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Glazed Butter Pecan Cookies

These butter pecan cookies are bursting with creamy butterscotch flavor, glazed with a sweet and crunchy pecan topping for the ultimate buttery bite! These pecan cookies look great on a holiday cookie platter, and they’re so easy to make.

I love butter pecan ice cream (not to mention, pecan pie), and I’ll use any excuse to incorporate those buttery, nutty flavors into an easy cookie recipe! Try my pecan praline cookies and these easy pecan pie bars, next.

Why I Love These Butter Pecan Cookies

Butter Pecan has to be one of my all-time favorite ice cream flavors. When I set out to translate that flavor into a cookie, I knew I needed to nail it. Let’s just say: Mission accomplished! These glazed butter pecan cookies are buttery, melt-in-your-mouth cookies filled with butterscotch chips and topped with a sweet vanilla glaze bursting with crunchy chopped pecans. Here’s why they’re the best holiday cookie:

  • Brimming with buttery flavor. My secret to flavor-filled butter pecan cookies? Blending the butterscotch chips! It packs every bite with sweet butterscotch bits and all the flavor that comes with them.
  • Easy to make. I use my simple shortbread cookie dough, add in some rich and creamy butterscotch, and then finish these cookies with an easy vanilla glaze and crispy pecans. They’re fresh from the oven in 30 minutes!
  • Lots of pecan crunch. Chopped pecans add just the right amount of satisfying crunch to the topping. Combined with the buttery cookies underneath, it makes this recipe totally irresistible.

What Flavor is Butter Pecan?

Butter pecan flavor combines roasted pecans, butter, and vanilla. In the case of butter pecan ice cream, it’s a buttery vanilla ice cream with chunks of chopped pecans throughout. The ice cream is creamy, sweet, and a little crunchy. That’s exactly what I was after with this butter pecan cookies recipe!

The ingredients for glazed butter pecan cookies.

What You’ll Need

My glazed butter pecan cookies are essentially a 5-ingredient cookie beneath a creamy, nutty glaze. Like the cookie itself, the ingredients list is short and sweet (shortbread, get it?). Be sure to check out the printable ingredients list further down in the recipe card.

  • Butterscotch Chips – You’ll find these in the baking aisle of most grocery stores. Butterscotch chips are the key to the extra rich, buttery flavor of these butter pecan cookies, but you’ll need to pulverize them first! Stay with me, here – we’ll get into this shortly.
  • Butter – Get your butter to room temperature before you start.
  • Powdered Sugar – Also called confectioner’s sugar, using powdered sugar yields a less dense cookie (see below). You’ll need it for the cookies as well as the sweet glaze.
  • Flour and Salt 
  • Vanilla Extract and Milk – You’ll combine vanilla and milk with powdered sugar for the glaze. Whole milk or 2% milk is best for a creamy consistency. 
  • Pecans – Chop the pecans up finely to add to the glaze, to put some “pecan” in your butter pecan cookies!

What Does Powdered Sugar Do in Cookies?

Compared to granulated sugar, powdered sugar absorbs more moisture in the cookie dough, and leads to a lighter, more tender cookie. It’s the secret to the melt-in-your-mouth texture in my lemon meltaway cookies and these festive orange cranberry meltaway cookies. I highly recommend it!

How to Make Butter Pecan Cookies

This recipe is so easy and these cookies come out filled with the utmost butterscotch flavor. As promised, I’ll get right into my secret for the BEST butter pecan cookies…

  • Blend the butterscotch chips. If that sounds a little weird, trust me. It works! Add the butterscotch chips to a blender and pulse them until you reach a coarse powder. This magic dust is going to bring all sorts of melty, delicious, butterscotch flavors to your butter pecan cookies.
  • Prepare the cookie dough. Beat together the butter, powdered sugar, and salt. Next, mix in the butterscotch dust. Then, slowly mix in the flour until you’re left with dry dough.
  • Portion out the cookies. Scoop the cookie dough and roll it into balls, and place these onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. The cookies will spread a bit as they bake, so be sure to leave a couple of inches between your dough balls.
  • Bake. Pop the cookies into a 350ºF oven for about 20 minutes, until they’re golden around the edges. Then take them out and transfer the cookies to a wire rack. You can glaze the cookies warm or cool, just know the warmer they are, the runnier the glaze will be.
  • Add the glaze. Whisk together a glaze of powdered sugar, vanilla, milk, and chopped pecans. Drop a spoonful of glaze onto the top of each cookie, and leave it to set.
A spoon drops glaze on top of a butter pecan cookie on a wire rack.

