Brown Butter Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Cookies
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These brown butter sea salt chocolate chip cookies are worth hiding from the kids! Ok, or at least make a double batch so there’s more than enough to go around. The crisp edges and buttery soft centers are what dreams cravings are made of.
Dramatic? Maybe. But here’s why your old standby chocolate chip cookie recipes won’t cut it after you try these:
- Flavor: The combo of nutty brown butter, big chocolate chunks, and sea salt creates the perfect salty-sweet pairing. When it all comes together, it creates a caramel-y taste in your mouth. Not sure it gets any better than that!
- Texture: Arguably, the best texture for a cookie is one that’s just a little crisp around the edge and melt-in-your-mouth in the middle. These cookies are just that.
How to brown butter for chocolate chip cookies
All you need to do is:
- Get out a frying pan and heat it to medium.
- Add your butter.
- As it’s cooking, swirl it around a couple of times. Cooking should take 5 minutes.
- It will foam at first, but once the butter settles, you’re left with a roasty-toasty, golden-brown butter sauce.
Ingredients needed
You might just have all of these ingredients in your baking cupboard already! And if not, here’s a quick list of what you’ll need to make these delightful brown butter sea salt chocolate chip cookies:
- Salted butter: Yes, you’ll need 1 whole cup of salted butter for these beauties, but it’s totally worth it! That buttery, rich flavor won’t let you down.
- All-purpose flour, sea salt, and baking soda: These are all standard ingredients in any cookie recipe; they’ll make up the base of your dry ingredients.
- Granulated sugar + brown sugar: Use both kinds of sugar for sweetness, but also to enhance the caramel, toffee flavor.
- Eggs, cold water, and vanilla extract: These will make up your wet ingredients, which you’ll add to your brown butter mix.
- Dark chocolate: Go for the dark variety, cut or chopped into pieces, to add a needed deep, bitter taste to the otherwise sweet cookie.
- Flaky sea salt: Sprinkle flaky sea salt on top of the cookies once they’re baked. It will bring out and complement the chocolate chunks!
Variations and substitutions:
Although this recipe could be referred to as the best chocolate chip cookie recipe out there, you can absolutely play around with it to find your happy place. Here are some ideas:
- Nuts: This recipe is naturally nut-free, so perhaps a good option for school-aged kids. That said, if adding some nuts sounds like perfection to you, go for it! Chopped walnuts or pecans would be great additions.
- Dried fruit: If you want to add some natural sweetness dried cranberries, raisins, or crasins would be a nice touch.
- Coconut: You can add some shredded coconut to this recipe, just know that you will have to adjust for it in your dry ingredients.
- Ice cream: These cookies are fairly thin, however, no one would be opposed to sliding some ice cream between them. All you’ll need is a napkin! Try this toasted coconut ice cream or go wild with this beer ice cream!
Recipe FAQs
Do I need to chill the batter for a full 4 hours?
Yes, this is not a step you want to rush. We’ve tested this recipe with a shorter rest in the fridge, and the cookies spread too much. Don’t worry, they’re well worth the wait!
Why do you bake the cookies at 325 degrees Fahrenheit?
In recipe testing, we found this to be the optimal temperature for these cookies. Raising the temperature to the usual 350 degrees Fahrenheit produced overly dark cookies. Lowering the temperature and keeping the cookies in the oven a few minutes longer than normal made the best cookies.
Can I use unsalted butter?
You can use either unsalted or salted butter to make the brown butter.
Brown Butter Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup salted butter
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup brown sugar (packed)
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon cold water
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- 8 ounces dark chocolate (chunks or chopped from a bar of chocolate)
- Flaky sea salt (for garnish (Maldon works great))
Instructions
- Place the butter in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Let it cook, swirling the pan a few times, for about 5 minutes, or until it smells roasted and is brown. It will foam up a lot at first and once the foam settles down, it is browned.1 cup salted butter
- Transfer the brown butter to a large, heatproof bowl, making sure to scrape out all the tasty brown specks. Place the butter in your fridge for at least one hour, or until it's solidified but still soft.
- In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the flour, sea salt, and baking soda.2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon sea salt, 1 teaspoon baking soda
- Add both of the sugars to the brown butter and beat using electric beaters for 1 minute. Add the eggs, water, and vanilla and beat until combined.¾ cup granulated sugar, ½ cup brown sugar, 2 large eggs, 1 tablespoon vanilla, 1 tablespoon cold water
- Add the flour all at once and beat until it just barely comes together, about 15 seconds. Stir in the chopped chocolate.8 ounces dark chocolate
- Place a piece of parchment paper in the bowl directly on top of the cookie dough. Place the bowl into your fridge for at least 4 hours – or up to 4 days.
- When you're ready to bake the cookies, preheat your oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Scoop the dough into balls using a large cookie scoop. Place 6 balls of dough on each 13 x 11-inch baking sheet. Don't crowd the sheets … these cookies will spread a lot!
- Bake the cookies for 13-16 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway. When they come out of the oven immediately sprinkle them with a little Maldon sea salt.Flaky sea salt
Notes
Nutrition
We have thoroughly tested this recipe for accuracy. However, individual results may vary. See our full recipe disclosure here.
Love it. Cookies work well, but I can never get my butter to brown. It melts and bubbles and stays yellow. What am I doing wrong? I’ve
tried both non-stick and stainless steel skillets.
Are you using butter or margarine? It’s the milk solids in butter which brown. It could also be that you haven’t left it on the stove long enough. It will melt, bubble up, and once the foam subsides, you’ll see some brown flecks in the bottom of the melted butter. You can stop here or keep going until it’s quite brown. The time it takes depends on the heat.
As pastry chef here bahahaha I messed these up too. Beautiful but not dark? Yes I browned to butter.
Hi Amanda! The cookies look great! I think they just needed an extra minute or two in the oven. That can happen as variations such as oven temp or even elevation affects baking. Hope you still enjoyed them!
They came out puffy instead of flat. Not sure what I did wrong.
Thanks for giving the recipe a try! Puffy cookies can sometimes happen if the butter was too cold, the dough was overmixed, or if there was a bit too much flour. Try using room temperature butter and gently spooning and leveling the flour next time—it should help them spread more. I hope your next batch comes out just the way you like! 🍪😊
Can’t wait to try! Could you add in sourdough discard to this recipe? And if so how would you!?
That’s a great question, but unfortunately I don’t have the answer for you. I might have to experiment the next time my husband discards some of the sourdough starter. If I do I’ll let you know!
So amazing!! I also browned the butter with sage and then added cardamom in the dry mix! Soooo heavenly!!
I love that you added sage and cardamom! I have to try that!
Flat- pre melted and re- solidified butter doesn’t like to be baked again
You’re right, brown butter is tricky in cookies. Did you add the water? It’s a strange ingredient in cookies but important when using brown butter. That and making sure the dough is chilled. Quick tip: if you ever bake cookies that spread too much, use a wide glass (like a martini glass) and reshape them as soon as they come out of the oven.