How common is Argentine Dulce de Leche in America?

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Spirited_Ingenuity89@reddit

It’s a kind of thin caramel. It has a really buttery and toffee-like flavor.

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Smart_Engine_3331@reddit

It sounds good, but like I said ive never heard of this. Is it a local thing?

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It’s Latin American, but it’s definitely used outside of Hispanic communities. I’ve never been part of a Hispanic community, but I’ve seen it as a flavor in ice cream, baked goods, etc. (Like Häagen Dasz, Ben and Jerry’s, and Trader Joe’s all have the flavor in their ice cream.)

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tenehemia@reddit

Certainly you see way, way more deluce de leche from Mexican bakeries than Argentine just because there's way, way more Mexican people than Argentinian, but yes it's plenty well known and popular. You're not going to find it on conventional grocery shelves unless it's a very Hispanic area though. But there's Mexican bakeries aplenty in any city of decent size and it's pretty much guaranteed to be available there.

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Neakhanie@reddit

\^ This. I don’t even know what it is. (since I go to conventional grocery stores)

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loftychicago@reddit

Try some Haagen Dazs Dulce de Leche ice cream.

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Neakhanie@reddit

Oh, I know what it is, flavor-wise - boiled condensed milk - just never seen it for sale to buy premade in a bakery, and don’t even understand what I’d be buying. Caramel sauce? Flan? I’ve just never seen it before.

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Highway49@reddit

A true gift from the gods!

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Spirited_Ingenuity89@reddit

It’s like a thin caramel. It has a really buttery and toffee-like flavor.

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Kitchen-Nectarine179@reddit

You're not going to find it on conventional grocery shelves unless it's a very Hispanic area though.

Its nice to learn suburban Ohio is now "a very Hispanic area."

Every Kroger and Meijer, even WalMart, carries dulcet de leche... its a pretty common thing.

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turdferguson3891@reddit

It's around. We don't really associate it with Argentina, though. I'd think Mexcio or maybe Cuba or even the Phillipines. But that probably just has to do with the makeup of our immigrant population. Also I see it more frequently as something like an ice cream flavor than the real deal.

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StoutBourbon1992@reddit (OP)

Or flavour liquor

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Superiority_Complex_@reddit

It’s definitely fairly well known and liked in the US. Both the actual dessert itself and the flavor for ice cream, liqueurs, and so on.

I don’t think many would pin it as specific to Argentina, but instead as a general Latin American (or Filipino, apparently) dessert. Though as others have said, that may just be because there are much larger Mexican/Cuban/etc. immigrant populations in the US. I had it a month or two ago at a Mexican restaurant, it was great.

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Engelgrafik@reddit

So Dulce de Leche in the USA seems to mostly be known as a flavoring to coffee, ice cream and so on.

I don't think I've ever eaten it as its own thing, but I know it's sometimes available in the cooler section of better stores.

I do go to Latin grocery stores and have never seen it but I'm willing to bet it's there somewhere.

I feel like there's a greater chance of finding dulce de leche as a "flavor" to things than actually finding the real thing.

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MonsieurRuffles@reddit

No need to go to a Latin grocer, you can buy it at Target and Walmart.

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Engelgrafik@reddit

But is it *real*? I always get the feeling that the stuff sold in the big stores is like an American take on it.

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MonsieurRuffles@reddit

Nestlé is an international company and its La Lechera brand is sold throughout Latin America. Not sure what you could do to Americanize dulce de leche as it’s just sweetened condensed milk that’s heated until it caramelizes.

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andrewclarkson@reddit

I don't think I've ever heard of it or tried it, people are saying it's common though. Does it go by any other possibly Americanized name?

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Spirited_Ingenuity89@reddit

I think most people just call it caramel. I definitely think of it as just being a kind of caramel (even though technically I know that a different chemical process is happening).

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andrewclarkson@reddit

Ohhh ok I definitely know what caramel is and I've had it many times. I've just never heard that name for it before.

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SingleDadSurviving@reddit

Growing up it was always just caramel to me, if slightly a different version. If my grandma wanted to add caramel to something she would cook the can of eagle brand or condensed milk. She never called it Dulce de Leche though. Also it is pronounced car-mel not care-a-mel lol regardless of how it's spelled.

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jackofspades49@reddit

Is argentinian dulce de leche somehow different from that mexican caramel stuff?

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Intermountain-Gal@reddit

I’ve only had it following an Argentine recipe. I have no idea if it’s the same!

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MissFabulina@reddit

Sweetened condensed milk cooked down for a long time?

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Intermountain-Gal@reddit

It uses condensed milk, whole milk, baking soda, brown sugar, and water.

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MissFabulina@reddit

Ahhh, that is different than the dulce de leche that is common here. Boil a can of sweetened condensed milk until it turns into caramel. It is used as a topping, flavoring, etc. It isn't usually eaten on its own.

