Level up your chocolate chip cookies with this rich, flavorful and delicious recipe. These easy brown butter chocolate chip cookies are seriously addictive. Made with brown sugar and browned butter, they are salty and sweet, and have an amazingly complex taste.
Brown Butter White Chocolate Chip Cookies
There’s nothing quite like homemade chocolate chip cookies, and this recipe has quickly become a family favorite!
Browned butter takes these cookies over the top. The molasses in the brown sugar makes them wonderfully soft and chewy and the butter adds a great nutty flavor. Loaded with white and semi-sweet chocolate chips, these are the real deal.
Get ready to meet your new favorite cookie recipe!
Be sure to try my Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Bars and Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake too!
Why You’ll Love this Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe:
- Easy: Simple to make and quick to cook, you can be enjoying a freshly baked batch of cookies in no time at all!
- Simple ingredients: You just need some basic baking ingredients to make up these cookies. If you love baking, you’ll likely have most of the ingredients to hand already.
- So delicious! The flavors of these cookies easily rival any bakery store ones that you’ll buy. With hints of vanilla, the texture is soft and chewy, and the taste is sweet, salty, rich, and complex.
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How to Make Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Be sure to see the recipe card below for full ingredients & instructions!
- Heat the butter until it foams and whisk. Remove from heat once it’s browned and let cool.
- Mix together the dry ingredients.
- Mix together the wet ingredients.
- Combine the wet and dry ingredients and fold in the chocolate chips.
- Scoop the cookie dough onto a baking sheet and chill.
- Bake, let cool, and enjoy.
Brown Butter Cookie Ingredient Notes
- Unsalted Butter: Using unsalted butter allows you more control over the salt content of the cookies. If you use salted butter, you may want to reduce or omit the ¼ teaspoon of sea salt.
- All-purpose Flour: I used unbleached flour, but bleached flour would work just as well.
- Semisweet Chocolate Chips: feel free to substitute with dark or milk chocolate chips.
- White Chocolate Chips: I love the balance and variety of flavor the white chocolate chips bring to these cookies, but if you prefer, you can replace the white chocolate chips with more semisweet, dark, or milk chocolate chips. You can even experiment with cinnamon or peanut butter chips!
- Flake Sea Salt: An optional ingredient that helps balance the sweetness of these cookies.
Brown butter is regular butter that has been cooked just long enough past its melting point to toast the milk solids. Browning butter creates a wonderful nutty flavor that improves any cookie recipe!
If you’ve never made brown butter before, I suggest making it in a light-colored or stainless steel pan so that you can carefully observe what’s happening. With the heat set over medium, constantly stir the butter until it melts. Continue stirring. In about 5 minutes, the butter will begin to turn golden brown and foamy. Once the foam begins to subside, you’ll see the milk solids start to toast. As soon as you notice those colored specks, take the butter off the stove or it will burn! Butter goes from brown to burnt in a matter of seconds, so pay close attention!
The simple answer is evaporation. As you cook the melted butter, some of the liquid will begin to evaporate out of the pan. I suggest measuring the browned butter before and after browning, and if it is more than ½ tablespoon off from where you started, you may want to stir in more butter before cooling.
Yes! Chilling the dough before baking is necessary to prevent the dough from spreading too much in the oven and making a thin, crispy cookie that runs into other cookies on the pan.
If your cookies are really thick or not spreading at all in the oven, you may have used too much flour. While I recommend using a kitchen scale when baking, you can also avoid using too much flour by scooping the flour into your measuring cup with a spoon and leveling with a knife to avoid compacting it.
If you are looking for an easy way to fancy up your chocolate chip cookies, then brown butter is the way to do it! The nutty flavor complements the vanilla and chocolate so well, and I promise that you won’t be able to stop at one!
I love to make these cookies with a mixture of white and semi-sweet chocolate chips, you get the richness and sweetness that’s tough to resist. Don’t forget that flakey sea salt that balances out the flavors and elevates the taste of the chocolate.