Tips and Variations

  • Measure the ingredients correctly. Make sure to spoon the flour into your measuring cup and then level it off, rather than using the cup to scoop the flour directly from the bag. This way you’re less likely to add too much flour to the recipe, which produces a denser cookie.
  • Don’t overmix. Only mix the ingredients until they’re just combined. Over-mixing can lead to tough, chewy cookies.
  • You don’t HAVE to blend the butterscotch chips. If you don’t have a blender, or if you’d prefer to leave the butterscotch chips whole, you can skip this part. Note that the texture of the cookies will be a little different, but they’ll still be tasty!
  • Not a fan of butterscotch? You can still make a variation of these butter pecan cookies by blending up white chocolate chips to add instead.
  • I prefer to glaze my cookies when they’re cool. This is a personal preference, but I like that the glaze doesn’t melt and thin out as much. 
  • Add a pinch of cinnamon to the glaze for a bit of extra warmth and spice.
A glazed butter pecan cookie on a wooden platter with a bite missing, and more cookies in the background.

How to Store Butter Pecan Cookies

  • At room temperature. These glazed butter pecan cookies can be stored airtight at room temperature for up to 3 days. If you’re layering them in a container, use parchment paper to separate the layers. You can also keep these cookies in the fridge, just remember to take them out about 10-15 minutes before serving to take the chill off. 
  • Freeze. I recommend freezing these pecan cookies before adding the glaze. Once the baked cookies have cooled completely, transfer them to a freezer bag or freezer-safe container. Store the cookies frozen for up to 3 months, then thaw them in the fridge and prepare a quick glaze when you’re ready to eat them.

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Glazed butter pecan cookies on a wooden platter.

Butter Pecan Cookies

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 4.8 from 5 reviews
  • Author: Cookies & Cups
  • Prep Time: 10 minutes
  • Cook Time: 20 minutes
  • Total Time: 30 minutes
  • Yield: 30 cookies 1x
  • Category: Cookies
  • Method: Oven
  • Cuisine: American

Description

These butter pecan cookies are bursting with butterscotch chips and topped with a sweet vanilla glaze and crunchy pecans, for the ultimate melt-in-your-mouth, buttery bite!


Ingredients

Scale
  • 3/4 cups butterscotch chips
  • 3/4 cup butter, room temperature
  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

Glaze

  • 3 cups powdered sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 3 tablespoons milk
  • 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 325F°. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
  2. Place the butterscotch chips in a blender and pulverize them to a coarse powder. Set them aside.
  3. In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment beat the butter, powdered sugar, and salt together until smooth, 1-2 minutes. Add in the blended butterscotch chips and mix until incorporated.
  4. Turn the mixer to low and add in the flour until combined. The mixture will be dry.
  5. Scoop 1 tablespoon of the dough out and roll it into a ball. Place on the prepared baking sheet. Repeat with all the dough, spacing the balls about 1 1/2 inches apart.
  6. Bake the cookies for 17-20 minutes until lightly golden at the edges.
  7. Remove from the oven and transfer them to a wire rack to cool.

Glaze

  1. Mix the powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk together with a whisk.
  2. Add in the pecans. Top each cookie with about 1 tablespoon of the glaze.
  3. Allow the glaze to set up before serving.

Notes

  • You can glaze the cookies warm or cool. I like to glaze them when they are completely cooled because the glaze won’t melt off as much. If you glaze them warm you will have a much thinner glaze on the cookie.

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18 comments on “Glazed Butter Pecan Cookies”

  1. LOL I love your wittyness. I too do not like eating the chips by themself. too strong. They really taste good in that marshmallow square…not sure of the name but a person can eat more than 1 piece for sure.






  2. My favorite ice cream is Butter Pecan – always has been. As one of the older team members of an office the younger girls said “Butter Pecan is an old people ice cream”. What the heck! I wonder if these would be considered “Old people cookies”? These look oh so delish!

  3. Michelle @ My California Kitchen

    Oh my gosh!! I love those pulverized chips!! I like butterscotch chips most of the time, but they can overwhelm my taste buds sometimes as whole chips. I can’t wait to try these cookies!

  4. I’m with you on the butterscotch chips. I bet I’ll like them better pulverized. I will have to try!

  5. Jessica @ Sweetest Menu

    Truly magical! I never knew you could make butterscotch chips into crumbs – what an incredible idea!

  6. Can’t wait to try these. The idea to pulverize those butterscotch chips is brilliant! I also don’t love biting into those big, old chips. I’ll be making these soon!

  7. Jessica DeMay

    Oh my gosh- these look so good! Butter cookies are my favorite and adding butterscotch chips is brilliant!! And they are so easy- no chilling! I need to try these.

  8. I’ll have to try the pulverizing. I made oatmeal scotchies a few years back because I remembered liking them when I was little and I absolutely hated the butterscotch chips. Either my palate is more refined than my 8 year old self or they changed them in the decades between then and now.

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