4-Ingredient Pecan Sandies

These easy Pecan Sandies are melt-in-your-mouth shortbread cookies that are bursting with the aroma of real butter and roasted pecans. We keep these pecan cookies deliciously simple with only 4 ingredients.

What are Pecan Sandies?

If you aren’t familiar with Pecan Sandies, they do have kind of an adorably unique ring to them. They’re also referred to as sablé sometimes. This fancy sounding yet humble looking cookie is a butter shortbread cookie strewn with roasted pecans. Pecans can either be partially ground and included within the dough, or they can be used whole and placed on top of the cookies. For this recipe, we go with a happy jolly middle — finely chopped pecans sprinkled throughout the dough.

Often, pecan sandies contain white sugar, baking powder, or eggs. This recipe includes none of those. Instead, these deliciously simple melt-in-your-mouth sandies are based on our forever favorite easy buttery shortbread cookies. We simply added roasted pecans to the mix and transformed these dreamy shortbread cookies into a slice-and-bake deal that’s way too easy not to try.

The 4 ingredients

Because there are only 4 ingredients, make every ingredient count, using only the freshest ingredients.

• Cold Salted Butter is used in this pecan shortbread recipe. Slice the butter and keep it chilled. Using salted butter eliminates the need for adding any additional salt. Keeping the butter cold helps your dough to retain ability to be rolled into logs.
• Light Brown Sugar should be tightly packed. Important: use only fresh brown sugar that has not lost any of its moisture – as brown sugar sits in the pantry, it tends to gradually dry out.
• All Purpose Flour – only use measuring cups meant for dry ingredients. Gently spoon flour into your dry measuring cups and scrape off excess flour with flat edge of a knife. Do not tap down or pack down flour.
• Finely Chopped Roasted Pecans give these shortbread cookies the nutty aroma characteristic of pecan sandies cookies. Reserve some for sprinkling on top of the cookies just prior to baking – this is purely vanity, but you know how people eat with their eyes and all.
• Totally optional: powdered sugar for dusting on top of baked/cooled cookies.

Step-By-Step Instructions

1. Mix: In the bowl of a stand mixer, add butter and brown sugar. Using paddle attachment on medium-high speed, mix until fluffy and light, several minutes. Add only 1 1/2 cups of the flour and mix on medium-low speed until combined, scraping down sides as needed. 
2. Knead: On a large board, sprinkle 1/3 cup flour to keep dough from sticking to the board. Knead dough by hand for 2 minutes, adding only as much of remaining flour as needed to make a soft pliable dough. If it’s too sticky, add in one tablespoon of flour at a time just until dough is the right consistency, similar to play-dough. Work in the pecans.

3. Chill Logs and Slice: Divide dough in half and gently roll into logs that are 1 1/2″ diameter. Wrap logs airtight and chill 30 minutes or until firm enough to slice easily. Remove one dough log from fridge and slice into 1/2″ thick rounds. Place each cookie 2 inches apart on lined baking sheet.
4. Bake: Bake at 325F for 12 minutes, or until bottom edges are golden brown. The tops of cookies should remain pale; do no over-bake.

For complete list of ingredients and instructions, see recipe card below.

Key Tips For Perfect Cookies

• Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats. I use my mats for all cookie baking adventures, and they never disappoint.
• It’s definitely worthwhile to pull out your stand mixer whenever the recipe calls for fluffing butter and sugar together.
• It takes several minutes for the cold butter and brown sugar to become fluffy on medium-high speed in stand mixer. It needs to look like fluffy whipped butter. Don’t rush this process. It’s not a race, unless you’re on Chopped.
• You may not end up using all of the flour; the consistency of your cookie dough should be akin to play-dough. Not dry/crumbly nor wet/sticky.
• My favorite cookie making tip: whenever working with cookie dough literally by hand, it helps tremendously to keep the palms of your hands slightly damp with either a bit of water or oil.

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