Make Ahead Instructions
To make these cookies ahead, follow the recipe as written through step 7 and keep the dough chilling in the refrigerator for up to 3 days before baking. You’ll want to wrap your dough in plastic wrap to prevent it from drying out.
Storage Instructions
Store leftover brown butter chocolate chip cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.
Freezing Instructions
These brown butter cookies can be frozen raw or baked. To freeze the dough, place individual scoops of cookie dough on a baking sheet until frozen, about 1 hour. Transfer frozen dough to in an airtight container or Ziplock bag and freeze for up to 3 months before baking. Add 2-3 minutes to the final bake time if baking from frozen. Freeze baked cookies in the same manner for up to 1 month and thaw at room temperature for a few minutes for a quick treat!
Cookie Variations
There are endless ways to make these cookies your own. Try these:
- Swap the white chocolate chips for cinnamon chips, mint chips, caramel chips, peanut butter chips, or toffee pieces.
- Add ¼ unsweetened cocoa powder with the dry ingredients to make double-chocolate cookies.
- Substitute the semisweet chocolate chips for all white chocolate chips and add rainbow sprinkles for funfetti cookies.
- Add crumbled graham crackers and mini marshmallows for s’mores cookies.
- Flatten the dough balls, add 1 teaspoon of Nutella, and roll the dough back up to create Nutella stuffed chocolate chip cookies.
Cookie Dough Tip
Although scooping the cookie dough into individual balls before chilling isn’t completely necessary, it does make the process a lot easier. As the dough chills, it hardens a bit and can become difficult to scoop. Scooping the cookie dough before chilling it eliminates the struggle to scoop it.
These brown butter chocolate chip cookies are a must-make recipe! Simple to make, but the flavors are not playing! Be sure to make a double batch as they’ll disappear quickly!
If you make this recipe be sure to leave us a comment or rating. Enjoy!
Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- 2⅓ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 cup brown sugar
- ⅔ cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 1½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
- ½ cup white chocolate chips
- Flake sea salt optional
Equipment
- Kitchen Scale (optional)
- Baking Sheet
- Hand Mixer (optional)
- Stand Mixer (optional)
- Cookie Portion Scoop
Instructions
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Heat the butter in a small saucepan set over medium-low heat. When the butter has melted completely, whisk frequently and continue to heat until the butter begins to foam and brown bits begin to form. Keep a close eye on the butter and remove from heat as soon as it turns a golden amber color, after about 10 minutes. Pour into a heat-safe container and place in the refrigerator to cool for 10-15 minutes.1 cup unsalted butter
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, baking soda, and sea salt. Set aside.2⅓ cups all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
- When the butter is cool to the touch, add it to a separate mixing bowl and use a hand-held mixer (or a stand mixer with a paddle attachment) to mix the cooled butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar.1 cup brown sugar, ⅔ cup granulated sugar
- Add in the eggs and vanilla extract. Mix well.2 large eggs, 1½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- Add the butter mixture to the flour mixture and mix until just combined. Fold in the white chocolate chips and semisweet chocolate chips.1 cup semisweet chocolate chips, ½ cup white chocolate chips
- Use a cookie scoop to scoop the dough and place it on the prepared baking sheet. Chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
- While the cookies chill, preheat oven to 350°F. Place the cookies 1 inch apart on a baking sheet and bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes, or until the edges are set and beginning to brown.
- Remove the cookies from the oven and immediately sprinkle with flake sea salt if desired. Allow to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.Flake sea salt
Notes
- As you cook the melted butter, some of the liquid will begin to evaporate out of the pan. I suggest measuring the browned butter before and after browning, and if it is more than ½ tablespoon off from where you started, you may want to stir in more butter before cooling.
- Although scooping the cookie dough into individual balls before chilling isn’t completely necessary, it does make the process a lot easier. As the dough chills, it hardens a bit and can become difficult to scoop. Scooping the cookie dough before chilling it eliminates the struggle to scoop it.
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