Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: These cookies are bursting with nutty, toasty brown butter flavor without going too sweet.
Texture: This recipe nails that bakery-style contrast — a perfectly chewy center with crispy edges.
Ease: Browning the butter is an extra step, but otherwise, they’re super simple. You won’t even need a mixer!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe: These cookies are the perfect combo of gooey centers, crisp, golden edges, and a rich, brown butter flavor.
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My Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies are chewy in the middle, crisp at the edges, and full of rich, nutty flavor. The secret is browning the butter, a simple step that makes a big difference in taste and texture.
I’ll guide you through these step-by-step, but they’re pretty easy to master. You don’t even need a mixer to make these incredible cookies!
Reader Love
These are sooooo good, I’ve been baking for many years and this is the best chocolate chip cookie recipe I have tried. I chilled them for two days and the flavor was outstanding, I would recommend not skipping that part. Can’t wait to make them over the holidays!
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Ingredient Notes
Every ingredient in the perfect chocolate chip cookie plays a role in that chewy, gooey, bakery-style texture. Here’s why they matter in this brown butter chocolate chip cookie recipe so that you can bake with confidence:
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- Brown Butter: This is the star of the show! Browning the butter transforms its flavor, creating nutty, caramelized notes that give these cookies depth and complexity.
- Bread Flour + All-Purpose Flour: Bread flour has more protein, which results in a chewier, thicker cookie. If you only have all-purpose flour, you can use it for the full amount, but you’ll lose some chewiness.
- Dark Brown Sugar: This sugar adds rich flavor and moisture to keep your cookies soft and chewy. You can use light brown sugar (1:1 ratio), but your cookies will lose a little richness.
- Granulated Sugar: White sugar gives your cookies structure and just enough crispness for that perfect texture contrast. I strongly recommend that you don’t reduce the sugar in these cookies. Sugar doesn’t just sweeten, and cutting it out will change the texture of your cookies!
- Chocolate: This recipe combines chocolate chips and chocolate baking wafers (or fèves). The chips hold their shape, while the wafers melt into irresistible chocolate puddles.
- Sea Salt: This is optional, but you can add a sprinkling of flaky sea salt after pulling your cookies out of the oven.
Sprinkle of Science
Step-By-Step: Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
I tested and tweaked this recipe until every batch had the perfect balance. These have gooey centers, chewy middles, and just-crisp edges. Here are my tips for cookies that are picture-perfect, taste great, but are totally doable at home.
1. Brown the Butter
I have hundreds of cookie recipes on my site, but there’s just something magical about brown butter cookies.
How do you brown butter for cookies? Start by melting butter, and then cook until the milk solids in the butter become toasted. The result is a deeply nutty, caramelized, butterscotch flavor that perfectly enhances chocolate chip cookies.
Brown butter is super simple to make. Just be sure not to walk away from it, as it can burn quickly. Scrape all the brown bits into the mixing bowl, too, as they’re the most flavorful.
Love the flavor of browned butter? Try these next: Brown Butter Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies, Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Butterscotch Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.
2. Mix & Cool the Butter Base
After browning the butter, mix in the sugars and let the mixture cool completely before adding the eggs. This keeps the eggs from scrambling in the warm butter and helps the dough come together. Cool butter also thickens slightly as it sits, giving the cookies a chewier texture.
3. Build the Dough
Mixing the wet and dry ingredients separately is one of the easiest ways to get perfect cookies every time. Whisking the flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together first ensures even distribution of ingredients, so every cookie spreads and rises the same way.
When you gently stir the dry ingredients into the wet, you’re also less likely to overmix, keeping your cookies from getting too dense or dry.
4. Chill for Flavor & Structure
I know it’s annoying to have to wait to enjoy cookies, but I promise you it’s SO worth it. The dough improves in taste and texture as it chills. If you don’t want to wait for your cookies, feel free to bake a few after chilling for at least two hours, just to satisfy the craving. Bake the rest after 24 hours!
Freezing doesn’t work the same as chilling, so there are no shortcuts here. To fully develop the flavor and texture, it requires a minimum of 24 hours (and up to 72 hours) in the fridge.
5. Scoop, Size, and Bake
If my fridge space is more limited, I’ll refrigerate the entire mass of dough. If you do the same, you need to allow plenty of time for the dough to come to room temp before portioning. Don’t scoop cold dough. You’ll break your scoop!
