Recipe Roundup

43 Sweet and Salty Desserts to Satisfy All Your Cravings at Once

Salted caramel sauce is only the beginning.
43 Sweet and Salty Desserts to Satisfy All Your Cravings at Once
Photo by Isa Zapata, Food Styling by Jessie YuChen

As cooks, we’ve learned to season our food with salt. And sweets are no exception—they always need a pinch, at least, to taste well-balanced. But the sweet and salty desserts in this collection go a step further, playing with the way that salt can amplify and add depth to the flavors of chocolate, caramel, and nuts (among others) while rounding off the bitterness found in some of these ingredients. Below, you’ll find salted cookies and tarts, desserts punched up with pretzels and salty crackers, and sweet recipes that lean on salty ingredients like miso and soy sauce to bring out umami. Grab your favorite flaky salt and scroll down.

  • Peanut butter pie bites with pretzel garnish.
    Photo by Kelsey Foster
    1/43

    Peanut Butter Pie Bites

    Some recipes for salty desserts simply ask you to sprinkle a flurry of salt on top, but these mini peanut butter pies are well seasoned throughout, thanks to pretzels in the crust and the garnish.

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  • Photo by Joseph De Leo, Food Styling by M. Pearl Jones
    2/43

    Chocolate Miso Bread Pudding

    Epi contributor Nik Sharma designed this chocolate bread pudding recipe with shiro miso in the custard in order to intensify the bright and savory flavors of the chocolate and tamp down some of its bitterness. The result: a chocolate dessert where the chocolate really shines.

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  • donna hay magazine, photography by Chris Court
    6/43

    Dark Chocolate Pretzel Cake

    With a pretzel layer on top and fudgy cake beneath, this is the kind of dessert you’ll want to snack on, sliver by sliver, all day long.

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  • Photo by Joseph De Leo, Prop Styling by Gerri Williams, Food Styling by Judy Haubert
    7/43

    Salted Speculoos Malts

    Speculoos cookie butter adds a toasty flavor to these malted milkshakes; salt is essential here for balancing the sweetness.

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  • Photo by Chelsea Kyle, Food Styling by Kat Boytsova
    8/43

    Salted-Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

    These salty, chewy, crunchy cookies are a longtime staff favorite. Salted butter is a crucial ingredient here; resting the dough in the fridge makes the cookies even better.

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  • Photo by Chelsea Kyle, Food Styling by Katherine Sacks
    12/43

    Crispy Peanut Butter Snack Cake

    This crunchy no-bake snack made from Chex cereal, crispy puffed rice, salty peanuts, pretzels, and potato chips is mixed with creamy peanut butter, honey, vanilla, and a bit of coconut oil and chilled until sliceable, then drizzled with chocolate. Some readers add crumbled bacon for even more savory-salty flavor.

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  • Photo by Joseph De Leo, Food Styling by Kaitlin Wayne
    13/43

    Fortune Cookie Magic Shell Sundae

    Dress up your sundae with flaky sea salt and a crackly-crumbly, slightly chewy cloak of magic shell made from fortune cookies.

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  • Photo by Joseph De Leo, Food Styling by Micah Marie Morton
    14/43

    Crunchy, Creamy Key Lime Pie Bites on Ice Cream

    These little bites reverse the standard proportions of Key lime pie, with a focus on the salty graham cracker crust.

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  • Photo by Joseph De Leo, Food Styling by Kaitlin Wayne
    18/43

    Hello Dollies

    Instead of using standard graham crackers in these simple layered bars, you’ll crush Ritz crackers. They’re a guaranteed bake sale hit.

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  • Photo by Justin Walker
    19/43

    Ovenly's Brooklyn Blackout Cake

    We’re not going to stop you from making the full recipe for this lavish cake, but if you’re short on time, we highly recommend that you whip up the 9-minute salted chocolate pudding on its own. While it makes a great cake filling, we also love it chilled in a bowl, with or without a dollop of espresso whipped cream and another pinch of salt on top.

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  • Photo by Joseph De Leo, Food Styling by Michelle Gatton
    20/43

    Peach and Butter Pecan Ice Cream Icebox Cake

    Icebox cakes are a staple of low-effort, no-bake desserts. Adding a layer of ice cream and using salty Ritz crackers instead of cookies or graham crackers makes this one unforgettable.

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  • Photo by Isa Zapata, Food Styling by Jessie YuChen
    30/43

    Salted Caramel Apple Cookies

    Love the flavor of caramel apples but don’t actually love biting into them? These apple cookies capture beloved fall flavors in a form that’s easy to share—and devour.

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  • photo by Gentl & Hyers
    31/43

    Burnt-Caramel Custards

    Letting the caramel cook until it reaches a deep amber color gives this custard a rich, complex flavor. A sprinkle of sea salt to finish brings all that flavor front and center.

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  • Photo by Chelsea Kyle, Food Styling by Rhoda Boone
    32/43

    Salted Apple Pretzel Pie

    Swap out your pie crust for a savory pretzel-dough topper and sprinkle with coarse salt before baking.

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  • Photo by Laura Murray, Food Styling by Susan Spungen
    33/43

    Salty Buckwheat Chocolate Chunk Cookies

    A bit of buckwheat flour gives these chocolate chunk cookies an earthy, nutty flavor. If you don’t have any, wheat flour will work in a pinch.

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  • Romulo Yanes
    34/43

    Lemon-Honey Tart

    This whole-lemon tart sports a salted shortbread crust, plus a touch of salt in the filling to round out the bitterness of the pith and peel. The final dessert is tart, bold, and refreshing—perfect for serving after a rich meal.

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  • Photograph by Laura Murray, food styling by Sue Li
    35/43

    Pretzel and Potato Chip Moon Pies

    Sweet marshmallows love to boogie with salty pretzels and potato chips. You can prep these salt-sprinkled moon pies in advance and keep them in an airtight container for two weeks.

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  • Gabriele Stabile
    42/43

    Pretzel Ice Cream Pie

    Pastry chef Christina Tosi (of cereal milk ice cream fame) makes pretzel ice cream to fill this salty ice cream pie.

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  • Photo by Alex Lau
    43/43

    Salted Butterscotch

    Salted caramel is everywhere. But if you like salty desserts, have you tried making salted butterscotch? This creamy sauce, made with dark brown sugar, light corn syrup, Scotch whiskey, vanilla, and salt, is wonderful poured over ice cream or drizzled on a piece of cake.

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