Name: Brown Butter Cowboy Cookies
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 12 min
Total time: 32 min
Yield: 14
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 1/2 cup of butter; 1/3 cup sweetened coconut flakes; 3/4 cup of brown sugar; 1 egg; 1 tsp vanilla; 1 1/4 cup flour; 1/2 tsp baking soda; 1/4 tsp salt; 3/4 cup rolled oats; 1/3 cup pecans, plus 14 extra whole pieces for the top of the cookies; 1 cup chocolate chips, use what you have or prefer in these cookies

Jump to Recipe

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Affiliate if you purchase through those links I earn a small commission. Thank you!

These Cowboy Cookies HAVE IT ALL, PLUS brown butter. You can’t go wrong with these hearty filling cookies that everyone loves to love!

Cowboy cookies on parchment with pecans.

Cowboy cookies are built on the base flavor nutty of brown butter. From there add your typical cookie ingredients and then toasted coconut, oats, chocolate chips, and chopped pecans. Perfection in a cookie!

Why Make Brown Butter?

Why make brown butter for cookies? When you melt butter and let it gently brown up it makes for a nutty toasty flavor in every recipe you use it in. And in cookies, it just adds another layer of delicious flavor!

If you don’t want to make brown butter you can just use softened butter, not browned. The flavor will be a little different but all the other additions will carry the cookies along.

Starting to make brown butter for cowboy cookies.

How to Make Brown Butter

It’s SO easy! I don’t know why every cookie doesn’t start with browned butter, they should! I don’t think there’s a cookie recipe out there that wouldn’t benefit from brown butter

You need the butter called for in a recipe, a shallow pan, and a spoon or spatula
place the pan over low heat and add the butter
as the butter begins to melt stir the butter and keep it moving so it doesn’t get too browned or even burnt
when it’s completely melted, lightly browned, and the solids are also browned remove from the heat
scrape out the pan into a bowl and be sure to get all the butter out
let it cool in the bowl
once cool it’s ready to use, this recipe uses it in the cooled liquid form
you can also let it solidify and use it that way

Dry toasting coconut to bring out its nutty toasty flavor!

Toast the Coconut for a nuttier flavor!

Dry toast the coconut for these cookies for the BEST flavor. It takes the coconut from sweet coconut to toasty coconut perfection. It takes just a few minutes in a dry skillet to achieve the best flavor!

All the ingredients for brown butter cowboy cookies.

What do I need to Make Cowboy Cookies?

butter-see notes about brown butter above
brown sugar
egg
vanilla
salt
baking soda
all-purpose flour
shredded coconut
rolled oats
chopped pecans, plus whole pecans to top the cookies(use these candied pecans for the pecans instead for a flavor boost!)
chocolate chips or chocolate chunks, mix them up and use a mix of semi-sweet, dark, milk or white chips

Brown butter makes these cookies darker than other cookies.

Our Other Favorite Cookie Recipes

Yield: 14 cookies