These homemade butterscotch pretzel chocolate chip cookies are loaded with butterscotch morsels, chocolate chips, and pretzel pieces. Each bite is salty, sweet, soft, and a little crispy. There’s something for everyone in this completely irresistible recipe!
I was inspired to create today’s cookies by the crunched up pretzel pieces at the bottom of the bag. You know the pretzels that are too small to do anything with, but are still delicious? Those. They’re the perfect salty addition to my soft chocolate chip cookies and when paired with sweet chocolate chips and butterscotch morsels, each bite tastes like luxury.
Trust me, you have to make these!
These Are Upgraded Chocolate Chip Cookies
If you’re looking to kick your chocolate chip cookies up a notch, this recipe is for you.
- Crunchy pretzels in each bite
- Thick and soft centers like my peanut butter cookies
- Crispy edges
- Caramel-y flavor from the butterscotch morsels (if you love butterscotch, try these brown sugar butterscotch cupcakes!)
- Salty sweet like my chocolate covered pretzel cookies
- Chewy like my chocolate chip cookies
- Tons of texture
Ingredients You Need
This butterscotch pretzel chocolate chip cookie recipe is a lot like my soft chocolate chip cookies, so we’ll use similar ingredients. Have you tried those before? In addition to today’s recipe, they’re also the inspiration for my triple chocolate chip cookies, too. Love a good versatile dough recipe!
- Flour: We use all-purpose flour as the base of this cookie recipe.
- Cornstarch: Cornstarch, a thickening ingredient, is the secret weapon in today’s cookies. 2 teaspoons give the cookies extra lift and leave them extra soft. You canโt taste it! If you don’t have any, you can skip it. If you enjoy soft and chewy cookies, it’s helpful to have cornstarch on hand. We use it in several of our cookie recipes, like our favorite chewy chocolate chip cookies and shortbread cookies.
- Baking Soda: Baking soda helps the cookies rise.
- Salt + Pure Vanilla Extract: Both add flavor.
- Butter: Use room temperature butter. You can soften butter quickly with this trick or set the butter out 1-2 hours before you begin.
- Sugar: Use a mix of brown sugar and granulated sugar. Brown sugar yields soft chocolate chip cookies, while white sugar helps the cookies spread.
- Egg: 1 egg adds structure.
- Add-Ins: Pretzel pieces, butterscotch morsels, and chocolate chips make each bite differentโand interesting! I love using butterscotch in cookie recipes. If you haven’t tried them yet, you MUST check out my oatmeal scotchies.
Overview: How to Make Butterscotch Pretzel Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Whisk the dry ingredients together.
- Cream the wet ingredients together.
- Combine the wet and dry ingredients. The cookie dough will be thick.
- Add the pretzels, butterscotch morsels, and chocolate chips. Beat until combined.
- Chill the cookie dough. Refrigerate the cookie dough for at least 1 hour (and up to 3-4 days).
- Roll cookie dough into balls. Use about 1.5 Tablespoons of dough per cookie.
- Bake until the edges are lightly browned. The centers will look soft when they come out of the oven. That’s when you’ll know you have those ultra soft-baked and chewy centers.
3 Cookie Baking Success Tips
- Chill the cookie dough. Chilling cookie dough helps prevent excess spreading. The colder the dough, the less the cookies will over-spread into greasy puddles. Chilling cookie dough not only ensures less spreading, but heightened flavor as well. All of the flavors in your cookie recipe will mingle with one another during the chill time. Whenever I make cookies, I try to plan ahead and chill the cookie dough overnight.
- Use an oven thermometer. Unless you have a regularly calibrated oven, your ovenโs temperature is probably inaccurate. (Mine is!) For example, when you set your oven to 350ยฐF, it might not really be 350ยฐF inside. It could be 325ยฐF or 375ยฐF. While this might not seem like a big deal, it poses a huge problem for your cookies like over-browning, excess spread, under-baking in the centers, or uneven baking. I recommend keeping an oven thermometer inside your oven to help you set the proper temperature.
- Bake one cookie sheet at a time. Place only one cookie sheet on the middle rack (not two sheets on upper and lower racks). I know that sounds crazy, but that’s how I bake every single cookie recipe. Why? You get the best possible results when the oven only concentrates on that 1 batch. I promise you that!
More Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes
- Giant Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Cake Batter Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies
Butterscotch Pretzel Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Prep Time: 45 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
- Yield: 24 cookies
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
These thick & chewy butterscotch pretzel chocolate chip cookies are extra soft with a salty pretzel crunch. Irresistible!