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Smart_Elk_9184@reddit

I make a pie out of it. Top it with cool whip and chocolate chips. Though I may boil it longer than you do. You want it to be firm enough to set once it cools down.

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HonestLemon25@reddit

Dulce de leche pie is nuts lol. 1000 calories per slice I bet. Sounds delicious tho

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Intermountain-Gal@reddit

I eat it on apples, ice cream, and angel food cake!

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Ok_Jackfruit2612@reddit

You're talking about cajeta. They are both caramelized milk, but cajeta is made with goats milk and is not as sweet.

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No-Interview319@reddit

Are you talking about flan?

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Prestigious-Craft251@reddit

No he’s talking about tres leches cake bruh

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SisyphusRocks7@reddit

No, Dulce de leche is cooked sweetened condensed milk. It’s like a semi-solid caramel.

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InvestigatorJaded261@reddit

I thought (as an Anglo from New England) that it was a rum-based cocktail. I got the notion from the musical Guys and Dolls, during which there is a scene that takes place in Havana.

It sounds like I was misinformed.

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Spirited_Ingenuity89@reddit

I far as I can tell, that was made up for the musical. But after the popularity of the musical and movie version with Sinatra and Brando, someone did develop a drink with Bacardi and sweetened condensed milk (and I’m not sure what else).

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knowlessman@reddit

What makes it Argentinan?

Dulce de leche is very common in a "everyone knows what it tastes like, very few people have it at home" sense, but it's not associated with Argentina to my knowledge. So i don't know if you mean there is a unique version of dulce de leche from Argentina, or you are claiming all dulce de leche for Argentina.

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ferret_80@reddit

He wouldn't be the first. According to wikipedia,

In 2003, Argentina attempted to declare dulce de leche as an intangible cultural heritage but countries across South America and Central America objected due to its popularity all over the continent.

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ju5tjame5@reddit

I've never seen it in the grocery stores but it's a pretty common beverage at Mexican restaurants

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MonsieurRuffles@reddit

Dulce de leche isn’t a beverage. You might be confusing it with café con leche.

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ju5tjame5@reddit

I was thinking of horchata.

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somecow@reddit

Wouldn’t say it’s Argentina kind, but oh yeah, we have that. Better luck in a latino store (we have all sorts of “not white people stores”). But yes, it’s available. Sometimes you get el salvador, Argentina, varieties of mexico, honduras, it doesn’t matter.

HEB makes a crazy good dulce de leche cake sometimes. Just depends on how they’re feeling that day.

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SummertimeThrowaway2@reddit

Yes it’s available and easy to find, although most Americans don’t eat it.

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Spirited_Ingenuity89@reddit

> although most Americans don’t eat it.

Speak for yourself.

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SummertimeThrowaway2@reddit

I’m not speaking for myself lol I love Dulce de leche

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Consistent-Luck-2907@reddit

I lived in Argentina for a year. What most of these guys think of as Dulce de leche is NOT Argentine Dulce de leche. The Mexican one is awful and has a weird after taste compared to Argentine Dulce de leche. You can get the real Argentine deal but you gotta search for the specific brands and probably order it online. I couldn’t even find it in my farmers market which usually has lots of international ingredients.

So, Americans have a concept of what dulce de leche is but it’s not the same concept as Argentine Dulce de leche for most people.

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Spirited_Ingenuity89@reddit

You don’t have to buy it premade. I just make it myself with a can of sweetened condensed milk.

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MonsieurRuffles@reddit

Don’t know if Argentine dulce de leche is different from any other kind but I make my own by heating a can of sweetened condensed milk with my sous vide circulator.

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Raibean@reddit

We have Mexican dulce de leche; it’s fairly common! But I also have only lived in areas with a lot of Mexican-Americans.

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Daddysheremyluv@reddit

It's in my grocery store. Hispanic isle

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gator_mckluskie@reddit

dulce de leche is super common, no one would pinpoint it as being related to argentina

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notadamnprincess@reddit

Not unless you’ve spent time in Argentina. We have dulce de leche items here and there, but it’s nowhere near as ubiquitous and ours is more like a caramel sauce than the thicker and milkier versions you can get pretty much anywhere in Argentina. I live in a large city but still can’t find a good hookup for dulce de leche alfajores (or medialunas come to that).

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GlobalTapeHead@reddit

Very popular flavor of ice cream here, as well as coffee creamer and there is a dulce de leche cake too.

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thisislyncanthropy@reddit

Yeah I’ve seen it in regular supermarkets. But like maybe something more specific like alfajores you would need to go to a Hispanic supermarket

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Emhyr_var_Emreis_@reddit

It’s a Haagen Daz flavor that is found in almost every supermarket in the US.