I’ve found that this brown butter cookie dough is best as big cookies using a large 3-tablespoon cookie scoop. To make smaller cookies, use a medium 1.5-tablespoon cookie scoop and reduce the baking time to about 10 minutes. Note that the texture will be affected with a smaller scoop of dough.
The easiest option is to scoop and then chill. However, there’s a bit more risk that your dough will dry out in the fridge this way, so store the cookie dough balls in an airtight container or good-quality zip-top bag to prevent them from drying out.
Baking Tips for Best Results
From measuring your flour accurately to knowing exactly when to remove the cookies from the oven, a few minor tweaks can transform your results from “good” to “I can’t stop eating these.”
- Measure correctly. I use a digital kitchen scale to weigh my ingredients, especially flour. Incorrectly measured flour can lead to cookies that are tough, crumbly, dry, too thick, or just blah. If you don’t have one, use the spoon and level method.
- Check your oven temperature. Most ovens run a little hot or cold, which can throw off baking times. I use an oven thermometer to ensure baking accuracy.
- Choose the right pan. For best results, use a quality light-colored baking pan or cookie sheet and line it with parchment paper. The pan you bake on has a huge impact on your cookies. I have a guide to baking pans with side-by-side testing!
- Use fresh leavening agents. Make sure your baking soda and baking powder are fresh and active to ensure your cookies spread and rise perfectly. My guide explains these two leaveners and how to test for freshness.
- Don’t overbake. Bake these cookies just until the edges set and turn a golden brown. The middles may still look a little “wet,” and that’s OK! The pan’s residual heat will continue to cook them through to perfection.
- Chill the dough. I know I’ve already mentioned this, but don’t skip the chill period. Chilling gives the flavors time to deepen, resulting in thicker, chewier cookies.
Storage & Freezing Notes
When stored in an airtight container, these cookies stay soft and chewy for 2-3 days at room temperature. For longer storage, chill the dough for 24-72 hours first.
I like to portion out the dough and place it on a baking sheet, then freeze just until solid. Transfer the frozen dough balls to a freezer bag and freeze for up to 6 weeks. This way, you can bake off small batches of fresh cookies whenever you like!
FAQs
What makes this chocolate chip cookie recipe especially easy?
Even though these cookies look and taste bakery-worthy, the process is very approachable. No mixer is needed. Everything you need is easy to find at the grocery store, and browning the butter is easy to master.
How does browning the butter affect the flavor and texture of chocolate chip cookies?
Browning the butter transforms the flavor of your cookies in the best way. It develops rich, nutty, almost caramel-like notes that deepen the overall flavor, giving your cookies a more complex taste.
On the texture side, the dough has slightly less moisture, which helps create thicker, chewier cookies with crisp, golden edges. It’s a small extra step with a huge payoff in both taste and texture.
More Cookie Recipes to Try
Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
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Ingredients
- 2 sticks (227 grams) unsalted butter
- ½ cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
- 1 ¼ cups (250 grams) lightly packed dark brown sugar
- 1 ½ cups (190 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1 cup (127 grams) bread flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 2 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups (255 grams) semisweet chocolate chips
- 1 cup (140 grams) semisweet chocolate baking wafers (from Guittard or Valrhona)*
- flaky sea salt (optional)
Instructions
- In a small saucepan set over medium heat, melt the butter. Swirling the pan occasionally, continue to cook the butter. It should become foamy with audible cracking and popping noises.
- Once the crackling stops, continue to swirl the pan until the butter develops a nutty aroma and brown bits start to form at the bottom. When the bits are amber in color, about 2 to 3 minutes after the popping stops, remove from heat and pour into a mixing bowl.
- Add in the sugars, stir, then set aside to cool completely.
- In a medium or large bowl, combine the flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
- Add the eggs, egg yolk, and vanilla to the browned butter mixture, and stir with a rubber spatula until combined. Slowly stir in the flour mixture until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips and wafers.
- Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 24 hours but no more than 72 hours. Let the dough sit at room temperature until just soft enough to scoop.
- Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350ºF. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Divide the dough into 3-tablespoon sized balls using a cookie scoop and drop onto prepared baking sheets, leaving about 3 inches between each piece of dough to spread.
- Bake for 11 to 13 minutes, or until golden brown. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt, if desired. Let cool for 5 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely.
Recipe Notes
The Ultimate Cookie Handbook
Learn the sweet SCIENCE of cookie baking in a fun, visual way to customize your own recipes frustration-free. Plus, my best 50+ homemade cookies!
This post was originally published in 2015 and recently updated with recipe improvements and new photos. Photos by Ashley McLaughlin.
