•Synthesis of water soluble cobalt and copper complexes of tyrosine using encapsulation in β-cyclodextrin.•The prepared complexes were non-cytotoxic and exhibited radical scavenging ability.•Environmentally friendly and cost effective antioxidant. In this study, the cobalt and copper complexes of tyrosine (Tyr) were encapsulated in β-cyclodextrin (βCD) to improve their water solubility. The resulting inclusion complexes (Co-Tyr/βCD and Cu-Tyr/βCD) were characterized by FT-IR, UV–vis, EDX, ICP-OES, TGA, Cyclic Voltammetry (CV), and Photoluminescence (PL). TGA results indicated that approximately 35 wt.% and 41 wt.% of (Co+Tyr) and (Cu+Tyr) were encapsulated within the βCD cavity. The antioxidant activity of the samples was determined using the 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging method. Co-Tyr/βCD was found to have better antioxidant activity than Cu-Tyr/βCD. The non-cytotoxic nature of the prepared samples was confirmed by the MTT assay. Display omitted