Ingredients
- 2 cups (250g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup (12 Tbsp; 170g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 3/4 cup (150g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1/4 cup (50g) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup pretzel pieces
- 1/2 cup (90g) butterscotchย morsels
- 1/2 cup (90g) semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Whisk the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- In a large bowl using a handheld mixer or stand mixer with paddle attachment, beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together on medium speed until combined and creamy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed.
- On low speed, slowly beat the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until combined. The cookie dough will be thick. Beat in the pretzels, butterscotch morsels, and chocolate chips on medium speed until combined. Cover dough tightly with aluminum foil or plastic wrap and chill for at least 1 hour and up to 3-4 days.
- Preheat oven to 350ยฐF (177ยฐC). Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. (Always recommendedย for cookies.)ย Set aside.
- Roll into balls, about 1.5 Tablespoons of dough each (I like using this medium cookie scoop), and arrange 2-3 inches apart on prepared baking sheets. Bake for 11-12 minutes or until edges are slightly browned. The centers should still look soft. While the cookies are still warm, press additional morsels or chips into the top (if desired and only for looks!).
- Cool cookies on the baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: You can make the cookie dough and chill it in the refrigerator for up to 3-4 days. Allow to come to room temperature then continue with step 4. Baked cookies freeze well for up to 3 months. Unbaked cookie dough balls freeze well for up to 3 months. Bake frozen cookie dough balls for an extra minute, no need to thaw. Read my tips and tricks on how to freeze cookie dough.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Glass Mixing Bowl | Whisk | Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Baking Sheets | Silicone Baking Mats or Parchment Paper | Medium Cookie Scoop | Cooling Rack
- Be sure to check out my top 5 cookie baking tips AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking tools.
Reader Comments and Reviews
Can these be made into bars? Any changes needed? Thanks!
Hi Allyson! You can bake these cookies in a 9×9 pan, we’re unsure of the exact bake time.
First time using this recipe. I am giving these cookies a 10/10 — I typically bake with chocolate chips or white chocolate, when making ‘chocolate chip’ cookies. So this was an awesome addition with the butterscotch morsels! And those salty pretzel pieces — what a great texture they added! This will become part of my cookie rotation! Thanks Sally!
I have salted caramel baking chips, would it be too salty with the pretzels? and should I omit the salt in the dough?
Hi Alex, we can’t say for sure without testing it, but if you like a sweet & salty combo, it should be fine!
Hi Sally, I made these cookies today and they were so good! I made two batches and on the second one I added raspberries and chocolate chips to the cookies instead of butterscotch and pretzels. My cookies are now a grey colour, are they still safe to eat? Or should I toss them?
Hi Renee, We are so glad you enjoyed these cookies! Sometimes raspberries can react with baking soda turning dough a grayish color – they are still safe to eat!
Why didn’t I make these sooner? Absolutely delicious. I can’t eat just one. I used Sally’s trick of forming the cookie dough into taller dough balls, which resulted in a perfectly thick cookie. Will definitely be making these again.
These are so good! The dough is very thick (as it says in the recipe) so they donโt spread much. The second time I flattened the dough balls a little bit. I also found they only need to be chilled for 45 minutes as thee dough is so thick! I want to try other peoples suggestions and also get some tiny pretzels to put on the top.
These are sooooo good!
I have been almost exclusively using your recipes. I made these cookies and my husband was amazed at how good they tastedโฆI used all your tips and chilling the dough seemed to make a huge difference !
Hi! I made these cookies feeling a bit skeptical because of the pretzels, but I have had so many amazing recipes I figured it was worth a try! And I am so glad I made them! They are chewy. yet crunchy and my entire family LOVED them!!! I will definitely be making these again!!! Thank you SO much Sally!!! ๐
I followed the recipe exactly but these did not spread at all. Tasty enough, but definitely needed more butter or less flour.
I have made these cookies many times and my family loves them. I have noticed that the recipe has changed slightly. Iโm hesitant to try the new recipe because the original has been such a success. I was curious why you made the changes.
Hi Suzanne! We recently optimized the layout of this post and put the recipe in our new format, but the recipe itself has not changed. I hope you enjoy them!
Can you replace the pretzels for nuts ? If so what kind ?
Yes, you can Natalia. Keep the amount to 1/2 cup. Coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans would both be great but you can use your favorite variety.
Not sure what happened with my batch, they were very dry and crumbly the next day. They are delicious so I will attempt again. I made your white chocolate cranberry cookies with a very similar recipe and they turned out perfect.
