Bonded joints are gaining importance in many fields of manufacturing owing to a significant number of advantages to the traditional methods. The single lap joint (SLJ) is the most commonly used method. The use of material or geometric changes in SLJ reduces peel and shear peak stresses at the damage initiation sites. In this work, the effect of adherend recessing at the overlap edges on the tensile strength of SLJ, bonded with a brittle adhesive, was experimentally and numerically studied. The recess dimensions (length and depth) were optimized for different values of overlap length (L (O)), thus allowing the maximization of the joint's strength by the reduction of peak stresses at the overlap edges. The effect of recessing was also investigated by a finite element (FE) analysis and cohesive zone modelling (CZM), which allowed characterizing the entire fracture process and provided joint strength predictions. For this purpose, a static FE analysis was performed in ABAQUS (R) considering geometric nonlinearities. In the end, the experimental and FE results revealed the accuracy of the FE analysis in predicting the strength and also provided some design principles for the strength improvement of SLJ using a relatively simple and straightforward technique.