These brown butter chocolate chip cookies are the perfect cookie. The brown butter gives these cookies a rich toffee flavor and a hint of salt. They have crisp, golden edges, a nice crust on the outside, but are still soft and gooey in the center with melty semisweet chocolate.
Why this Recipe Works
I spent years trying to find the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. I tested dozens before deciding to just come up with my own. The brown butter and high baking temperature I think it what gives these brown butter chocolate chip cookies an edge.
The brown butter offers a subtle nutty flavor that blends perfectly with the molasses in the brown sugar to give the cookie that amazing rich slightly smoky and nutty toffee flavor.
Baking your cookies at a higher temperature will cook the outside of the cookie faster before the inside cooks too much. This trick is going to give you those crispy edges and exterior and keep the inside nice and soft.
Ingredient Notes
- Butter. The amount of butter listed in the ingredients is the amount needed before you brown it. Once browned you will probably lose about 25% of your butter as liquid evaporates during the browning process.
- Brown Sugar. We use a higher proportion of brown sugar to white sugar in this recipe. The molasses in the brown sugar compliments the brown butter well and amps up that amazing toffee-butterscotch flavor. If you want an amazing chocolate chip cookie recipe without brown sugar, we have a delicious and super easy one!
- Flour. A classic, no-frills, all-purpose flour is all we use here. The most important thing when it comes to flour is making sure you don’t use too much—spoon and level, weigh, and check out our guide on How to Measure Flour Correctly.
- Semisweet Chocolate Chips. I prefer semisweet chocolate chips over milk in this recipe. The slight bitterness from the semisweet chocolate chips adds the perfect contrast to this rich brown butter chocolate chip cookies.
How to Make this Recipe
- How to Brown Butter. Start by browning your butter. Place the butter in a heavy bottomed pan, make sure it is large as the butter tends to foam up quite a bit. Keep stirring it over medium-high heat until the butter has reached an amber color and there are brown bits at the bottom. Consult out How to Brown Butter tutorial for FAQs on browning butter, pictures, and a video!
- Chill the butter. Place the butter in a large bowl and chill or freeze until it has returned to a solid state. You want it to be room temperature, solid, but soft enough to be creamed. Chilling the butter is essential to these brown butter chocolate chip cookies, so do not try to skip this step. Picture A shows what the butter will look like after it is chilled and Picture B shows it after it has been moved to the mixing bowl. Notice the toasted milk solids (the dark bits) have sunk to the bottom of the dish. Don’t forget to get all those dark bits into your mixing bowl, they add lots of toasted butter flavor!
- Cream the butter and sugar. Cream together the butter, brown sugar and white sugar for 1 minute.
- Add the eggs. Then add the eggs and vanilla and beat for another 2-3 minutes until the mixture is light and fluffy. Please note: the image pictured is a double batch, which is why you see 4 eggs in the image instead of 2.
- Add the dry ingredients. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix the dry ingredients in so they are just barely incorporated. Overworking the dough will result in tough cookies.
- Add the chocolate chips. Stir in the chocolate chips until they are evenly dispersed throughout the dough.
- Bake. Take 4 tablespoons of dough and shape into round balls. Place on a greased or lined baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes at 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Leave plenty of room for the cookies to spread (I typically place 6 cookie dough balls on a baking sheet). Let the cookies cool for 2-3 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
When butter is browned the milk solids are toasted giving it a nutty and toffee flavor that complements the rest of the ingredients. If 1 ¼ cups of butter seems like a lot to you in this recipe it is because butter loses about 25% of its liquid when it is browned. So you end up with closer to 1 cup of butter by the time you add it into the mixing bowl.
If your cookies are too flat, this is usually a result of not chilling the butter after it has been browned. We need the butter chilled back to room temperature so that air can be whipped into it when it is creamed together with the sugars and eggs. Otherwise you will end up with puddles for cookies.
Typically, if your cookies are hard after they have cooled it means that you didn’t make the cookies large enough. Remember, we’re using about 4 tablespoons of dough per cookie. If you make them smaller they will end up slightly overbaked and won’t have that same soft center that you get with the larger cookies.
Expert Tips
- Make sure your flour is measured correctly. Too much flour is a cardinal sin in baking. You need to take care when measuring it, I prefer to weigh my flour, but otherwise take a second to review our guide on How to Measure Flour Properly. Too much flour in your brown butter chocolate chip cookies can make them dry, tough, crumbly, or too thick, none of which are good.
