Butter Pecan Cookies are delicious homemade cookies chock full of chopped pecans. Super easy to make and Mmmm … mmm … good!

Closeup on a Butter Pecan Cookie laying on a white surface surrounded by chopped Pecans.

Pecan lovers … this cookie is for you.  Chock full of yummy pecans this homemade Butter Pecan Cookie really hits the spot on a cool Fall day and would also look great on your Thanksgiving dessert table. So delicious and so easy to make! Your family will ask you to make them again and again!

Ingredients You Will Need

All the ingredients you will need to make Butter Pecan Cookies including pecans, flour, granulated sugar, butter, brown sugar, baking soda, vanilla extract, eggs and salt.
Closeup on a clear glass mixing bowl filled with Butter Pecan Cookie down and a white wooden spatula.

Step 1: In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 2 minutes.) Beat in eggs and vanilla extract for 3 more minutes. Mix in the baking soda and salt. Mix well. Add the flour one cup at a time and mix until combined. Stir in the chopped pecans.

Baking Instructions

Collage image showing the steps for baking the cookies.

Step 2: To keep the cookies similar in size I measured out 2 oz. of dough for each cookie on my food scale.
Step 3: I rolled the dough into a ball and pressed the ball down slightly on the cookie sheet.
Step 4: Bake the cookies in an oven preheated to 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until light brown around the edges.

Experts Tips and FAQ’s

Use Room Temperature Ingredients

Both the eggs and the butter should be at room temperature which will help your cookies turn out lighter and fluffier.  For the eggs, room temperature simply means not cold out of the refrigerator. If you forget to take the eggs out before you start making cookie dough you can put the eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5-10 minutes to warm them up.  The butter also needs to be softened to room temperature which means if you touch it you should leave an indentation on the stick of butter. Do not use butter that has been over-softened or melted.  If that happens you should use a different stick of butter or put it back into the refrigerator to let it set up.  We have a whole post about How to Soften Butter, click here if you need more information on how to do that.

Do you need to use a Mixer?

Yes. In our opinion, you need some kind of a mixer to make a good cookie dough. A stand mixer, while expensive, is a great investment if you believe you have a lot of homemade baked goods in your future. An electric hand-mixer also works well and you can probably find one for around $20. You can hand mix cookie dough in a pinch (which is how we did it growing up), but you will really have to use a lot of muscle to cream the butter and sugar, and eggs properly.

Cookie Dough Mixing Tips

Creaming the butter, sugar and then mixing the eggs in is the most important part of the cookie dough mixing process. Creaming is when you fully incorporate the butter and sugar together and add some much-needed air to the dough. We recommend creaming the butter and sugar for 2 minutes at medium-high speed and then mixing the butter/sugar/eggs for another 3 minutes at the same speed. Once you add the flour, you want to mix the dough as little as possible. Mix it too much and you will get tough cookies. Mix in the flour at low speed and continue mixing ONLY until the dry ingredients are incorporated into the dough. Make sure you scrape down the sides and the bottom to make sure all the flour has gotten mixed in.

Prepping the Cookie Sheet

We always line our cookie sheets with a piece of parchment paper, it keeps the cookie from sticking to the sheet and from over-browning. You can find parchment paper either in rolls or in pre-cut sheets in most grocery stores, and we highly recommend it. Ideally, you should use at least 2 cookie sheets when baking cookies. You don’t want to add the raw cookie dough to a cookie sheet that is hot out of the oven. The dough will start baking even before you get it in the oven.

Oven Tips

Everyone’s oven is different. We recommend starting with a test bake with a single cookie to help you hone in on the exact baking time for your oven. You should set your timer for 2 minutes less than whatever the recipe recommends. Once the timer goes off, open up the oven and see how your cookie is baking. Make corrections accordingly. Our oven has a hot spot in the back so we always rotate the cookie sheet halfway through the baking time to get a more even bake. Although this may seem like an unnecessary step, it is better to do this than burn a whole tray of cookies.

Storage/Freezing Tips

Cookies should always be stored in an airtight container.  They should be completely cooled before storing them. We usually add a layer of parchment paper between each row of cookies in our plastic container.  Cookies stored at room temperature should stay fresh for 3-4 days. You can also keep them in the refrigerator and that extends their freshness for up to a week. If you need them to last longer, you can freeze them for up to 3 months. You can pull them out of the freezer and leave them on the counter for 1 hour and they will be ready to eat.

Closeup on three Butter Pecan Cookies laying on a white surface in front of two other stacks of cookies.

Other Pecan Dessert Recipes You Will Love

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Butter Pecan Cookies

Yield 18 cookies
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Total Time 20 minutes

Butter Pecan Cookies are delicious homemade cookies chock full of chopped pecans. Super easy to make and Mmmm ... mmm ... good!

Ingredients

  • 1 cup Butter (Sweet Cream Salted, Softened to Room Temperature)
  • 1 cup Dark Brown Sugar
  • 1/2 cup Granulated Sugar
  • 2 Eggs
  • 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
  • 2 cups All-Purpose Flour
  • 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon Salt
  • 1 1/2 cup Chopped Pecans

Instructions

  1. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 2 minutes.)
  2. Beat in eggs and vanilla extract for 3 more minutes.
  3. Mix in the baking soda and salt. Mix well.
  4. Add the flour one cup at a time and mix until combined.
  5. Stir in the chopped pecans.
  6. Bake in an oven preheated to 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes and allow to cool.

Did you Make this Recipe? Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @twosisterscrafting on Instagram so we can see it!