Is that different from the Argentinian version?

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MonsieurRuffles@reddit

Ice cream with dulce de leche isn’t dulce de leche. It’s like saying chocolate chip ice cream is chocolate chips.

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Emhyr_var_Emreis_@reddit

No disrespect intended. I didn’t realize they were different.

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YourGuyK@reddit

I know it mainly as one of the 3 milks in Tres Leches cake.

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MonsieurRuffles@reddit

Some bakeries might drizzle dulce de leche on top but the three milks in tres leches cake are evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, and whole milk.

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EonJaw@reddit

I've had Dulce de Leche flavored ice cream. Are you talking about a type of ice cream, or is it normally something different? I probably could find some if I looked for it.

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VariegatedPlumage@reddit

Dulce de leche is the caramel swirl in the ice cream.

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MonsieurRuffles@reddit

Dulce de leche is caramelized milk. You can buy it premade or make your own from sweetened condensed milk.

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anonymouse278@reddit

Dulce de leche is pretty widely available, although I wouldn't say it's a super popular thing, more like something you'd occasionally find at restaurants (or as a flavor for something else like ice cream or a shake, rather than a full dish in its own right). Not a top ten dessert or dessert flavor here, but people will typically be familiar with it.

I don't think people here associate it with Argentina in particular more than any other part of Latin America.

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machagogo@reddit

"Argentine" not so much, dulce de leche? Common enough.

Argentine is very popular in my house, wife is Argentine.

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VariegatedPlumage@reddit

In NYC you can find it in almost every conventional grocery store. It’s very common, but like most folks have said, it’s usually associated with Mexican or Filipino cuisine, not Argentinian.

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Low-Stick6746@reddit

In my area (California), Dulce de leche is fairly common in Mexican restaurants, but it would be very strongly Mexican in style, assuming that there would be variations within the various Latin American cultures that tend to make it. I know with Latin American cuisine that the same dish can be common in multiple countries or regions but be quite different from each other. I don’t know if that’s the case with dulce de leche or not.

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Darryl_Lict@reddit

Here in California, Hispanic food is largely Mexican except for maybe pupusas. I've never heard of Dulce de Leche, is it something akin to caramel topping?

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pyramidalembargo@reddit

Very similar, but richer due to the milk content.

It's very easy to make if you have a Crockpot. Just put a can of condensed milk in a Crockpot full of water on low, and cook overnight. (Remove the label, of course.)

Easiest recipe in the world.

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SingleDadSurviving@reddit

Yeah my grandma did that a lot, we've always just called it caramel.

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PsychologicalAir8643@reddit

Wild to be from California and have never heard of dulce de leche! It's great with churros or on ice cream

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Ok_Jackfruit2612@reddit

I would imagine it is more popular in states with high populations of Hispanic and Latino people. I'm from Texas so I'm very familiar with it. A lot of Tex-Mex restaurants use cajeta and dulce de leche interchangeably even though they aren't the same thing.

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HankyPanky80@reddit

We have the canned Nestle stuff you can find anywhere all over. It will be hard to find like Havana or any colonial style.

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OkPerformance2221@reddit

Very common in at least the southwestern United States, but it's not thought of as related to Argentina.

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BippidiBoppetyBoob@reddit

Dulce de Leche is very commonly available.

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IHaveBoxerDogs@reddit

In the U.S. I've only lived in places with large Hispanic/Latino populations. Dulce de leche is easy to find, but I don't know if it's specifically Argentinian. Is there something that makes it specifically Argentinian vs another country?

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redjessa@reddit

It's pretty common here and I love it. Most people I know do. There is actually an Argentinian bakery close by where my friend (who is from Argentina) always picks up these delish Dulce de Leche cookies. I can't remember what she said they are called, but they have become my favorite treat at friend BBQs.

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rgg40@reddit

It’s common at my Hispanic-oriented grocery store (in Texas), but I’ve never seen it with an Argentine tag

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SingleDadSurviving@reddit

I've seen in like in a can at a Mexican grocery store. I've seen Dulce de Leche flavored stuff like ice cream or coffee syrup. Isn't it basically like caramel?

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BeholdBarrenFields@reddit

There’s a restaurant chain where I am that sells a “caramel pie” that is just Dulce de leche on a graham cracker crust with whipped cream, nuts and chocolate chips on top. So a lot of people don’t even realize that’s what they’re eating.

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maccrogenoff@reddit

I adore dulce de leche and the goat milk version, cajeta.

I am fortunate to live near two grocery stores that stock a selection of brands.

