Irresistible tahini cookies bursting with flavor with aromatic, nutty browned butter. Add sesame seeds for an extra crunch layer or load it up with chocolate chips to satisfy the chocolate lovers in your home. One is never enough.
Next time try these easy butter crunch cookies.
Ditch your everyday chocolate chip cookies and make them with tahini. What sets these apart though, is that we are going the extra mile and brown the butter for an extremely flavorful cookies.
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Most tahini cookie recipes use softened butter and go into the traditional route of creaming sugar with butter. I've decided to upgrade my tahini cookies by browning the butter. Browning butter is so easy and takes just 10 minutes of your time
Easy Tahini Cookies
I've upgraded the classic tahini cookie by browning the butter first, a simple 10-minute step that adds a deep, nutty flavor you'll love. This is the perfect way to use that jar of tahini in your pantry, transforming a delicious chewy cookie into an extraordinary one.
Pro Tip
For perfectly browned butter, especially as a beginner, always use a light colored saucepan and keep the heat on medium. This allows you to see the color change clearly and ensures the milk solids toast evenly without burning.
Tahini cookies Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 stick (115g) unsalted butter, cut into cubes.
- ½ cup tahini paste well stirred
- ½ cup (105g) granulated sugar
- ½ cup (90g) brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1-2 Tablespoons milk.
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup (135g) all-purpose flour.
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
Optional:
- Sesame seeds Or sea salt for sprinkling on top.
for chocolate chip tahini cookies:
- 1 ½ cups chocolate chips or chunks bittersweet or semisweet
Instructions
Brown the butter:
- In a light-colored pot or skillet add cubed butter and melt over medium heat.
- The butter will start foaming, stir the butter for the next 5-7 minutes until you notice brown bits at the bottom of the pot and you’ll smell the nutty aroma.
- Remove from heat and pour into a dish then refrigerate until it solidifies. This will take about an hour.
Make the cookie dough:
- In a large mixing bowl, spoon the butter. Beat the chilled butter for 1 minute until smooth.
- Add the sugars and beat well.
- Pour in tahini then add egg and vanilla extract then beat to combine.
- Add just one tablespoon of the milk and mix well, keep the other one if you feel the dough is not moist enough.
- In another bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, and baking powder.
- Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix well. Note1
- Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes or up to 3 days.
- Preheat oven to 350F
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Remove cookie dough from refrigerator and scoop batter into balls pressing lightly on sesame seeds if using.
- Place cookies on the prepared baking sheet 2-3 inches apart. Cookies will spread. Note2
- Bake anywhere from 8-10 minutes on the middle rack of your oven. Remove from oven when the edges are lightly brown and the middle is still pale.
- Allow to firm up on the cookies sheet for a couple of minutes then transfer to a cooling rack.
- Allow the cookie sheet to cool completely before adding another batch of cookies.
Video
Notes
- Note1: I’ve divided my batter into two halves and added about ¾ cup of semisweet chocolate chips to one of the halves while covering the other half with sesame seeds.
- Note2: These sorts of cookies spread so do not panic, just give them room so they come out nice and rounded. A 2inch cookie bakes into almost 4 inches one.
- Please check the nutrition disclaimer policy.
Nutrition
How to make Tahini Cookies
For the recipe, I've used unsalted butter, but you can use salted butter as well. You can use homemade tahini paste or your favorite store bought.
In a deep mixing bowl, add the browned butter (more on how to brown your butter below) with the granulated and brown sugars. Using an electric hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat them together on medium speed for 2-3 minutes.
To the creamed butter and sugar, add the tahini, the whole egg, and the vanilla extract. Beat on medium speed for another 1-2 minutes until the mixture is smooth, creamy, and uniform. You should see no streaks of egg or separated tahini. Add just one tablespoon of the milk and mix well, keep the other one if you feel the dough is not moist enough.
In a separate bowl, combine the all-purpose flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Use a fork or a whisk to mix them together . This step ensures the leavening agents are evenly distributed throughout the flours. Then we will add to the wet ingredients.
Gradually add the dry flour mixture to the wet tahini mixture. Mix only until the flour streaks have just disappeared and a soft dough has formed. Do not overmix!
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or transfer the dough to an airtight container. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or for up to 3 days.
To make the chocolate chip variation, once the dry and wet ingredients are just combined, with a spatula gently fold in 1 to 1 ½ cups of semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips until they are evenly distributed. Then proceed with chilling the dough as directed.
Use a small cookie scoop to portion the dough. Roll each portion between your palms to form a smooth ball. Pour some sesame seeds into a small bowl and gently press each dough ball into the seeds to flatten a bit.
Place the balls on the prepared baking sheet, sesame-seed-side up, leaving about 2 inches between them to allow for spreading.
These cookies spread so do not panic just give them room. Bake in a preheated oven until the edges are light brown while the middles are paler. Then allow to cool as directed in the recipe card.
How to Brown Butter
Browning butter is easy to make and takes no time so you better be there right next to it and do not leave it alone. Browned butter is simply cooking butter until it is nutty with bold flavor.
- Cut butter into tablespoons and place them into your pot over medium heat. Stir consistently to ensure even cooking.
- The butter will melt and foam then bubbles, keep stirring.
- In about 7 minutes butter will turn amber brown with some bits at the bottom of the pan. Remove immediately and pour into a heat proof bowl.
- Refrigerate the browned butter until it solidifies, it takes about 1 hour.
More Tips
- To speed up solidifying the butter place on a baking sheet in a single thin layer. Your butter will take way less time to solidify.
- If you keep your dough in the fridge for too long it will be rock hard. That's ok, just take it out and let it come to room temperature.
- For more Halva flavor up the tahini to ¾ cup.
- Chocolate chip is really up to you, use whatever variety you like.
- It is important to allow room for dpreading. Sesame tahini cookies do spread to almost double the size.
- Sprinkle top with some sea salt for the perfect sweet and salty cookies.
- For a large flat cookies form your dough into 2 inches cookies for a chubby one like the chocolate chip above form into 1 ½ inches.
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Nena
Amira
If I want to replace the butter with something non-dairy, what do you suggest?
Can I use solid coconut oil or butter alternative instead and omit the step to brown the butter?
Amira
Nena, unfortunately I haven't tried that yet. But here is a link of vegan butter substitute I hope it will help. I am guessing that coconut oil will alter the taste a bit so maybe you can get away with using vegan butter. Please let us know if you try it. Thanks
Zak
A fun way to find out both my sons have a sesame allergy. Oops! Yikes! (They are good though!)
Amira
I couldn't believe it either when I first discovered that one of my boys is allergic to sesame. It was through a falafel wrap and since then he refuses to eat falafel** sigh**
Cheryl Salem
OMG I just tried those tonight for my halva loving husband. I made half with chocolate chip and sea salt. the other half I made with crushed pistachios as my husband loves halva with pistachios. These were so good I will sure be making this again and again.
Amira
Cheyl dear, this looks amazing. I can see you've used the trick I told you about :). Thank you for the picture dear. I am so happy you husband liked them and I will try adding the pistachios.. this is a great idea.