fantastic!
- Dark Chocolate — for the top layer.
- Crushed Almonds & Coarse Salt — optional crunchy toppings!
As you can see, these ingredients aren’t too hard to come by. Find the exact amounts and substitution ideas below!
In terms of equipment, you need a food processor, blender, parchment paper-lined baking dish, spoon and a small bowl for the melted chocolate.
How to make no-bake caramel slices
Drain the dates and place them with coconut milk into a food processor. Pulse to obtain a smooth puree.
Now, add almond flour and oat flour to the food processor and pulse a couple of times to incorporate.
Get a baking pan lined with some parchment paper and press this first layer gently down into it, using your wet fingers and a spatula or spoon if needed.
Make sure the layer is just sticky enough to stick together but not super wet — you can adjust the quantity of the almond flour or plant-based milk to achieve the best consistency here!
Make the caramel
Drain the dates and place them alongside almond milk in a blender. Blend until smooth, then add the rest of the ingredients.
Pour the caramel on your almond cookie layer with a spoon, then cover the baking dish and place it into the freezer to harden for about an hour.
Chocolate layer
In the meantime, melt your dark chocolate on the stove or in the microwave. Check out this awesome guide if you’re unsure how to do so!
Once your caramel has had time to set in the freezer, remove your baking dish and pour the melted chocolate on top of your two layers.
Spread with a spatula if needed (utensil-licking totally permissible!), then add any desired toppings or leave it as is.
Chill & serve
Place the baking dish into the fridge for at least 2 hours to achieve the desired consistency of your vegan caramel slices.
Once you’re ready to enjoy your sweet and healthy treats, cut them into squares or slices and serve cold!
15+ Chocolate Desserts →
Storage & serving
The caramel slices can be stored in the freezer for up to 3 months and defrosted at room temperature for about 5 minutes before serving.
They keep well in the fridge for at least a week! The slices haven’t “survived” any longer than that in our kitchen.
Enjoy them with a cup of almond milk or vanilla latte, fresh fruit or simply on their own!
Tips & adjustments
- If you don’t have any almond butter, you can make this recipe with cashew, peanut butter or even tahini for a nut-free version.
- While any dates will work for the date caramel, we highly recommend using Medjool dates to add the typical caramel-y flavor!
- Should you not be able to get as many dates, feel free to replace them with light syrup like rice or agave.
- You can go for 100% almond flour instead of a mixture of almond and oats in the bottom layer — if you have celiac disease, make sure any oats you use are certified gluten-free!
- Any vegan chocolate can be used for the top layer; feel free to adjust to the level of richness in cocoa that you prefer.
- Let the chilled chocolate caramel layers warm up a bit before slicing them with a serrated knife!
- Mix the dark chocolate with some coconut oil to prevent cracking if you don’t like messy desserts.
- Delicious toppings include crushed nuts, coconut flakes or coarse salt!
Make your own oat & almond flour
No need to buy oat flour or almond flour at the store, they are easily created at home!
Simply weigh the amount of oats you need on a scale and add them to a blender. Pulversize into flour and use it for baking!
To make your own almond flour, use blanched almonds — whole, slivered, doesn’t matter — and pulversite them in your blender.
More healthy vegan desserts
Try this goodness next if you enjoyed our no-bake caramel slice recipe!
Did you make our vegan caramel slice recipe and like it? Let us know in the comments below, leave a rating and Pin it here!
Ingredients
Cookie layer
- 1.5 cups oat flour 150 g
- ½ cup almond flour 55 g
- ⅓ cup dates pitted & soaked (100 g)
- 3 tbsp full-fat coconut milk
Date caramel
- ⅓ cup almond butter 60 g
- 1 cup dates pitted & soaked (120 g)
- 4 tbsp almond milk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp salt
Chocolate layer
- 1 cup dark chocolate about 150 g, melted
Topping
- Almonds crushed
- Coarse salt optional
Instructions
Make the cookie layer
- Place the drained dates and coconut milk into a food processor and polse to obtain a smooth puree.
