Best Kitchen Sink Cookies

These Best Kitchen Sink Cookies are gooey, fudgy, and made with brown butter for extra nuttiness and caramel notes. They’re loaded with chocolate chips, toffee bits, and potato chips for the perfect blend of sweet and slightly salty. 

Why These Kitchen Sink Cookies Are The Best

If you search for “best cookie recipe” in any web browser, you’ll come across pages and pages of recipes all claiming to be the tastiest. We have no doubt that those other recipes out there are amazing too, but we’re partial to these cookies. Here’s why these ones are the best:

• They’re chewy. They have just the right amount of chewiness, which is what we’re usually looking for in a good cookie. They also satisfy our craving for sweet and salty treats all in the same bite. 
• They’re super fudgy. We like our cookies to be fudgy and soft but not cakey, with a slightly crispy (almost caramelized) bottom, and these Best Kitchen Sink Cookies fit the bill nicely. 
• They’re nostalgic. We’ve been chasing a memory of the perfect cookies from our youth. They were sold at our middle school when we were kids, and they were the perfect balance of sweet and buttery and had wonderful toffee notes. These Best Kitchen Sink Cookies come pretty dang close (plus, we’ve added potato chips to make them even better). 
• They’re a hit! These cookies are our most requested dessert. In fact, we’ve been asked to make these cookies for family members’ birthdays instead of traditional birthday cakes. For this reason, we try to keep the ingredients on hand at all times and we suggest you do the same!

What is Brown Butter?

If you’ve done some baking before, you may have come across recipes calling for “brown butter” or “browned butter.” They both refer to the same thing, which is butter that has been melted and cooked long enough that the milk solids turn brown. This happens when the water evaporates from the cooking process, and the leftover milk solids caramelize. 

Brown butter has a satisfyingly nutty flavor and smell and it adds caramel undertones to baked goods, like these cookies.

How to Make Brown Butter

First, you’ll want to start with unsalted butter because it browns more easily. The salt in salted butter can cause the butter to foam up more when you’re melting it, making it harder to see when the milk solids are browning. This can make it easier to overcook the butter and turn it into burnt butter instead of brown. 

Here’s how to brown that unsalted butter: 

• Cut the butter into tablespoon sized pieces. This will help it melt faster.
• Melt the butter in a pot over medium heat, stirring constantly. 
• Cook for another 5 to 10 minutes until the butter has turned golden-to-medium brown in color and smells nutty (if it smells burnt, you’ve gone too far). 

In our experience, brown butter works best in cookies if you cool it down slightly after it has melted. To do this, you can either refrigerate the butter until it’s no longer hot, or you can place the pot inside an ice-filled bowl and stir or whisk the butter until it is thicker, cooler, and still soft.

Ingredients for the Kitchen Sink Cookies

• All-purpose flour – we measure our flour using the spoon and level method when we develop baking recipes, so it’s really important that you do the same or your cookies won’t turn out right. Spooning and leveling reduces the amount of flour used by almost a quarter cup, so you definitely want to use this method. Alternatively, you can weigh your flour instead (we use about 280 grams in this recipe).
• Unsalted butter – unsalted butter is better than salted in this recipe because of how it browns. 
• Sugar – we use both granulated and brown sugar in this recipe as they each react differently and help give these cookies their signature texture and flavor.
• Eggs – eggs provide lift and richness to these cookies.
• Salt – sweets need some salt for balance. Because we’re using unsalted butter in this recipe, this is even more important. We also top these cookies with flaky sea salt after they’ve baked.
• Vanilla – this helps add even more caramelly undertones to the cookies. 
• Baking soda – the baking soda reacts with the acidity of the brown sugar to help provide just the right amount of rise when these cookies are baking.
• Sweet and salty mix-ins – everything but the kitchen sink, right? We like to mix in milk chocolate chips, toffee bits, and crushed potato chips (thicker chips with ridges work best).

How to Make The Best Kitchen Sink Cookies

STEP 1: Preheat your oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 

STEP 2: Make the brown butter by melting it a pot over medium heat, stirring constantly. When the butter starts to bubble, then cook for another 5 to 10 minutes until it is amber or golden brown in color and smells nutty.

Chill the butter slightly in the fridge, or place the pot inside an ice-filled bowl and stir or whisk the butter until it is thicker, cooler, and still soft.

STEP 3: Mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt) together in a bowl and set aside.

STEP 4: Add the brown butter and both sugars to a separate large mixing bowl and mix together with a whisk, spoon, or electric beater. Mix in the eggs and the vanilla. 

STEP 5: Add the dry ingredients to the bowl with the wet ingredients and mix them in until just combined. Try not to overmix or the cookies might become gummy. Then fold in the chocolate chips, toffee chips, and potato chips. 

STEP 6: For large cookies, scoop about 2 to 3 tbsp of dough per cookie. This recipe should make about 16 to 20 large cookies. 

Spread out 4 to 6 cookie dough balls onto the prepared baking sheet. Press a couple more chocolate chips and crushed potato chips onto the tops of each dough ball.

STEP 7: Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes or until the edges look golden brown and cookies look slightly less done in the middle. They’ll continue to cook for a few minutes after they come out of the oven. Cooking them a little less keeps them fudgy later. 

While the cookies are still warm, place an inverted glass or biscuit cutter over each one and move it in a circular motion to shape each cookie into a perfect circle. This will also help the cookies get some wrinkles and extra chewiness. 

Let the cookies rest for a few minutes, then move them to a rack to cool completely. For extra sweet and salty vibes, top with a sprinkle of flaky sea salt (we use Maldon salt for this). 

Important note: you’ll be tempted to eat these cookies warm, they actually taste better and more toffee-like after they’ve cooled. Trust us.