Many thanks to Nature's Charm for sending me some of their Vegan Coconut sauces to review recently. I've featured them before with my Condensed Coconut Milk review, and I really enjoyed that so was even more excited to see what these were like.
It's hard finding dairy free alternatives to popular products, but luckily the market is gradually expanding to cater for all, and these fit in nicely. They are made with coconut milk, coconut sugar, sea salt and other natural ingredients.
The Matcha sauce was the one I went for first because I didn't expect to like it and wanted to get it out of the way. It's made with coconut cream, cane sugar, matcha powder, coconut oil, calcium carbonate, salt and water. When I first took a spoonful it was as I expected; the earthy green tea flavour that I'm not a big fan of mixed with super sweet coconut. After seeing a post on Nature's Charm's Instagram I decided to try make a matcha latte with it and see if that tasted better.
I used Koko coconut milk, so it was quite light, and added a good few dollops of it in whilst I heated it in a saucepan. The result tasted pretty good and was much nicer than eating it straight from the spoon - it made a sweet, creamy drink with just the right level of earthy green tea flavour. I think matcha must just be one of those things that only works in certain ways. The label has a tip from Nature's Charm creator to try it in smoothies or make your own matcha tart. Now that sounds a bit different!
The Coconut Salted Caramel sauce was the one I was looking forward to most and it didn't disappoint. They describe it as "happiness in a mouthful" and they're not far wrong...this stuff is delicious! It's very silky and with just the right golden colour and gooey texture to use on desserts, as a filling for chocolates, or just spread on chunks of chocolate...as I did!
I also tried it on some Karma Bites snacks...combining two interesting flavours in one, and that worked nicely too!
Overall, this stuff is delicious, with the closest salted caramel flavour I've come across as far as dairy free alternatives go. It's something I'll be buying again as a treat if I'm avoiding dairy (I'm not allergic, but can't eat too much of it or I'll get sick). The Matcha one isn't something I can see myself ever desiring again, it's just not for me but hey if you love matcha lattes this sauce might be right up your street.
A big thumbs up to Nature's Charm for this range - go check out their online store, they have a pretty great range of vegan sauces available on there.
