Thin and chewy brown sugar cookies filled with sweet banana and nutty rye flour and rolled in crunchy sugar.

I realize, as I am writing this blog post, that the past few new recipes over here have been very banana-centric. This was not planned, so I apologize for the banana overload, but when you’ve got good recipes, you share them regardless of the ingredient overlap. If you’re like me, you always have ripe bananas hanging out so you can never have too many banana baking options.

I started brainstorming this recipe a couple of weeks ago with a very specific cookie in mind. My favorite part of any loaf of banana bread is the sticky, caramelized top layer created after a loaf of banana bread hangs out for a day or so, but if you’re looking for a banana cookie recipe, most of them are very fluffy and cakey. I wanted a banana cookie that mimicked that dense, sticky banana bread vibe—thin, with crispy edges and a chewy middle, and friends, we got it.

how to make brown sugar banana cookies

I started this recipe by riffing on a Sarah Kieffer sugar cookie recipe. Sarah is the queen of “pan-banging cookies”, with their thin, ripply edges so of course I used one of her recipes as my base.

I added in banana (obviously) and went for 100% brown sugar for extra caramelization, plus I added some rye flour to add a nutty depth. (If you don’t have rye flour, you could sub in any whole grain flour you’d like—spelt, whole wheat, buckwheat, etc—or you could just replace the rye flour with more all purpose flour). The recipe also includes fresh vanilla bean flakes, and an egg yolk and molasses for added moisture. The results are perfect—crispy, crackly, sugar-flecked edges with gooey, brown sugar banana centers.