Brown Butter Miso Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

Gooey, chocolatey and so full of flavor, these brown butter miso chocolate chip cookie bars are basically an amped up version of a chocolate chip cookie.

Brown butter and miso are an unexpectedly great flavor combination. Both add a complexity to a baked good on their own, but together, the toasty flavor of the brown butter and the umami miso really make something magical.

For brown butter miso chocolate chip cookie bars, we’re adding brown butter and miso into a dough that’s similar to chocolate chip cookies. We tuck some chopped chocolate inside and flaky sea salt on top, and boom, this is a blow-your-mind kind of recipe.

If you’ve never tried miso in baking, I promise you are in for the most pleasant surprise. And you may never go back.

These are brown butter miso bars.

Brown Butter Miso Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

What is miso?

Miso is a paste made of fermented soybeans, salt, koji and rice or barley. It’s a foundational ingredient in Japanese cooking and commonly known for its important role in miso soup.

Miso’s flavor is hard to describe. It’s salty. It’s umami (one of the five basic flavors of food along with sweet, sour, salty and bitter). It’s savory and complex, and just a small amount packs a ton of flavor.

Okay so why would I put miso in a dessert? Is this actually… good?

When you add something categorically savory into a dessert, it’s naturally going to turn some heads. But adding miso into a dessert is a baller move. It’s not like you’re turning your dessert into miso soup, it really just means that you understand flavor and are comfortable using different ingredients to achieve a sweet-salty balance.

Have you read or watched Samin Nosrat’s Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat? If not I highly recommend. One great takeaway from the book is that saltiness doesn’t just have to come from literal salt. It can come from salty ingredients — parmesan, anchovies, bacon, you get the idea — that will add different flavor to a dish.

Adding a little miso to a chocolate chip cookie bar brings an unexpected and delicious twist to a very nostalgic dessert. IMO, bringing in something unexpected to a nostalgic dessert is some of the most fun you can have in the kitchen.

What type of miso do I need?

In most grocery stores, you’ll see white/light miso and red/dark miso. You’re going to want white miso for this recipe. It has a shorter fermentation time and a sweeter, less overpowering flavor than red miso paste. It’s also really versatile for dressings and miso soup, and I always keep a container of it in my fridge.

You can find it in the refigerated section of most grocery stores, or in an Asian or natural foods market.

Ingredients for brown butter miso chocolate chip cookie bars

• Unsalted butter

• Granulated sugar

• Brown sugar

• Maple syrup. This is another surprise ingredient that complements the brown butter and miso very well. Make sure to get real maple syrup, not the high fructose corn syrup stuff!

• Vanilla extract

• Eggs

• White/light miso paste

• All purpose flour

• Bar of chocolate (chocolate chips work as well)

• Baking soda and baking powder

• Kosher salt or another coarse salt

• Flaky sea salt to top

Tips for the best brown butter miso chocolate chip cookie bars

• Use a hand or stand mixer. Miso is a thick paste and not that easy to incorporate using just a whisk, so I recommend using a mixer for this recipe. If you don’t have a hand or stand mixer, when you pull your brown butter from the stove, immediately pour it into a bowl and then vigorously mix in the miso. The heat from the butter will help break it down.

• Make sure to use real maple syrup. We add a little maple syrup in this recipe to restore some of the liquid that evaporates when browning the butter. The flavor also plays really nicely with the brown butter and miso flavors. Opt for real maple syrup here — if it lists high fructose corn syrup in the ingredients, that’s not what we’re looking for.

• Properly measure your flour. I always use a kitchen scale to measure my dry ingredients and include the measurements in grams in the recipe so you can, too. You can get a pretty cheap scale on Amazon (I used a $15 scale for years). If you’re using a cup measure, first fluff the flour in its bag, then use a spoon to place it into your measuring cup. Level the flour off by scraping the flat backside of a knife across the top of the cup measure.

• Don’t over-mix your flour. Over-mixing will cause the dough develop more gluten and make the bars tough rather than tender. One way to avoid over-mixing is to add your chopped chocolate when there are still a few streaks of flour left in the dough. This way you’re not mixing extra when you add the chocolate.

• Use a bar of chocolate instead of chocolate chips. Chocolate chips have stabilizers to keep them from getting too melty. A chopped up bar of chocolate will give you rich pools of chocolate that play so well with the gooey bars. But if you only have chocolate chips, it’ll still turn out great.

• Make sure to chill your dough for 30-60 minutes. This lets the flour fully hydrate and brings out much more flavor than if you were to bake right away.

How to make brown butter

Brown butter is butter that has been cooked long enough to toast the milk solids. It’s delicious and nutty, and truly makes an impact on the flavor of the whole baked good. It’s not challenging to make, it just requires patience and paying attention with your eyes and nose.

To make brown butter, you’ll put your butter in a pan or small pot over medium heat. The butter will melt most evenly if it’s at room temp, but you can use butter straight from the fridge, too.

The butter will melt and then foam and simmer, but if it starts to boil turn down the heat. After foaming, the butter will turn golden brown and start to smell nutty – this means you’re almost there. Swirl the pan often so the butter cooks evenly. You’re going to start to see some light colored, solid specks at the bottom of the pan. These are the milk solids! Once you see them turn brown, remove the pan from the heat so the milk solids don’t burn. Now you have brown butter.

You’ll want to let the brown butter cool slightly before adding it to the recipe so it doesn’t melt other ingredients.

If you make these, be sure to tag me on Instagram or TikTok at @loaves.and.such and please leave a review below!