AMAZING!!!
I’m just curious. There’s no need to cool down the butter before adding the sugars? I’ve seen recipes they cool down the butter before adding the sugar. Any scientific explanations?
Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies has become my favorite chocolate chip cookie to make! That you for such a great recipe!
hi! i think i burnt the butter because it’s completely black. would it still be okay to use or will the cookies turn out tasting bad?
We’d recommend making the brown butter again, otherwise you’ll notice the burnt flavor in your cookies. Hope you tried again, let us know how it went!
Best cookie recipe ever. And I love that the proportions are weighed. Sooo good. I also have subbed the wafers for toffee bits and it is delicious.
Hello 🙂
I made these cookies and baked a few of them after chilling for one hour because I couldn’t wait but the rest of the dough is still in the fridge. Now I found that they spread a little too much and were a too greasy, is there a way I can improve the dough? I know it will probably spread less after 24 hours in the fridge but I still found them too be too greasy, I think I didn’t add enough flour.. is there a way I can still work with the chilled dough?
Thank you so much!
Hi Eva! It’s possible! Was your brown butter/sugars mixture cooled completely before adding the other ingredients? Did you use a digital scale to measure your ingredients? If not, I’d highly encourage you to get one (they’re surprisingly cheap on Amazon!). That will guarantee precision when measuring out your dry ingredients. I haven’t tried adding additional ingredients to dough that’s already been mixed and chilled, but you’re welcome to experiment! Let us know how it goes!
Hi!!
These look awesome! I don’t have bread flour, how much all purpose flour do you suggest I use for this recipe? Thanks!!
Hi Aisha! You’ll use the same amount as noted for bread flour, just keep in mind that your cookies won’t be quite as chewy!
These turned out BEAUTIFULLY and so so tasty! Used a kitchen scale for the first time in a baking recipe and will every time now. The oven thermometer tip is great—I learned that I need to set my oven all the way to 385 to hit an internal temp of 350! I did have one runt ball of dough left over in the fridge (I just portioned them into 97-99g balls since I didn’t have the 3tbsp scoop) and didn’t let it get all the way to room temp before baking since it was just the last little bit. This one remained more rigid and didn’t flatten to a more natural cookie shape like the others so I’m glad i now know to take the pre-bake resting time seriously 🙂 awesome recipe!!
Loved reading through your comment! So happy to hear you used a kitchen scale and oven thermometer, they’re game changers in the kitchen! and so glad you enjoyed this recipe too! 🙂 Thanks so much for the comment!
Ive made this the first time on my daughter’s first birthday as a giveaway since its that good. It has that lingering nutty something aftertaste. But alot asked me to bake again and its still good but It doesnt have that aftertaste again? I think its luck or maybe theres a difference between marinating for 2 days vs 3 days?
Ive made this 5x already and everybody said its good but my sister whose very very hard to please with her cookies says its not as good as the first one I baked. I think so too. I wonder why.
Hi Lucky! So glad to hear how much everyone loved them! Without having baked alongside you, it’s hard for us to say for sure the difference between your batches. I’d experiment making one batch of cookies where you marinate for 2 days, bake half the batch, then bake the rest on the 3rd day to compare. Do you use a digital scale to measure your ingredients? If not, I’d highly recommend one as that will help ensure precision in your bakes. Good luck! Please let me know what you find out!
For Lucky- did you change the brand of butter that you used from the first batch to the second? That will affect the taste and how the butter browns in a big way. I make candy and not all butter is the same. The amount or lack of salt in the butter and how much liquid is in each brand affects flavor greatly.
These were soooooo good and came out of the oven so picture perfect!! I can’t believe what a difference browning the butter and chilling the dough makes!! Wow!!!
These are my new favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe! Thank you Tessa!!
So happy to hear how much you loved them, thanks for letting us know, Shannon!
I always use this recipe because it is always a hit! Delicious chocolate chip cookies! By the way, is there a faster way to chill the dough?
So happy you love this recipe! There really isn’t a way to expedite the chilling time, check out more details in this article HERE. Hope that helps! I always recommend baking up a few cookies right away (who wants to wait?!), then “marinating” the rest of the dough 🙂
I like to try your recipe. I have only all purpose flour and wheat flour. Can I use half of each in place if bread flour
Hi Tess! We haven’t tested this recipe with wheat flour, so I can’t guarantee the same outcome! I’d suggest using only all-purpose flour if you don’t have bread flour, though your cookies might lose some chewiness.