Recipe: Savory Sun-Dried Tomato, Feta, Za'atar Cookies

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Here is another installment in my quest to reimagine dessert items with savory foods. I have been pondering the idea of a savory cookie for some time now. There are lots of savory shortbread recipes out there but that isn’t what I mean about a cookie. I wanted to come up with something for savory snack lovers that would have the same heft and give them the same satisfaction as it would for a sweet tooth biting into a nice, thick, chewy cookie fresh and warm from the oven.

The tricky part about coming up with a savory cookie recipe was conceptualizing what a savory cookie would even be like. Unlike muffins or pies, which begin with fairly neutral doughs and then get flavored or filled in ways that skew them sweet or savory, it felt to me like the very spirit of a cookie was its dessert-y nature. But it finally dawned on me! When I took a further step away from what I imagined a baked cookie to be, and thought instead about what the process of making them was like, I realized that sweet cookies are quite similar to savory drop biscuits!

I really should have thought of this sooner considering that what we Americans call “cookies” are called “biscuits” in England (though I think in England the term only applies to thin, crisp cookies and not the hefty ones I was trying to emulate). On the flip side, in the U.S., a biscuit is considered a type of quick bread with a dry exterior and a soft buttery interior. I love to make flakey biscuits with an almost laminated quality to them, with dough that gets rolled out and cut, so they puff up in the oven into distinct layers. But drop biscuits are made by a moist dough that gets all mixed up in a bowl before being dolloped right onto a baking tray; that sounds a lot like making cookies, doesn’t it?

So, the truth is that these savory cookies are actually drop biscuits with some yummy savory mix-ins, which I flattened slightly so they’d look like cookies after baking. They are soft, yet satisfyingly substantial and perhaps a little more dense than a sweet cookie. My recipe is adapted from a drop biscuit recipe from Simply Recipes.

A note about special equipment for making savory cookies: As these are really drop biscuits disguised as cookies, I wanted to stick to what I knew about keeping biscuits airy and soft, which is keeping the butter very cold and in small chunks that don’t melt until they reach the hot oven. I used a food processor to very quickly break the butter into tiny but chilled pieces amidst the flour mixture. If you don’t have a food processor, you could use a pastry blender or even just a butter knife to cut the butter into the flour, but you will need to work quickly to keep the butter cold.

Flavor variations for savory cookies: I think there are endless favor combinations to be explored with these savory cookies! This is just the first one I tried but I definitely want to play around with more. To get a look that resembled a white chocolate chunk cookie, I added chunks of feta and I also chose sun-dried tomato as a mix-in because it’s the holiday season and many holiday cookies involve dried fruit for whatever reason. (Plus I just love the flavor of sun-dried tomatoes). In place of the usual holiday baking spices, I used za’atar, which brought a wonderful complex savory flavor to the cookies. If you wish to explore other flavors, keep the amount of shredded cheese the same, and replace the 1/4 cup feta and 1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes with 1/2 cup of whatever chunky add-ons you wish.

How to Make Savory Sun-Dried Tomato, Feta, Za'atar Cookies

(Makes 6 cookies)

Ingredients

1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes, cut in strips or small chunks
1/2 cup half and half
1 tsp lemon juice
1 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp kosher salt
4 tbsp butter, cold, cut into chunks
1/4 cup grated cheddar or monterey jack
1 tsp za’atar
1/4 cup feta, broken into small chunks

Special Equipment

food processor

Procedure

Combine sun-dried tomatoes with a bit of hot water in a small bowl, to rehydrate them. Once the sun-dried tomatoes feel tender, gently squeeze away the excess water and set tomato pieces aside.

Combine half and half and lemon juice in a small bowl. Allow to sit while preparing the dry ingredients.

Preheat oven to 425°F. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.

Add about half of the flour and all of the baking powder, sugar, salt, and butter into a food processor and pulse a few times. Add cheddar and remaining flour and pulse mixture into a coarse crumb texture. Transfer to a mixing bowl.

Mix in za’atar. Add rehydrated sun-dried tomatoes. Stir in half and half mixture. As dough starts to come together, add feta. Keep stirring until a sticky, cohesive dough is formed, but be careful to not overwork the dough.

Divide dough into 6 and scoop them into small mounds on the prepared tray, leaving at least 2 inches in between each. Using wet fingers, gently flatten the mounds to make them more cookie-shaped.

Bake for 18–20 minutes.