These brown butter chocolate chunk cookies are the perfect rich buttery cookies, packed full of melty chocolate in each bite!
I’ve made brown butter for cookies a few times, but this is my first time sharing them with you. I’m so sorry I’ve deprived you of these amazing cookies until now.
These brown butter chocolate chip cookies, start with almost all of the exact same ingredients as my sea salt chocolate chip cookies. The only difference is that the butter is cooked up to brown it before using it to make the cookie batter. And instead of chocolate chips, I used chocolate chunks.
Of course you’re more than welcome to use your favorite chocolate chips instead of chocolate chunks. The chunks just make these cookies extra loaded, so you’ll get a rich piece of chocolate in every bite!
You can buy chocolate chunks in a bag from the store, but I recommend chopping up your own chocolate bar if you can. You can use bars of baking chocolate (I used a combination of bitter sweet and semi sweet for these) or your favorite chocolate candy bar. I recommend a high quality chocolate. You’ll use two full cups of chopped up chocolate, to make these cookies so perfectly chocolatey.
Now the next important thing about these cookies besides the chocolate chunks? The brown butter. Have you made brown butter before?
Brown butter is the perfect addition to any recipe that uses butter. But especially cookies. Brown butter adds a delicious richness to cookies, that is so easy to achieve, I don’t know why we don’t use it all the time. The butter cooks up till it’s got a nice and nutty like smell.
Honestly, the smell reminds me a lot of my dad’s homemade toffee – go figure, that stuff is loaded with melted butter ;).
How to make brown butter?
You’ll heat up your butter in a medium sized stock pan over medium high heat. The butter will begin to melt and bubble. Stir it while it’s melting.
Now even after the butter is melted, you’ll keep cooking it. It will start to foam up, and you want to stir it the whole time so that it doesn’t burn at the bottom of the pan, and so you can see what color the butter is.
The butter will go from a creamy yellow to a deep amber, golden brown color. You want to keep it from burning so you’ll want to stop it from cooking when the little flecks start to come off the bottom, but they’re a nice and brown color, not black. As soon as the butter starts to smell kind of nutty – like that toffee smell, you’ll want to take it off the heat.
You’d rather under brown your butter than have it cook too long and risk burning it.
Because the butter is cooked up till it’s nice and hot, you’ll need to let the butter chill some before creaming it up with the sugars. Put it in a clean bowl and let it cool on the counter top for about 30 minutes. You can also place it in the fridge if you want it to harden more.
You will also chill the dough once it’s made. This helps so that the cookies hold their shape a little more when they’re baked, and keeps them from spreading too much. It makes the cookie chewier, in every bite, with a little bit of crispness on the edges. I promise the extra hour of chilling the dough is worth it.
How to make brown butter chocolate chunk cookies?
You’ll first make your brown butter. Then let it set for a bit to cool down, so it’s not so hot when you use it.
While your butter is cooling, chop up your chocolate so it’s ready for when you need it.
When the butter is ready you’ll cream it up with your brown and white sugars. You want to cream them together for at least 2 to 3 minutes because this keeps the sugar from being gritty (even when baked up).
Add in the vanilla and the eggs and stir until those are just mixed. Then you will add in the flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir till you have a nice dough, then fold in all your yummy chocolate chunks.
Cover the dough and place it in the fridge to chill for at least 1 hour, up to 24 hours.
Preheat the oven when you’re ready to bake the cookies. I recommend making the cookies nice and large. Use a large baking scoop, or spoon out about 3 to 4 TBS of dough per cookie. This keeps the cookies nice and big, but that means extra chocolate in each cookie 😉
You want to bake your cookies until they just start to look done. The tops might still look a little underdone, and not set, but they’ll keep cooking on the cookie sheet as you take it out of the oven. This keeps the cookies nice and soft throughout! They may be a little gooey in the middle if you eat them when hot – yum!
These are the perfect chocolate cookies, you’ll never want to make another recipe once you try these!
Looking for more Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes?
