Salted Caramel Turtle Bars

Hip, hip, hooray I’ve got some Salted Caramel Turtle Bars coming your way, or as we call them in my house….Tailgate Turtle Bars.

It’s official, friends.

Football season is in full swing and it’s time to score big with snacks that everyone will love.

Turtle Bars have been around forever and just about everyone on the planet has some variation of them.

Like any turtle recipe, it’s a combination of caramel + chocolate + pecans.

To get them into a substantial bar form, you combine the caramel, chocolate and pecans with some sort of crust.

Salted Caramel Turtle Bars

Yield: 12 bars

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

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Ingredients

• 1 stick of butter, melted
• 1 package (16 ounce) vanilla wafers
• 1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips, plus more for sprinkling on top
• 1 package (12 ounce) caramels
• 2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
• 2 teaspoons coarse sea salt
• 1 cup pecans, chopped

Instructions

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Line a square baking pan with parchment paper and set aside (my pan is about 8x8).
Crush the vanilla wafers and press firmly into the bottom of the baking dish. Pour the melted butter over the top of the vanilla wafers. Melt the chocolate chips with 2 teaspoons of vegetable oil and pour over the vanilla wafer layer. In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt the caramels with the whipping cream until smooth and creamy, add the sea salt and mix well. Pour the salted caramel over the chocolate layer. Sprinkle the chopped pecans. Add a few pinches more of coarse sea salt and a handful of chocolate chips over the top of the pecans.
Bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees.
Cool in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours before cutting into squares.

Notes

**You can also use a 9x13 inch baking pan- your layers will just be much thinner.

Here’s where you have some options.

You can use graham crackers and create a graham cracker crust. Oreos for a chocolate-y crust. Or, in my case, crushed vanilla wafers.

I’ve also salted up my caramel because I love the sweet and salty combination, but that’s entirely up to you if you want to add the sea salt.

These guys are pretty darn decadent so keep that in mind when you cut them into squares. My squares were probably a little on the “a bit too large” side but that didn’t stop anyone from devouring them.

These are perfect for football watching parties at home and best served a bit chilled. But, of course, if you live somewhere that doesn’t have the humidity problems we have down here, bring them with you to the game. Just layer them with a bit of parchment paper to keep them from sticking together and you should be good to go.

Happy Football Season, y’all!