Best Brownie Recipe
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The search for the very best brownie recipe ends here. These brownies are fudgy, deeply chocolaty, and absolutely worth making from scratch.
I’ve made a lot of brownie recipes over the years, but I always come back to this one. The brownies are thick, deeply chocolatey, irresistibly fudgy in the center, and topped with a paper-thin, crackly crust. The secret? While most brownie recipes—and nearly all boxed mixes—rely solely on cocoa powder, this one is made with real melted chocolate for exceptional richness and flavor.
The recipe originally comes from pastry chef Nick Malgieri’s Chocolate cookbook. It’s been around for decades and featured in numerous cooking publications, such as The New York Times, Saveur, and The Splendid Table. Try it for yourself and see why people have been making it for so long.
Why You’ll Love This Brownie Recipe
- One bowl and no mixer required
- Perfectly fudgy with crackly tops
- Made with simple ingredients
- Easy to make ahead and freeze
- Perfect for parties, bake sales, and gifting
- A time-tested recipe that’s been loved for decades
“The name does not lie!! These are hands-down the BEST brownies I have made!!! My entire family devoured them.”
What You’ll Need To Make Homemade Brownies
- Unsalted butter: Adds richness and moisture, creating the brownies’ signature fudgy texture. Using unsalted butter lets you control the amount of salt in the recipe.
- Bittersweet or semisweet chocolate: Since chocolate is the star here, use a good-quality chocolate bar, such as Ghirardelli or Guittard. I recommend bars instead of chocolate chips, which contain stabilizers that prevent them from melting as smoothly.
- Eggs: Provide structure while keeping the brownies rich and chewy. Use large eggs, and let them come to room temperature if possible so they blend more easily into the batter.
- Granulated sugar: Helps create the brownies’ signature shiny, crackly top while adding sweetness.
- Dark brown sugar: Adds moisture along with a subtle molasses flavor that makes the brownies even richer and fudgier. Light brown sugar will work in a pinch, but you’ll get a milder flavor and slightly less moisture.
- Vanilla extract: Enhances the chocolate flavor without overpowering it.
- Salt: Balances the sweetness and makes the chocolate taste even richer.
- All-purpose flour: Just enough flour gives the brownies structure while keeping them dense and fudgy instead of cakey. Measure using the spoon-and-level method for the best results—packing the cup or scooping straight from the bag adds too much flour and dries out the brownies.
- Jump to the printable recipe for precise measurements
Step-by-Step Instructions
Step 1: Melt the butter and chocolate. Melt the butter until it’s hot and bubbling, then add the chopped chocolate. Let it sit for about a minute before whisking; the residual heat from the butter is usually enough to melt the chocolate completely. If a few pieces remain, microwave the mixture briefly and whisk again until smooth and glossy.
Step 2: Mix the eggs, sugars, and flavoring. Whisk the eggs with the sugars, vanilla, and salt until smooth, making sure there are no lumps of brown sugar. You don’t need to whip a lot of air into the mixture—just whisk until everything is evenly combined.
Step 3: Finish the batter. Whisk the melted chocolate into the egg mixture, then stir in the flour just until no streaks remain. The batter will be thick and glossy. Avoid overmixing at this stage, which can make the brownies a bit tougher.
Step 4: Bake. Line the pan with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on two sides so you can easily lift the brownies out after baking. Spray the paper with nonstick cooking spray, then spread the batter evenly into the corners and bake until the top is shiny and set. If you’re unsure whether they’re done, it’s better to err on the side of slightly underbaked than overbaked. The brownies will continue to set as they cool.
Step 5: Cool and cut. As tempting as it is to cut into warm brownies, letting them cool completely gives them time to finish setting, making them easier. Once cool, use the parchment overhang to lift them from the pan, then trim the crispy edges (chef’s treat!) and cut into squares. Store in an airtight container for up to 4 days, or freeze for longer storage.
Choosing Your Pan
This recipe is written for a 9×13-inch metal pan (24 brownies). Some helpful adjustments:
- 8×8 or 9×9 pan: Halve the recipe. Start checking for doneness around 30 minutes.
- Two 8×8 pans: Keep the full recipe and split the batter between two pans (great for trying different mix-ins). Bake about 30 minutes.
- Glass or ceramic instead of metal: Drop the oven to 325°F rather than adding time at 350°F. Both retain heat more than metal and can burn at the edges before the center’s done. Glass is the more stubborn of the two; ceramic tends to be a bit more forgiving.
Variations and Mix-Ins
- Add nuts: Fold in ½ to 1 cup of chopped toasted walnuts or pecans along with the batter for crunch.
- Deepen the chocolate flavor: Add 1 teaspoon of instant espresso powder to the melted chocolate-butter mixture. You won’t taste coffee; it just intensifies the chocolate.
- Go extra chocolatey: Fold in ½ to 1 cup of chocolate chips along with the flour for pockets of melted chocolate throughout.