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PsychologicalAir8643@reddit

Cajeta is divine

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kevin3350@reddit

I grew up in Los Angeles, so I had a pretty substantial number of Argentinian and Chilean classmates. Their moms would make stuff with Dulce de Leche for a lot of holidays or just to stop by if they had extra, and I always loved it (Miljohas in particular was a favorite of mine, but that was a Chilean friend’s mom, and I’m not sure how common that is in Argentina).

Overall, I don’t think I’ve met anyone who didn’t like it. When I lived in Mississippi, I ordered the Dulce de Leche on Amazon to try to make some stuff, and all the people who tried it absolutely loved it even though a few hadn’t tried it.

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RedneckBorealis@reddit

Extremely common and absolutely known where there are dense populations of Mexican or Central American immigrants. Moderately common elsewhere.

The biggest disappointment will likely be to learn that precisely nobody in the US would associate it specifically with Argentina unless they are literally from Argentina

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PsychologicalAir8643@reddit

Yeah there's no association here (or anywhere else in Latin America...) with it being Argentine

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Far_Silver@reddit

Extremely common and absolutely known where there are dense populations of Mexican or Central American immigrants

You forgot Cuban Americans.

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Nofanta@reddit

It’s kind of gross. Like a disappointing version of caramel. Rarely see it.

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PsychologicalAir8643@reddit

Both of these are false

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txlady100@reddit

Never heard of it.

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lezzerlee@reddit

Pretty common near me for dessert, though associated with a Mexican food.

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sideburniusmaximus@reddit

Never heard of it

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Bake_knit_plant@reddit

I brought eight pints of dulce de leche in different flavors as well as dulce de leche liqueur when I came back from South America . (I spent a week in Buenos Aires)

They were gifts I gave and everybody loved them - but what they loved even more was the cream of limoncello and the narancello that I've never seen anywhere else and can't seem to order online.

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christmasshopper0109@reddit

I made it in the crackpot out of a can of sweetened condensed milk. It was good. Once was enough

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Background_Humor5838@reddit

Everyone knows what it is and most people have eaten it but I find it to be extremely sweet so if any dessert mentions dulce de leche I know I won't like it.

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strongly-worded@reddit

All the people saying it’s common - you may never have been to Argentina. DDL is the flavor there. There are sandwich cookies with DDL in the middle called Alfajores that are as common as Oreos in the US. You can find DDL here, but it’s not EVERYWHERE the way it is there.

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Blue387@reddit

I see dulce de leche in neighborhoods with large Hispanic population like Sunset Park where there is a Pollo Campero

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Intermountain-Gal@reddit

I first learned about it in the early 80s. My boyfriend had lived in Cordoba for a couple of years. He taught me how to make it. I love it, though I haven’t had it for awhile.

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Far_Silver@reddit

I see it on supermarket shelves, and I've never set foot in a Hispanic specialty store.

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usefulchickadee@reddit

Dulce de Leche is very common. I have never seen it marketed as Argentine though.

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Xistential0ne@reddit

Well, you know, Argentinians (extra especially citizens of Buenos Aires), are notoriously so humble if you ask them, “where is the best Dulce de Leche? They will let you know, it’s obviously Argentina! 🤣

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Prestigious-Name-323@reddit

It’s definitely available but I’ve always seen it in relation to Mexico.

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Big_Judge_438@reddit

Dulce de leche is common in the Spanish speaking world, therefore common here in America. Much of the western US was previously part of the Spanish empire.

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commanderquill@reddit

I think they probably know about that little fun fact already.

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stringstringing@reddit

In the United States we know dolce de leche as Mexican. It’s available but only common in areas that have Latino populations.

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No-Profession422@reddit

Very deliciously decadent ice cream bars.

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MISProf@reddit

I’ve seen it on menus when traveling but locally it’s not available.

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WorkerAmbitious2072@reddit

What’s that

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creeper321448@reddit

I only know it because I hang out with Argentinians.

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orcas-@reddit

It’s very common and in vast majority of instances via Mexico or elsewhere, not Argentina (Argentines are a much smaller diaspora here.) And my kids love it as doce de leite (they’re Brazilian American)

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poisonedkiwi@reddit

Ooo, I really like dulce de leche :D I don't find it super often where in my area unless you go to specific restaurants, but you can see it every once in a while in other places. I know it can be hit or miss with some people, but I quite like it.

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Floofy_Cat_8675@reddit

I've had it at a very high end restaurant once. Otherwise I don't see it at cheaper places.

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Ok_Caterpillar2010@reddit

Not specifically Argentinian, but dulce de leche is easy to find around here in supermarkets, Mexican restaurants, etc. It's pretty mainstream as an ice cream flavor, too.

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she-dont-use-jellyyy@reddit

I've never heard of it.

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JennItalia269@reddit

You can find it. It’s not at many ice cream shops unlike Buenos Aires. But it exists.

My mom is from Argentina and dulce de Leche is a staple of my life.

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