Mmmm…chocolate chip cookies. We’re only a liiiiiiittle bit obsessed. You can never go wrong with a chocolate chip cookie, and especially these salted brown butter chocolate chip cookies.

Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies with Flaky Sea Salt

The Very Best Salted Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Today we turn these classic American cookies up a notch with some caramelly brown butter and a little sea salt. Nothing new, but something totally and completely, mind-blowingly delicious. Plus, it makes for some seriously great cookie dough, too. 

Also less conventional but completely imperative to this cookie recipe is the addition of turbinado sugar to the cookie dough. It gives these perfectly soft cookies the perfect crunch and pinch of texture. If you haven’t had a cookie like this before, we’ll go ahead and say it: you are in for a treat.

Chocolate Makes a Difference

One thing that we believe makes a really big difference in chocolate chip cookies is investing in high-quality chocolate. Some of our favorite brands are Guittard, and Ghirardelli, and for cookies we typically land on their dark melting wafer discs (those create large, wonderful pools of chocolate inside the cookies) or their baking bars. If we’re using the baking bars, I’ll just give them a rough chop and then there are little bits of chocolate in every bite. Plus they melt like a dream (swoon). It’s up to you!

A good rule of thumb is to never bake with a chocolate you wouldn’t want to eat plain (except for the unsweetened stuff of course- that would be terrible).

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Four Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies with Flaky Sea Salt

Why Flaky Sea Salt?

Flaky sea salt– the stuff dreams are made of. Although there’s technically salt already in the cookie dough, there are few things that enhance a good chocolate chip cookie more than salt flakes, or flaky sea salt. First and foremost, they’re absolutely beautiful and are sure to make any brown butter chocolate chip cookie look better, but second and more importantly, they add texture and crunch, and the perfect amount of saltiness to compliment just about any cookie. Are you convinced?

Our favorite brand is Jacobsen, but Maldon works beautifully as well.

Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies with Flaky Sea Salt

How To Make Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

1- Brown your butter. You’ll do this by warming your butter in a saucepan over medium heat, allowing the butter to melt and then brown. Don’t be afraid to really let some brown flecks develop, and use a spatula to stir the butter occasionally plus gently scrap off any beautiful brown bits that develop on the bottom of the saucepan. Remove from heat and allow your butter to cool for 30 minutes.

2- Make the cookie dough. In a stand mixer or using a hand mixer, combine the butter and sugars until smooth, then the eggs and vanilla, mixing again until smooth. Add all of the dry ingredients including the flour, baking soda, and salt all at once and mix until just combined. Fold in the chocolate by hand.

3- Scoop the dough into 18 large cookie dough balls, and refrigerate for a minimum of 1 hour and up to several days. If you plan to bake on the same day, preheat the oven to 350° F while the cookie dough is chilling and bake the cookies fo 9-12 minutes, until they are a beautiful light golden brown color around the edges. These brown butter chocolate chip cookies are best enjoyed warm, about 10 minutes after they’ve been taken out of the oven.

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Salted Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

5 from 2 votes
Lucia Wright & Brooke Eliason
Print
Servings: 18 servings
Prep Time: 40 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
chill time: 1 hour
Total Time: 1 hour 50 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
These brown butter chocolate chip cookies are mind-blowingly delicious, made with caramelly browned butter and flaky sea salt.

Ingredients 

  • 1 cup unsalted butter (two sticks)
  • 1 cup brown sugar, packed
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 Tablespoons turbinado sugar
  • 2 eggs + 1 egg yolk
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 6 oz. high quality semisweet or dark chocolate*
  • finishing salt (flaky sea salt or fleur de sel)

Instructions

  • In a saucepan on medium heat, add in the 1 cup of butter and melt. As it melts, the butter will start making crackling noises. As the crackling slows, brown specks will start to form on the bottom of the pan. When the brown specks have developed and the aroma of your butter is toasty and nutty, take the pan off the heat. Transfer the butter to a heatproof dish and let cool for 30 minutes.
  • Preheat the oven to 350° F. Transfer the browned butter to a large bowl fitted for a stand mixer with a cookie paddle attachment. Beat in the packed brown sugar, white sugar, and turbinado until smooth. Add the eggs & egg yolk, and vanilla, and combine again until smooth.
  • Add the flour, salt, and baking soda to the wet ingredients all at once, and mix until just combined (it's okay if you still see a few streaks of flour). Using a spatula, fold in the chocolate last, mixing until just combined and scraping the bottom of the bowl to ensure all of the ingredients have been incorporated.
  • Scoop cookie dough out with a #16 cookie scoop, or roll into 1/4 cup dough balls by hand, and place onto a baking sheet lined with a nonstick mat or parchment paper. Refrigerate the dough for one hour. When ready to bake, space the balls about 2-3 inches apart (about 6 dough balls per standard half sheet pan). Bake for 10-12 minutes, until very light golden brown in color and still soft in the center. Sprinkle the tops of each cookie with a pinch of finishing salt, and allow to cool for a minimum of 10 minutes before enjoying warm.

Notes

*Our preferred chocolate for these cookies is chocolate discs or wafers, but you can also use standard chocolate chips. If you are using chocolate bars, coarsely chop the chocolate up into pieces before adding to the cookie dough.

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