Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies

This post was created as in partnership with Imperial Sugar. All thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.

These Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies are packed with semisweet chocolate chips and crunchy pecans in a browned butter cookie dough. Perfectly crisp around the edges and chewy through the middle, everybody raves about every bite of these nutty, chocolate-crammed cookies. 

We are kind of obsessed with chocolate chip cookies at our house! Some of our other favorites are Easy Copycat Levain Chocolate Chip Cookies, Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies, and these Soft & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cookies are practically a staple food at our house. We make them, oh, at least once a week. 

Especially on Fridays when we often do “Cookie & Movie Night” with our kids. Lots of times we will invite another family over. It’s one of our favorite family traditions to start the weekend off with warm cookies fresh out of the oven and a fun flick.

Everybody has their favorite cookie, but I love a good cookie recipe with pecans as you can see from my Mexican wedding cookies and toffee pecan shortbread cookies. Heck, even the Southern pecan pralines that I recently shared are cookie-ish in a lot of ways.

When I set out to make these pecan chocolate chip cookies, I didn’t want to just add pecans to my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe and call it a day. 

Instead, I wanted a cookie recipe that would really showcase the buttery, crunchy qualities of pecans and be unique in my cookie baking repertoire. Something that would set these pecan chocolate chip cookies apart from other basic chocolate chip cookies.

Enter one of my secret weapons when it comes to adding flavor to pretty much anything: browned butter.

It takes a few extra minutes to melt the butter in a saucepan and let it brown just a bit, then cool down so you can use it in the cookies, but it adds the most incredible, rich, toasted flavor to the cookie base that is totally worth the extra effort. 

You can speed up the cooling process by filling a large dish with ice cubes and setting the pan of browned butter on that, then stirring for 8-10 minutes until it cools down a bit rather than waiting 30 minutes for it to cool on its own in the fridge.

Also, while you’re at it, you might as well just make a double batch and freeze the extra cookie dough for later. I include instructions on how to do that below. 

How to Make Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies

1. Brown the butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat by cooking and stirring for about 3 minutes until golden specks start to form. Just don’t cook it too long, which not only runs the risk of burning the butter, but you might lose liquid to evaporation, which could affect how the cookies turn out. 
2. Cool the browned butter in the fridge for 20-30 minutes. It doesn’t need to be cold, but you don’t want to add the super hot butter to the sugars and eggs and start the cooking process before the cookie dough is even in the oven.
3. Beat browned butter and sugars on high speed until light.
4. Add eggs and vanilla. Pretty standard cookie making practice from here on out.
5. Mix in flour, baking soda, and salt, just until everything combines.
6. Stir in chocolate chips and chopped pecans. 
7. Scoop out balls of dough and drop them onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper. You can roll the dough into balls for perfectly round cookies every time, or just leave them craggy instead.
8. Bake for 9-10 minutes, just until the edges are set and turning brown but the centers are still soft and slightly underbaked.
9. Definitely eat the cookies warm with a tall glass of cold milk. Not because these aren’t good once they have cooled down – they are amazing then too – but because there is very little in life that can surpass the experience of warm pecan chocolate chip cookies with cold milk.

Sometimes I press extra chocolate chips and pecan pieces into the tops of each cookie either before or after baking them just to make them look pretty. But it’s a total vanity move and not necessary for your pecan chocolate chip cookie enjoyment. 

I just wanted to share all my secrets for making extra gorgeous cookies that people cannot resist.

Can you freeze cookie dough?

Freezing cookie dough is a GREAT idea for so many reasons. The biggest problem with baking an entire batch of cookies is that I will then EAT an entire batch of cookies.

You think I exaggerate, but you would be wrong.

But lots of cookie dough freezes really well, especially cookie dough for drop cookies (think peanut butter, oatmeal, chocolate chip, etc.).

Also, if you freeze the cookie dough in individual balls, you can have warm cookies anytime you want! Which is dangerous but also awesome, right? Right.

Especially when you have visitors drop by unexpectedly, or you are asked last minute to bring a treat to an event (we’ve all been there, right?), or you are prepping for the holidays.

I like to freeze cookie dough by lining a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silpat mat and scooping the cookies just as if I was going to bake them right then. Except instead of sticking them in the oven, I pop them into the freezer for 1 hour until the dough is completely frozen.

Once the individual balls of dough are frozen, transfer them to a large freezer safe ziploc bag and freeze until you are ready to bake up some warm, gooey cookies!

It’s helpful to grab a sharpie and write the date, type of cookie, and quick instructions for how to bake them right on the bag so you don’t have to look them up again later. Just a temperature and time will do.

You can freeze the cookie dough for about 8 weeks.

Can you bake frozen cookie dough without thawing?

When you are ready to bake, you don’t even have to thaw the cookie dough balls if you don’t want to. I mean, you could stick them in the fridge overnight and that would work just fine, but I doubt any of us plan our cookie cravings that far in advance.

Instead, when you feel in need of some cookie satisfaction, just pull out enough cookie dough balls for however many cookies you might want and place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet while you preheat the oven for 15 minutes. Then add an extra 1-2 minutes to the regular baking time and put the partially-thawed cookie dough balls straight into the oven.

More Easy Cookies Recipes You’ll Love

• Best Soft & Chewy M&M Cookies
• Raspberry Chocolate Chunk Cookies
• Toffee Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Lemon Sugar Cookies
• Best Fudgy Chewy Chocolate Brownie Cookies
• Soft & Chewy Molasses Cookies
• Best Cut-Out Sugar Cookies
• Soft Baked Peanut Butter M&M Cookies
• White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
• and you can find all of my  favorite easy cookie recipes here!