- Add almond flour and oat flour and pulse a couple of times to incorporate, then transfer the mixture to a lined baking dish. Spread it into an even layer.
Make the caramel
- Blend dates and almond milk for a couple of seconds until smooth, then add the rest of the ingredients.
- Blend or pulse everything until you achieve a smooth consistency, then pour your date caramel on top of the bottom layer in the baking sheet.
- Spread evenly with a spatula or large spoon, then cover and freeze for at least 1 hour.
Add chocolate layer
- Remove the baking sheet from the freezer. Pour the dark melted chocolate over the hardened caramel layer and sprinkle with coarse salt and crushed almonds.
Chill & serve
- Cover again and refrigerate for at least 2 hours before cutting into slices and serving.
- The caramel slices can be stored in the fridge for up to a week or covered in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Notes
- We love this raw caramel slice straight from the freezer with about 5 minutes of defrosting time.
- You need a fairly good blender or food processor for this recipe to create smooth layers. Help your appliance out by soaking and draining the dates for at least 30 minutes before making this recipe!
- If you want to be sure to avoid any possible cracking of the chocolate layer, add some coconut oil or coconut milk to the melted dark chocolate.
The ratio of ingredients for the bottom layer appears to be way off. I ended with a powdery mess of loose flour. This recipe was a big waste of time and ingredients; will not make again.
thanks so much for your feedback! I tested the recipe again and agree that the bottom layer could do better with 1 more tbsp of coconut milk. Also, soaking the dates and draining them before putting them in the food processor would also help.
There are many variables as to why a recipe might not work when you try it — you could have just added some more coconut milk to the “way too dry” mixture and still make a delicious dessert that way :)
I added a couple tablespoons more of the coconut milk and then baked the bottom layer for 15 min at 350 degrees to get some of the moisture out. It turned out great!
sounds good, thanks for sharing!
This was an amazing recipe. I substituted the almond flour for buckwheat and the almond milk for rice milk and the almond butter for home made sunflower seed butter due to allergies. The slice tastes really nice, it’s such an easy recipe to have and I will definitely make it again. Thank you ????
they were amazing, the whole family loved the slices. thank you so much!
they were amazing, the whole family loved the slices. thank you so much!
What size tray did you use?
thanks for the question, Katie! I think it was an 8×8 inch tray – I’ll be sure to add this info to all of my recipes in the future. Hope you like the caramel slices!
The print link is not working… it just takes me to the top of the webpage.
Hi Toni, try this link in your browser: https://nutriciously.com/wp-json/mv-create/v1/creations/56/print
No idea why this happened when you clicked on “print” — hopefully, this works now!
Would you be able to replace the chocolate topping with a coconut oil and cacao mix instead?
yes, absolutely! there are a few recipes online for raw chocolate or glaze if you don’t have your own :)
These sound like they could be the recipe I’ve been searching for to recreate the “Magic Bar” from the now closed “Fresh Thymes” in Boulder CO. I’m excited to try…but I’m not understanding how 1/3 C of dates equals 100 grams and 1 C of dates equals 120 grams. I’ll use the cup measurements and hope for the best!
oh darn, there seems to be a typo! I’m so sorry but I don’t remember which one is the correct number… if you’re not a newbie in the kitchen, you probably will be able to guess whether there are too many or too few dates in any of the layers! I’d love it if you could share your result with us ♡
Do you soak the dates in water?
yes, it says so in the ingredients :) in a bowl of warm water for around 20 minutes.
Hi, I wanted to make these nut free… should I use sunflower butter and soy milk for this recipe or something else? Please help and thank you in advance.
Hi Jasmine, thanks for the question! Yes these swaps sound great. Oat milk would also work instead of almond milk. Let us know how the slices turn out nut-free!