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.
I baked the cookies for 15 minutes because the top was still raw. The bottoms over cooked, so I flipped them over, to cook all the way through. I’ve never had to do this before. What am I doing wrong?
Hi Shonna! It sounds like you had a couple other issues in making these cookies from your previous comments, but here are a few additional things to consider:
– What type of pan are you baking on? Different materials of pans conduct heat differently, so some will cook the bottom quickly, and not leave the cookie appropriate time to spread out gently and evenly, resulting in over-baked bottoms and underdone tops. Tessa discusses and shows the differences between a variety of baking pans in this article here.
– Are you baking on the middle rack? Assuming your oven is conventional (not convection), baking too close to the bottom could cause your cookies to overbake on the bottom very quickly. Baking with the rack positioned to the middle position is typically recommended for baking cookies, cakes, muffins, etc for the most even distribution of heat.
– Your oven also might be running a little hot. Do you have an oven thermometer to check that? Check out Tessa’s article here about ovens, full of tips!!
I hope something here helps! Happy baking 🙂
hello and thx for the recipe, I made a huge mistake, I put 110 grams of all-purpose flour in the dough instead of 190 AP flour and forgot 80 grams of it. I was in a hurry to make this recipe. the dough is in the fridge now for 24 hours chilling can I remove it from the refrigerator and add the 80 grams then chill the dough and wait for another 24 hours and then bake them? What is your advice to me about this problem? or do i just restart all the recipe from the beginning? thanks in advance
Hi Wael! Oh no, I’m sorry to hear about your flour mishap. Unfortunately, adding the flour now will likely overwork the dough, which can cause tough cookies. You can try baking the cookies as they are, knowing that they will spread more than they should thanks to their lack of flour, so space them apart much further than usual. Once baked, try using a round cookie or biscuit cutter that’s slightly larger than the size of your cookies, and swirl the cookie cutter in circles around the cookie edges a few times. Make sure you do this straight out of the oven (before they have a chance to set up). This will pull the edges of the cookies back in and sort of force them to be thicker. This is a trick I learned from Tessa, which makes cookies perfectly round! Here’s a link to the reel on our Instagram, where we shared this fun cookie hack a few months ago. Alternatively, you can place the cookie dough in a metal 9×13-inch baking pan and press the dough into the pan with your fingers, and bake the cookie dough into cookie bars. This way, the structure of the cookies with some of the flour missing won’t matter quite so much, and they can’t overspread. They honestly still might not work out super well either way, but it’s worth a shot instead of wasting the dough! I hope this helps. let us know how it goes and good luck!
Hi Tessa! Love this cookie recipe!
I’m wondering if it is okay to double this recipe?
Hi Evelyn! So glad to hear that you enjoy these cookies! Yes, feel free to double the recipe. Enjoy 🙂
Incredible. Hard to scoop but worth the effort. This recipe is a keeper!!
Hi Lana! We’re so glad to hear that you enjoyed these cookies! Feel free to change up the method a little next time: make and shape the cookie dough, then set the pre-portioned cookie dough balls inside a freezer bag or airtight container, in a single layer, and refrigerate that way for 24-72 hours. This means you can bake straight from the fridge after the chill period, without battling the hard dough! The dough balls do tend to dry out more quickly than the entire mass of dough, so be careful that your freezer bag or airtight container is well-sealed. I hope that helps! Happy baking 🙂
Is it normal for the dough to be kind of runny? It doesn’t have the same texture as regular cookie dough. I’m putting it in the refrigerator tonight, hoping part of that process is to firm it up. Thanks for your help!
Hi Maureen! Because the butter is melted and browned, instead of creamed, this method will produce dough that’s a little softer and looser than usual cookie doughs. This is part of the reason for the mandatory 24-72 hour chill, as Tessa mentions in the pink tip box (above the recipe). During this chill time, the butter re-solidifies, and the moisture in the eggs hydrates the flour, so the end result is a thick, delicious cookie. I hope that makes sense, and I hope you enjoy these cookies!
Thank you so much! I baked one last night and it didn’t turn out great. Going to give it another try after being refrigerated longer. The dough taste amazing so I’m not giving up.
Ummm mine wasn’t runny. Now I’m scared iM doing it wrong lol. Mine is chilling right now. How long Is that process? They look delish. I also probably got the wrong wafers. Mine say melting wafers
Hi Shonna! This dough should be on the softer side, but not runny and not super firm. Melting wafers are also not going to work super well, as they are designed to melt quickly, so they’ll likely melt into a big puddle in the oven! Aside from the chocolate, it sounds like you may have accidentally added too much flour. If you’re measuring by volume (using cups), this can happen super easily. Learn more about measuring accurately here. As for the chilling process, as Tessa outlines in the recipe + the pink tip box (above the recipe), these cookies need to be chilled for at the very minimum 24 hours, or up to 72 hours, before baking. I hope this helps, and I hope your cookies were still tasty!