Hi Allie! My first guess is that the cookies were over-baked. That’s an easy fix if you decide to try the recipe again. They shouldn’t be dry or crumbly. Likewise, don’t break up the pretzel pieces too much. If the pretzel pieces are too small, they could soak up too much liquid which dries out the cookie dough.
I cannot believe I waited so long to try these cookies! I actually found them while I was reading your blog post about shipping cookies and I was like, Iโm baking those! They are incredible! Salty & sweet, a crispy but still chewy. They are my new favorite cookie!
I made these but tweaked the recipe. I swapped the chocolate chips for white chocolate chips and swapped the butterscotch chips for toffee chips. I frozen them into cookie balls and rolled the top in Demerara sugar before baking. I had to bake them for 16/17 minutes before they were done. These were perfect. I was trying to match a cookie that a local place only sells for a couple months of the year and they exactly what I was looking for. A perfect combo of sweet and salty. I will make sure next time to chop up my pretzels finely next time (I left some larger pieces) but they were still wonderful. Great recipe Sally!!
Instead of the butterscotch chips I did the itty bitty caramel bits, so delicious!
The recipe called for 2 t of corn starch. I assume that this is added to the flour mixture. It is not in the directions. Thanks for the clarification. They look delicious and canโt wait to make them
Hi Jamie! Yes, sorry about that. Add the cornstarch with the other dry ingredients.
I have been making these cookies sinice the day they were posted on your blog. I haven’t made them in a few months and came back to this recipe and only now realized that I’ve been using Reeses chips all these years instead of butterscotch. So delicious but I am definitely going to use butterscotch this time.
Sally! How can I add Biscoff to these? Or can I use your chocolate chip biscoff recipe and add pretzels? I’d like a butterscotch biscoff pretzel cookie! Thanks for your time, I only only trust YOUR cookie recipes in my kitchen!ย
Hi Maria! I would make the biscoff chocolate chip cookies and add butterscotch and pretzels ๐
Hi Sally! I just made these and they taste delicious! But every time I make cookies they spread out so much! They still taste good but they just don’t hold together when they’re thy flat. I chill the cookie dough as directed and have even started chilling it for at least 12 hours. I also tried your trick about making the dough balls taller than they are wide. Any tips?? I must be missing something!ย
Hi Ali! Cookie dough is finicky and based on oven, location, mixing time, etc– dough can spread or not spread at all. My solution if your cookie dough is spreading too much is to add at least 2-3 more Tablespoons of flour. This helps!
I made these over the long weekend. They were addictive. That combo was perfect. Everyone that had one, couldn’t eat just one. I regret now that I waited so long to make them. It reminds me I need to make more things with butterscotch chip. You are the best! Can’t wait for the cookie cookbook.ย
I just made these to take to my friend’s house…..of course, I had to try one. They are terrific….crunchy on the edges, but a little softer in the middle. I love the salty/sweet combo. My one friend cannot have brown chocolate, so I used white chips. My daughter loves the sugar cookie bars from Sally ‘s Baking Addiction site, so I made them for her wedding shower and many times since.
Awesome cookies once again Sally! Made exactly as you said and they turned out great!
Hi Sally!
When I made these cookies, I baked it on top of a pretzel along with the pretzel bits inside, and after comparing them we found that pretzel on the bottom was a good touch!
Thank you for the wonderful recipe!
Sally, these are the first cookies I’ve made from your website, and they were fantastic! Probably the best cookies I’ve ever made! I’m so excited to try other recipes from your website. P.S. I used Reese’s Pieces because I didn’t have butterscotch chips, and they still turned out delicious.
Hi Rachel, I’m so happy you enjoyed these! Thanks for taking the time to write back. Let me know what you try next!
I made these with white chips rather than semi sweet (what I had on hand)… they turned out fabulous! I love love love sweet and salty and the pretzels cut the white chocolate perfectly! Thank you for the inspiration!
Your cookies are probably SO good. White chocolate and pretzels are a weakness of mine. Ok, any chocolate and pretzels – but white chocolate is extra tasty. Thanks for reporting back, Melani!
These cookies were GREAT, both the boyfriend and I loved them! Can’t wait to try them with m & m’s.
Hi Sally,
I was looking up recipes on the internet the other day and came across your blog. Love it! Glad someone else shares a love of baking and peanut butter as much as I do. ๐ I baked these cookies today and they were awesome. Thick, chewy, and soft just like you promised. I didn’t have butterscotch chips on hand so I substituted mini M&M’s. Thanks for the tips on measuring flour–I think that’s where I’ve gone wrong all these years.