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
Megan says
Can I use gluten free flour and dairy free butter?
In Fine Taste says
Hi Megan, I've never tried this recipe with either, so I cannot personally recommend either. I've had a couple people say they have used 1:1 gluten-free flour successfully. I don't think a dairy-free butter will work, as it is the milk solids that toast when the butter is browned. If you'd like to skip the browning and use dairy-free butter you can reduce the butter to 1 cup. I hope that helps.
- Alyssa
Desiree says
I made these and they turned out wonderful! So soft and gooey. I threw a piece of bread in the container and they stayed nice and soft for several days.
Mary says
Only recipe I use - and I have shared it with many. I use dark brown sugar and hit the pan on the stove top after taking them out of the oven to flatten, and then add sea salt. Cannot believe the raves I get. So fun. Thank you a ton!!!
Adrea says
This is the best chocolate chip cookie ever. My new go to cookie recipe. Takes a little extra prep time to brown the butter, but completely worth it. The nutty caramel notes are so delicious and smell wonderful while mixing. I need an egg free version to make edible chocolate chip batter.
Shelly says
I was pretty intimidated by this recipe, with the browning butter and stuff- but it wasn’t as scary as I thought and Oh. My. Gosh. These are amazing!!
Carol says
This is a yummy recipe! I made these for Father’s Day. My husband’s favorite. I recently learned about rye flour and how it can add nuttiness and a richer flavor so I went for it and subbed equal parts rye for the white flour. The result was very delicious! Will definitely use this recipe again…and the rye flour!
In Fine Taste says
I'm intrigued by the Rye flour! I'll have to try that some time.
- Alyssa
Melanie says
I made these but mine didn’t flatten out I don’t know what I did wrong.
Jennifer Blackburn says
There are so many variables in cookies!!!! I'm still researching and experimenting with this recipe as well. I don't think it's the recipe as much as whether or not the dough is chilled, whether or not the cookie sheet is hot or chilled. I will press gently on the tops of mine when I pull them out of the oven if they haven't spread as much as I would like. I also think that in browning the butter you may in up with different amounts each time depending on how long it's been browned for...... these are all just speculation on my part 😀
SASA says
You have to tap the pan on the counter or any flat surface as soon as you remove them from the oven 🙂
Denise says
I baked these chocolate chip cookies 🍪 for the first time and they are delicious. Great recipe with excellent instructions on burning the butter.
My husband is looking forward to me baking another batch. oh BTW I used dark chocolate chips.
Laura says
I made these on a whim last week and everyone loved them!! I’m currently making a double batch for Mother’s Day.
Connie says
So good! First pan I made using a quarter cup measuring cup, second pan and ice cream scoop. A little smaller but went a lot further.
Jen says
For the ice cream scoop,did you lessen bake time? Thanks!
Nico says
this is the single greatest chocolate chip cookie recipe. the only improvement is subbing in a cup of toasted walnuts for a cup of the chocolate but that's just a personal taste. overall, can't beat this recipe
Kayla says
I just made these today after doing so many different ones. This is by far the best! Wonderful flavor. And they taste a lot like Nestle Tollhouse Cookies.
David Franks says
I only made a few slight changes, and oh damn! They turned out amazing.
Kim W. says
I made these today, delicious!! I added a little flaky salt to the top also. Great recipe!!
Ang says
These are the real deal. The browned butter is a game changer. Nutty, crispy, chewy, melty chocolate. My whole family loved them.
Sam says
These are the ONLY chocolate chip cookies I make anymore. I ALWAYS get requests for the recipe. The only thing I do different is add a sprinkle of coarse or flake sea salt after tapping the pan on the counter. I try to get it directly into the cracks of the cookie. The salt really adds to the brown butter flavor nicely. They are always a big hit at get togethers!
Sazz says
These are delicious, had lots of compliments on them at work!
Danielle says
This is the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever! Literally the only one I’ll make from now on, I’ve made it three times already and the cookies do not last because they’re so good. I like my cookies crispy, i bake them on a pampered chef stone at 375 for 10 minutes and they’re crispy on the outside and bottom but still soft on the inside. Thank you for sharing your recipe it’s delicious!
Katie says
These were so good! Followed the recipe to a T, and I’m craving more.
Maureen says
I love trying new recipes for different ways to make chocolate chip cookies. Then my family and I rate them. It's become a game with the kids, actually. This has now become the only recipe they request and the only one I make. We absolutely love the richness of the browned butter. I add walnuts or pecans to mine. So good and our absolute favorite!!!!