Salted Caramel Ice-Blended Coffee (Starbucks Copycat Recipe)

The salted caramel Frappuccino craze took the world by storm a few years ago. The sweet, buttery drink appealed to both coffee lovers and commoners alike, and I must admit this was my go-to Starbucks drink for a while, especially in hot summer days.

You know me, so you know I had to give it a go and craft my own salted caramel ice-blended coffee at home. I have to call it that because it turns out the word Frappuccino is a trademarked term. If you ask me, that’s one more reason to make our own caramel flavored drink at home and “stick it to the man.” Some words are meant to be used by everyone, right? It’s not like you can trademark ‘milk.’

With that out of my chest, there are some challenges ahead, though. This concoction can be as complex as you want. For example, if you what to make a salted caramel sauce from scratch, as I’ll explain below. Luckily, today we’re talking the easy path.

Let us start with an essential ingredient, the salted caramel sauce. Melted and slightly burnt sugar mixed with butter and sometimes heavy cream. This delicious treat is an exciting project, but it will take you an hour, and let me tell you that there are many store-bought salted caramel sauces out there. And since Starbucks doesn’t make its caramel sauce on the stovetop, we won’t either.

Starbucks then uses its super-secret mocha syrup, which tastes exactly like Hershey’s, so we got that covered too. And finally, we’ll add a few teaspoons of instant espresso for an added kick.

So, basically, we have our salted caramel, chocolate syrup, freeze-dried coffee, and milk, any milk you want. A hint of vanilla really livens the coffee up, so don’t skip it, and if you want to go over the top, sprinkle smoked sea salt flakes on over your drink, isn’t that fun? That’s a proper salted caramel ice-blended coffee in my books.

Let’s make ourselves the best caramel flavored coffee shop drink. It’s still one of my favorites, and I’m sure it will be yours too!