- Get all the brown bits in your brown butter. After you brown your butter you’ll see all sorts of little brown bits at the bottom of the pan. Those are toasted milk solids and they add a delicious toasted and salty flavor to the brown butter chocolate chip cookies. So scrape every last bit of them into your bowl for maximum flavor.
How to Make Pretty Cookies
- Make your cookies big. Bigger cookies look prettier. I use ¼ cup of dough for the perfect crispy and gooey ratio. This is my favorite cookie scoop to use.
- Top the off. Before you put your cookie dough balls in the oven top them with a few extra chocolate chips. This makes sure you've got some chocolate chips picture perfect on top of every cookie.
- Bang the Pan. Right when your cookies come out of the oven bang the pan on the counter. the pushes the cookies out and gives them those beautiful wrinkles.
- Make them circular. If your cookies are a little misshapen it's okay, you can fix them. While the cookies are still hot take your spatula and gently push in the edges anywhere the cookies aren't perfectly round. You can also use a large round cookie cutter or even a large mason jar to shape your brown butter chocolate chip cookies. Just move the cookie cutter in a circular motion around the cookie to make it a perfect circle.
How to Store this Recipe
How to Freeze Cookie Dough
I love to have a stock of these in my freezer for when I'm craving a cookie or in case I need to bring a little treat to someone fast! So here's what you'll want to do:
- Scoop the cookie dough into ¼ cup balls and line them up on a lined cookie sheet and place the entire cookie sheet in the freezer for 30-60 minutes. This is going to make sure they maintain their shape and don't get squished and misshapen in the freezer
- Then you can place them in a freezer safe gallon back or stack them on top of each other in a tupperware container, I like to place a piece of parchment paper, wax paper, or even plastic wrap in between the layers of cookie dough so that they don't get stuck to each other. You can freeze these for up to 3 months.
- Before baking, pull out however many cookie dough balls you want and let them sit out at room temperature for about 30 minutes. Then bake according to normal instructions, you may need to add a minute to the baking time
How to Store at Room Temperature
- To maintain the crispy edges and soft centers, my preferred method of storing these is to leave them on a plate or tray and loosely cover them with a towel overnight.
- If you decide to store them in a sealed container (like a Ziploc bag or Tupperware) The cookies will likely lose their crisp exterior and take on a chewy texture overall (still delicious though!).
You May Also Like These Other Cookie Recipes:
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Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cup butter (280 grams) see notes
- ¾ cup granulated sugar (150 grams)
- 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar (200 grams)
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 ¾ cups of flour (357 grams) measured correctly
- ½ teaspoon of salt
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 2-2 ½ cups semisweet chocolate chips (360-480 grams)
Instructions
- Brown 1 ¼ cups of butter in a medium-large saucepan, stirring constantly over medium-high heat, until you reach a deep honey color. Remove from heat and pour into your mixing bowl. Cool butter in fridge or freezer until room temperature consistency, you want your butter to be solid. If you use it when its still liquid your cookies will be flat.
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease baking sheets with cooking spray or line with silicone mats or parchment paper.
- Once butter has set up, cream together butter and both sugars for 1 minute. Add in eggs and vanilla for and additional 2-3 minutes until the mixture is pale and fluffy. (Make sure you get all those toasty brown bits at the bottom of your brown butter!)
- Add in flour, baking soda, and salt. Only mix the dry ingredients in until just barely combined—over mixing will make the cookies tough. Stir in chocolate chips.
- Take ¼ cup of dough (about 68 grams) and shape into round balls bake for 8-10 minutes at 375 degrees Fahrenheit until the top and edges are just golden. Cool cookies on baking sheet for 2-3 minutes before moving to a cooling rack.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
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originally published August 19, 2018
These were fantastic cookies! First time making brown butter. My 9 year old granddaughter thought it was really cool. 🙂 We tried the 1/4 cup size cookies but she didn't like them "so big". lol I tried to make them smaller and watch the time to make sure they didn't burn. We didn't do back but we did have a few with a hint of cooking too long. I was wondering if we did them smaller, and maybe dropped the temp to 350 and timed 8-10 minutes if you think they would still be as good. I plan to make a batch this afternoon.
After trying these cookies, I will never go back to non-browned butter chocolate cookies again. Every time a friend asks for chocolate chip cookies, I ask them if they've had it with brown butter and then make them this recipe. <3
These cookies are fabulous!!! I followed the recipe, except I did half and half white and dark chocolate. So delicious, I will be making them again very soon.
