Brown butter chocolate chip cookies are perfectly balanced with crisp outsides, chewy insides, sweet dough, chocolate chips, and a sprinkle of sea salt!
Cut the butter into small chunks and place in a large tall microwave-safe dish (I use an 8-cup glass Pyrex measuring cup). Microwave the butter for 2 minutes. At this point the butter will sputter loudly and become very bubbly.
Now cook the butter for one minute. Repeat. After about 4 to 5 minutes of total cooking time, the butter should quiet down and become foamy.
At 5 minutes of total cooking time, begin to cook the butter in 30 second increments. Once the butter begins to brown, it will darken quickly! My microwave is powerful so my butter turns a beautiful dark coppery colour around the 6 ½ minute mark. Use your judgement as you go, and know that the butter should be dark golden caramel in colour but not blackened. The darker you let the butter brown, the more flavour it will have. Once you are happy with the colour of your butter, set it aside to cool slightly, about 15 to 20 minutes.
Make The Cookies
Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Transfer the cooled brown butter to a large mixing bowl. Add both sugars to the butter and whisk to combine.
Add the eggs and vanilla to the brown butter mixture and whisk until smooth.
Add the flour, baking soda, salt, and chocolate chips to the bowl. Switch to a rubber spatula or wooden spoon. Stir the cookie dough until the chocolate chips are well distributed and the flour is just mixed in.
Use a cookie dough scoop to scoop 12 portions of cookie dough onto the prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle the top of each cookie with a tiny bit of flaky salt if using. Bake the cookies for 9 to 11 minutes, or until the edges are golden. Cool the cookies for 5 minutes on the pan, then transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
Notes
I tested these brown butter chocolate chip cookies with both room temperature dough, and dough I froze for 30 minutes. Room temperature dough is clearly the faster option! I baked batches of cookies immediately after mixing. Though tasty, these cookies had crispier edges, and smoother tops. I scooped some of the batches of cookies onto a plate and froze them for 30 minutes. When the time was up I baked them on the same pan, for the same amount of time as the room temperature cookies. Frozen dough yielded a chewier cookie, with a wrinkly top. Even though it means waiting longer, the frozen dough cookies won the vote in our house!
If you don't want to make brown butter, you can always microwave your butter for 2 minutes only, just to melt. Set aside to cool and continue on with the recipe as written.
I know many of us are striving to cut down on sugar, however, if you do this when making this recipe, it will change the texture and cooking time of your cookies.
Any chocolate chips, bits, or chunks you have on hand will work. Dark, milk, or white chocolate are all great, however, see my tip about baking with white chocolate chips in my Blueberry White Chocolate Scones post. You could try M&Ms, nuts, or crushed pretzels. Feel free to play with the chocolate chip measurement to suit your preference.
I portioned my cookies into one (roughly) 1 tablespoon portions of dough. You can make your cookies bigger if you don't feel like baking 5 pans of small cookies, however, your baking time will change.