- Double Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Mini Levain Cookies
- Orange Chocolate Chip Cookies
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Brown Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 cups chopped chocolate
- flaked sea salt
Instructions
- Put butter in a large pot. Heat over medium heat.
- Allow the butter to continue cooking, stirring often as it melts, then bubbles and foams. Scrape the sides and watch for it to get a nutty smell, and start to turn to an amber color. Remove from heat.
- Pour butter into a separate bowl and allow to sit for about 30 minutes.
- Cream together the butter (still melted) brown sugar, and sugar for 2-3 minutes until it starts to get smooth.
- Add in the eggs and vanilla extract and stir until just combined.
- Add in the flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir until combined.
- Fold in the chocolate chunks.
- Cover the dough and place it in the fridge to chill for 1 hour up to 24 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Scoop the cookie dough into 1/4 cup sized balls, and roll into balls. Place 8 on a cookie sheet.
- Bake for 9-11 minutes just until the edges start to turn golden and finished, the tops may not look set.
- Remove cookies from the oven and sprinkle flaked sea salt over the top if desired.
- Allow cookies to set on cookie sheets for 5 minutes before removing to a cooling rack to cool completely. (Or enjoy some hot)
Lisa says
Love the taste of these but they did spread, i only made a few. Do you think I could bake the rest into a pan and cut into bars?
Aimee says
Hi Lisa, did you make sure to let the butter cool and then chill the dough for at least an hour? They should bake fine as bars if that’s what you want to do instead
Vaydha says
How many cookies does 1 batch make? I do not think I saw it in the recipe. I’m making this for a science experiment in class and wanted to know if this feeds 35 hungry children!
Aimee says
The cookies as photohraphed make about 20 cookies, they are pretty big. You could cut their size in half to get 40, or double the recipe
Mina says
This is my favorite cookie recipe of all time. I have been making these since 2020 and have tried a ton of other recipes from all over the internet/social media, but keep coming back to this one because it’s truly the best. Bravo!
My one regret is that now my family demands these cookies at every holiday gathering and they go so fast, I rarely get one to myself. 🙂
Aimee says
I love hearing that! Glad you all love it.
Courtney says
Amazing cookie! My dough was super dry after two cups of flour so I added in about 3/4 cup of Peanut butter and man I am so so glad I did. New favorite cookie
Martha not Stewart says
I love this recipe and have made these quite a few times now! Just a note, maybe I’m missing it, but I didn’t find the instruction on the flaked sea salt to finish.
Aimee says
Oh sorry, I’ll add that. I just sprinkle it on at the end when I bring them out of the oven.
Amanda says
My family absolutely loves these! I will definitely be making them again!!
Ellen says
Awesome! You can’t go wrong with brown butter and chocolate chunks in a cookie. Thanks for letting us know.
Carol says
I love Whole Foods Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. And started out looking for a good recipe. Welllll this is the one I chose. Sooooo glad I did!!
These are absolutely delicious. The best I’ve ever made. TU
Aimee says
That makes me so happy to hear!
DanaC says
Hi! Looks great, but just curious. . .several other browned butter choc. chip cookie recipes I looked at call for a combo of cake and bread flour in lieu of all purpose, saying it makes for a chewier cookie. Any thoughts on that, and would it somehow “ruin” your recipe if it were used? I seem to have a surplus of both bread & cake flour and not as much all purpose in the pantry. Thanks!
Aimee says
I’ve never used bread flour in a cookie recipe, so I can’t say how they results would come out with those two. I have used cake flour, or added cornstarch (which is the only extra ingredient in cake flour) and I know those results would make it softer, and the bread flour seems it would make it chewier, so they may counter balance. But I don’t think it will ruin it, worth a try.
Nate says
Can you tell me the recipe in gram please ?
Ellen says
Nate, just curious where you live? Converting to grams will take some time, such as baking the whole recipe again only weighing everything. The best suggestion I can come up for you to help you is to use this site for conversion.
https://www.thecalculatorsite.com/cooking/cups-grams.php
Good luck!