Video Tutorial
More Brownie Recipes You’ll Love
Best Brownie Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
- 8 oz bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped (I use Ghirardelli bars)
- 4 large eggs
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup all-purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup and leveled-off
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and set a rack in the middle position. Line a 9 x 13-in (23 x 33-cm) pan with parchment paper (bring parchment up sides of pan so there is a slight overhang) and grease with butter or nonstick cooking spray.
- Place the butter in a medium microwave-safe bowl and melt in the microwave until bubbling. Add the chocolate and whisk until the chocolate is completely melted. The heat from the butter should be enough to melt the chocolate completely, but if not, place the chocolate-butter mixture in the microwave and heat for 20 seconds or so, then whisk again. (Alternatively, combine the butter and chocolate in a heat proof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water. Stir occasionally until melted.)
- Whisk the eggs in a large bowl. Add the salt, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla; whisk until smooth (be sure no lumps of brown sugar remain). Whisk in the chocolate-butter mixture, then add the flour and whisk until the batter is uniform.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for about 45 minutes, until the top has formed a shiny crust and the batter is moderately firm. Cool completely in the pan on a rack.
- Use the parchment overhang to lift the brownies out of the pan, transfer them to a cutting board, and separate the parchment from the edges. Using a sharp knife, trim away the edges and cut the brownies into 24 (2-in) squares.
Notes
Nutrition Information
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
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Hi Jenn!
I am a super fan of yours!
will try this recipe with my kids. can we add nuts? pecan or walnut? if so, at what stage should I mix it?
Awww… thanks Elly! 💗
Yes, you can definitely add nuts of your choosing to these. (I’d coarsely chop them and add them to the batter right before you pour it into the baking pan. Hope you enjoy!
Easily the best brownies we’ve ever had – I’m embarrassed to say how quickly the pan was finished! 😁
Hi Jenn, I am totally out of butter, would I be able to substitute oil in your recipes. If so how much? Once again thank you for a great recipe.
Hi Barbara, This recipe has a lot of butter, so I’m not really sure how substituting oil would impact it. Do you happen to have margarine on hand? If so, I’d use that before using oil.
Hi Jenn,
Please don’t recommend using margarine. The stuff is toxic and very bad for our health. It would be better for the person asking to try olive oil in equal measure and come up with something edible but not quite the recipe than to purchase or use margarine. If anyone has margarine in their home they should throw it away. Margarine has trans fats that are poison for us. This isn’t an exaggeration. It is unhealthy for other reasons, low in good fats, hydrogenated, high heat processed and carcinogenic. Even so called “conservative” health advocates recognize that margarine is very bad.
I otherwise love your blog and will be making these brownies (with butter 🙂 later today.
I was just wondering if it would be okay to use salted butter instead of unsalted? Would I have to lower the amount of butter used or should I be okay?
Hi Angelina, While it varies by brand, most salted butter has approximately 1/4 tsp. salt per stick, so you can use the salted butter and reduce the salt in the recipe as needed. Hope that helps and that you enjoy the brownies!
These are wonderful. I can’t keep my husband away from them. My oven must run hot because I checked after 33 minutes and they were done.
Hi Jenn,
I only have a 9×9 pan. Kind of dumb, but will the batter hold if I bake one pan at a time?
Thanks!
Not dumb! While it’s not optimal for rising for the batter to sit for a while after it’s made, it should work. Hope you enjoy!
Fabulousness
Hello Jenn. I’m a fan of your recipes and have tried some of them with success. I’m thinking to give this one a try but I only have light brown sugar at hand, will it give similar results? How much light born sugar should I use if I will follow the rest of the ingredients list as in your full recipe? If I would like to reduce the light brown sugar volume, by how much can I do so without disturbing much of the final product quality?
Hope you can advise soon. Thank you in advance.
Hi Agatha, light brown sugar will work here with no other modifications necessary. If you want to cut the brown sugar by a bit, you could cut about 1/4 cup and still get good results. Hope that helps!
Oh my goodness are these brownies the bomb! I was a bit nervous to make these based off other people’s reviews but honestly I don’t know what the heck those people are used to except it’s probably found in a gas station.
I followed Jen’s recommendation to add an extra 1/4 cup flour to make them more cakey which worked wonderfully. I also added 1 cup of chopped walnuts. Amazing!!!
I did spend extra time getting air bubbles in the batter by stirring it extra. Jen was right – that’s what gets the cracks on the top of the cooked brownies.
I freezed the leftovers and they were just as good once thawed. Jen killed it with this one.
Hi,
I’ve tried this recipe and it’s fantastic.i was wondering if we could give it some icing/ frosting??
Can you please help me with that.
Thank you in advance.
Warm regards,
Deepti.
Glad you like these! Because they’re so rich, I don’t think you really need frosting for these, but the chocolate ganache from this recipe would work nicely. I’d love to hear how they turn out if you try it with this!
Omg these were the best tasting brownies I’ve had in years thanks. for the recipe.
Not even close to the best brownies I’ve ever made. They came out perfectly—but I found the flavor to be Just so so, and I used very good—Scharffen Berger) chocolate. I’ll stick to Cook’s Baking book for brownies going foreard!
Pam I’m curious as to whether you have a better recipe? I’d love to try both yours and Jens to do a side-by-side side comparison.