Salted Caramel Cookie Recipe

Salted caramel cookies are rich, full of flavor, and absolutely irresistable. This salted caramel cookie recipe gets its incredible depth of flavor with browned butter, salted caramel chips, and flakes of sea salt.

stack of salted caramel cookies on a wooden surface, surrounded by salted caramel baking chips and flakes of sea salt. Text overlay reads "Salted Caramel Cookies."

Chocolate chip cookies are great, but not everybody loves chocolate. Weird, I know! But it happens, even to really good people. This salted caramel cookie recipe is a great one to make for them.

Three salted caramel cookies in a row on a wooden surface, surrounded by salted caramel baking chips and flakes of sea salt.

These salted caramel cookies have an amazing fudgy, soft texture and an incredibly complex flavor profile. They're decadent and absolutely delicious.

Salted caramel cookie ingredients on a white wooden surface.

Salted Caramel Cookie Ingredients:

1 cup butter, melted & browned
1 cup brown sugar
¾ cup white sugar
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup caramel baking chips [1]
sea salt flakes to top the cookies

browned butter cooling in the bowl of a kitchenaid mixer.

Caramel gets its distinct flavor from the browning of sugar (caramelization [2]). This recipe uses browned butter to take advantage of the Maillard reaction [3], another type of non-enzymatic browning. Using browned butter lets us take a shortcut to get that incredible depth of flavor without having to make a homemade caramel (which is tricky to add to a cookie recipe because of its liquid content).

To make browned butter, melt your butter in a saucepan on the stovetop, stirring constantly. The butter will foam up as it heats, which makes it hard to see when the butter starts to brown. Stir or whisk quickly to get glimpses of the butter beneath the foam, and remove from heat as soon as the butter is nicely browned, but not burnt. Put aside to cool. We want the browned butter to still be liquid, but not hot when making the cookie dough to get the amazing soft, fudgy texture of these cookies.

Unbaked salted caramel cookies sprinkled with sea salt flakes and ready to be put in the oven on a parchment lined cookie sheet.

To make the dough, combine the sugars and the cooled-down browned butter and beat well. Add eggs and vanilla (remaining wet ingredients) beat again. Add the dry ingredients (except for the salted caramel chips and sea salt for topping) and mix well to make a firm cookie dough. Add the salted caramel baking chips and mix to distribute evenly through the cookie dough.

Use a cookie scoop [4] to portion out the cookie dough on a parchment lined cookie sheet. (I find parchment paper sheets [5] SO much easier to work with than from a roll, FYI.) Sprinkle generously with flakes of sea salt [6].

Salted caramel cookies, freshly baked on a parchment lined cookie sheet.

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 8 minutes. Let the cookies cool completely to develop the perfect fudgy, soft texture in the center.

Salted caramel cookies on a wooden surface, surrounded by salted caramel baking chips and flakes of sea salt.

The rich, deep flavor of the cookie dough made with browned butter compliments the salted caramel baking chips perfectly. The sea salt sprinkled on top of the cookies balances the sweetness of the sweet treat. It's an amazing confection.

stack of salted caramel cookies on a wooden surface, surrounded by salted caramel baking chips and flakes of sea salt.

Of course, if you love chocolate too, you could use a mix of chocolate chips and salted caramel chips. Add some chopped pecans to make a turtle cookie recipe!

Printable Salted Caramel Cookie Recipe:

Want a one page, printable, PDF version of this salted caramel cookies recipe? Just click the image below to download the printable recipe to your device or print it directly.

[7]

Other Cookie Recipes You Might Like:

[8]

[9]

[10]