Best cookie recipe ever! I do have a question, a lot of times when I make this my sugar doesn’t get completely dissolved and my cookie has that grainy texture. Anyone got tips for this? Thanks
Hi Lydia! So glad to hear that you’re enjoying this delicious cookie recipe! Butter can have difficulty dissolving entirely in brown butter because sugar needs liquid to dissolve. During the process of browning the butter, we’re driving off the water that butter contains, so the butter has less water in which to melt. That’s where the refrigeration period comes in: during this 24-72 hours in the fridge, the water in the egg whites can help break down the sugar granules further (among many other magical things). If this is still leaving you with cookies a bit grainy for your preference, you can experiment with this: when adding the butter to the hot browned butter, you can try tossing an ice cube in, to replace a little of the lost water and assist in melting your sugar a bit more, before proceeding with the recipe as written. We haven’t tried this to see how it will work in this recipe, so this would be purely experimental – but it may help with your textural issue. If you’re interested, Tessa has a fantastic online course you can take to learn more about the deep-dive ingredients make in baking. Check out The Magic of Baking Course here! I hope this helps! Happy baking 🙂
Hi! Have you tried making the dough as usual and then adding white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts rather than regular chocolate? I wonder if swapping these would affect the cookies
Hi Manahil! Feel free to swap the chocolate chips with the same amount of any other mix-ins you like! Happy baking 🙂
I bought your book and started with the control cookie. Then I moved on to this one. Those semi-sweet chocolate wafers are impossible to get here in central Mississippi. I found one premium market that said they had the Guittard ones but, when I went there, they only had the bitter-sweet variety. Amazon does not have them. Guittard will ship them direct but, this time of the year, will only ship them overnight. $9 for the wafers and $50-something for shipping. I’m making this one with all chips (no wafers) today to bake on Labor Day.
Looking forward to scoring some Guittard semi-sweet wafers soon but it may have to wait for cooler weather or my local Fresh Approach to get their act together.
Hi Frank! Feel free to use a high-quality chocolate block and chop it coarsely, in place of the wafers – the cookies will still taste incredible! Happy baking 🙂
I complained to Fresh Approach corporate HQ about the local situation. I was shocked when they called me back. She said the problem at the local store was due to an administrative screw-up. She said they had ordered them and would call me when they were back in stock. Yesterday, I got that call. Now a die-hard Fresh Approach fan again!
I’m making the browned butter chocolate chip holy trinity (wafers toffee and butterscotch) today for a luncheon on Thursday. There is a disparity in the three recipes that I do not understand. The wafer recipe in your book calls for ¼ t baking powder. The toffee and butterscotch recipes on your site call for a whole teaspoon. Otherwise, they are pretty similar. Is this intentional?
Hi Frank! Glad to hear that you got your hands on the chocolate! As for the differences between cookies, it’s all due to slight differences in the recipes and slightly different desired outcomes. If you’re interested, Tessa has a fantastic online course you can take to learn more about the deep-dive differences little tweaks like this make in baking. Check out The Magic of Baking Course here! Happy baking 🙂
These turned out perfect! I ended up putting the dough in the freezer for 1 hour and then baking them, instead of refrigerating for 24 hours. The cookies still turned out great. My new go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe!
These turned out delicious! It was a little too much chocolate for me but everyone else loved them. I followed the directions exactly the first time. The next time I only used 10 ounces of chocolate chips and I rolled the dough into balls before I refrigerated it. It made it much easier when baking. They were still amazing!
Omg these came out perfect!!! This will be my new go-to cookie recipe.
So happy to hear that, Ella!
Hi Tessa! Love all your recipes. Bought your cookie kit and I’m loving the cookie scoops! Getting ready to make your browned butter chocolate chip cookies. I don’t have baking wafers but do have Sees candy very large chips or Giradelli semi sweet baking bars which I could chopped. Would either of those work? Your science of baking blogs are amazing- have read them all – making me a better baker!! Thank you!
Barb Cattie
Hi Barb! So glad to hear that you’re loving Tessa’s recipes and Cookie Kit! I’ll be sure to pass your sweet message along to Tessa – she’ll be so happy to hear your kind words 🙂 Either of those chocolate options will work well, but if the See’s chips are milk chocolate, just keep in mind that will up the overall sweetness of the cookie, since milk chocolate is a little sweeter. Feel free to use a mix of the two types of chocolate, too! Be sure to read through all the tips and info Tessa has packed into the pink tip box (above the recipe) before starting. Let us know what you think of these cookies once you’ve given them a try! Happy baking 🙂