Can I cut the recipe in 1/2?
yes, absolutely!
- Alyssa
Best. Cookies. Ever. I was scared to make at first thinking I browned the butter too much but it was perfect! Perfect recipe and how I love my cookies! Gooey middle snd so delicious!
I followed the instructions and these came out perfectly, just like the picture! They have a yummy center and crisp edge and lots of flavor. I LOVE chocolate chip cookies and these by far are the best homemade recipe I have come across 🙂
A recipe I'm constantly revisiting! Once I found this chocolate chip recipe, I could never go back!! Always, always a hit. My friends are always asking for the recipe or requesting them for get togethers. Rich in flavor and perfect texture. Do it.
This is the best cookie recipe I’ve ever tried! They turned out absolutely amazing!! So tasty!!!
Okay, Ive been baking cookies for at least 20 years and this is BY FAR the best chocolate chip recipe. They are perfectly soft and chewy, yet slightly crispy on the edge. All I can say is wow!
These cookies deserve 100 stars! They are nice and crunchy on the outside and chewy and soft on the inside. Easy to make for a beginning baker like me!!!
These cookies were absolutely delicious! The brown butter takes them to another level. They’re so chewy and chocolatey, I’m keeping this recipe for sure!!
These were the best cookies I have ever eaten!!
I made these last year and they were perrrrrfect! Made today and they didn’t turn out the same. The dough came out too dry. And they aren’t as dark. They were also a bit puffy even after banging. I measured the flour so, not sure what happened. Wondering if I used dark brown sugar last time because I used light this time. Which do you recommend?
Hi Robyn,
I usually use light brown sugar in this recipe! Dark brown sugar in this recipe would make the cookies spread more because of the higher molasses content. Feel free to use dark brown sugar if that is more to your taste.
- Alyssa
Hey what I did was did half a cup of light brown sugar and half a cup of dark brown and they were perfect
Hiii
Has anyone tried making these gluten free with almond flour??
Absolutely delicious choc chip cookies
This is my favorite cookie ever! I’m so grateful to have found this recipe! Easy directions and the cookies come out perfect every time !
omg these are the best chocolate chip cookies i’ve ever made! will definitely make again
OH MY GOSH! The browned butter is life changing! I am horrible at cookies, mine always come out cakey but these...were crispy and just the best cookie I have ever made! Definitely going to keep the browned butter in any cookie.
I forgot to rate but these were off the charts LOL
So good! One question, when I took them out of the oven, they were very thick and puffy looking. They didn’t look like the photo shown. They haven’t cooled yet, maybe that’s why?
Hi Donna, if they are thick and puffy it could be a couple of different issues. It could be, like you said, they hadn't cooled yet. With this problem, the most common issue is that too much flour was in the dough. Let me know if there's anything else I can do to help you out!
- Alyssa
Another suggestion is when you take them out of the oven lift the pan and tap it on the counter with a little force and it tends to let the air out of the cookies. They flatten nicely and look better 🙂
I made these and added pecans. So delicious!
Love these cookies so much! Got the hang of browning the butter. I get requests for them all the time. Question: thinking of adding cocoa and possibly skor bits - how would that affect dry ingredients?
Hi Sherry, I'm so glad you liked these! You could easily add skor bits to these cookies without causing any problems. I'm not sure I'd recommend adding cocoa to these cookies cookies as it'll probably dry them out. I do have a double chocolate cookie recipe you could test out if you wanted to try a chocolate based cookie!
- Alyssa
Thx I’ll definitely try them!
I thought the cookie dough was better than the actual cookie. I love browned butter cookies, but I thought these cookies were just average, but hey everyone’s tastes are different.
Thank you so much for the recipe
Just made these and they were phenomenal! I was a little confused on how solid the butter had to be but I figured it out! Amazing big cookie! I added pecans!
These cookies are so good!!! Also a tip on quickly cooling your brown butter: Float your bowl of melted brown butter in a bowl of ice water and stir. This made my butter get to room temp in within 2 minutes!
great tip Katie!
- Alyssa
My last pan is cooling as I write this. These are so ooey gooey delish! I used Guittard chocolate chips along with the brown butter and OMG these are soooo good!!! I am going to have to go to the gym every day this week, possibly next week too, but they are worth it. Yummy!! Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Absolutely THE BEST Cookie recipe ever!!!!! Thank you for sharing!!!