Ellen says
Hi Nate, we have added the grams via our recipe card. It just adjusts them automatically for what the weights should be so hopefully that works out for you!
Valerie says
Help! I’ve made this recipe sooo many times because
It’s become my go to. However the last few times they are flattening out. I have fresh baking powder. I refrigerated the butter after browning. Is there something I’m missing? They still taste great but I cant figure out why they’re flat these last few times.
Aimee says
Oh no! My guess is the flour got measured a little bit differently, maybe it had less air in it the first few times so you got more per cup? I’d recommend adding another tablespoon or two more of flour, then making one or two cookies first and if they are still too flat add in a little bit more flour, another tablespoon or two.
Mary says
I don’t see baking powder in this recipe maybe that’s the reason
Ashley Mcroy says
Baking powder or adding cream of tar tar can help a cookie hold a good shape and have a nice thickness to it
Beth says
Hi. I am anticipating these will be great and giving 5 stars. . I’d not heard of brown butter cookies until my husband brought 4 with chocolate chunks home from Whole Foods the other day. I quickly went on line to find a recipe and I’m going to make the batter today and bake tomorrow.
Have you ever frozen the dough? I’m afraid if I bake the entire batch We will finish them off in no time!
Hope you two are keeping safe in these times of fighting COVID..
Beth
Aimee says
I have! I usually roll my cookie dough into balls and then freeze them separately on a pan till they’re hard then transfer them to a freezer safe bag. Hat way I can just bake up as many or as few as I want when we want them again. I usually don’t full thaw them, just get them out while the oven is preheating then bake a couple minutes longer as needed. Let me know what you think!
Beth says
That’s a great way to store them. Thank you. I guess I can give another 5 stars because you’ve earned it.
Aimee says
Thank you, thank you!
Kimberly says
I love all of your specific instructions!
Most bakers skip pertinent information.
I will be making these! 😊
Ellen says
It was a learning curve in writing recipes but we do realize how important each step is. Thanks. Hope you love these cookies as much as we did.
Josefina says
just delicious
Ellen says
Thanks so much for the compliment and letting us know.
Connie says
My second time making these cookies, they are go good. I was searching for a cookie I use to get when I went to a department store, several years ago. The cookie was called a Swiss chocolate chip cookie, this is very close.
Ellen says
Awesome. I am so glad you have found this recipe. Thanks for letting us know.
Kim says
I’ve been making the basic Toll House and different variations of chocolate chips cookies for years but I’ve been perusing Pinterest to try and find a good bakery style chocolate chip cookie that is soft and chewy and crispy on the outside. And I tried a “bakery style” recipe a couple weeks ago and they came out nice and soft and the flavor was good but they were really cakey which wasn’t what I wanted. So I continued my search and I found your recipe and thought I’d give it a try. And, this is the first time I’ve made anything with browned butter so I wasn’t quite sure how this was going to work out. But, I thankfully didn’t burn the butter and the cookies are delicious. The browned butter gives them a very rich and distinct flavor and they came out the way I wanted and/or soft, chewy and crispy on the outside. And you are so right about the chocolate chunks (I used Trader Joe’s semi-sweet chocolate chunks) vs chocolate chips because there is more chocolate distributed throughout the cookie. So these will definitely be my go to cookies from now on and thanks for the recipe.
Aimee says
Yay Kim! I’m so glad to hear that you love them as much as we do! The chunks are perfect huh 😉
Vaydha says
Hi Aimee and Ellen!
I tried reaching out to you both but I don’t know if you replied.
I wanted how many cookies 1 batch makes. I need to know before tomorrow.
Aimee says
It makes 20 large cookies. Cut their size in half, or double the recipe for 40 😀
Ty says
I’ve tried a few other recipes for brown butter chocolate chip cookies and finally the perfect recipe! The other recipes I’ve tried have made the cookies look like pancakes, even after chilling, and these keep their shape very well. Chewy and deeply flavorful. I won’t ever use another cookie recipe!
Aimee says
Yay! They are so delicious huh? So glad you loved them!