With 11 million page views and counting since 2013, these super soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies are the most popular cookie recipe on my website. Melted butter, more brown sugar than white sugar, cornstarch, and an extra egg yolk guarantee the absolute chewiest chocolate chip cookie texture. And you don’t even need a mixer!
Reader Adrienne commented: “These are the best cookies I’ve ever had. Incredible. Don’t cut corners or you’ll miss out. Do everything she says and you’re in for the best cookies of your life. ★★★★★“
There are thousands of chocolate chip cookies recipes out there. Everyone has their favorite and this one is mine. Just a glance at the hundreds of reviews in the comments section tells me that this recipe is a favorite for many others too! In fact, if you asked me which recipe to keep in your apron pocket, my answer would be this one. (In addition to a classic cut-out sugar cookies and flaky pie crust, of course!) Just read the comments on a post in our Facebook group. These cookies are loved… and, warning: they disappear FAST.
The recipe is also included in two of my published cookbooks (in Sally’s Baking Addiction, I swap chocolate chips for M&Ms/chocolate chips combo).
Why Are These My BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies?
- The chewiest of chewy and the softest of soft.
- Extra thick just like my favorite peanut butter cookies!
- Bakery-style BIG.
- Exploding with chocolate.
Back in 2013, I tested this cookie recipe over and over again to make sure they’re absolutely perfect. I still have a big space in my heart (and stomach) for these Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies. Today’s recipe is similar, but I increased the chewiness factor.
Reader A.Phillips commented: “Look no further. This is it. This is the perfect cookie recipe. Follow her instructions exactly and the cookies will be chewy and amazing. … These are the most perfect cookies I’ve made and I’ve tried at least 20 different recipes. ★★★★★“
You can make them with chocolate chips or chocolate chunks.
Key Ingredients for Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
The cookie dough is made from your standard cookie ingredients: flour, leavener, salt, sugar, butter, egg, and vanilla. It’s the ratios and temperature of those ingredients that make this recipe stand out from the rest.
- Melted butter: Melted butter produces the chewiest cookies. It can, however, make your baked cookies greasy, so I made sure there is enough flour to counteract that. And using melted butter is also the reason you don’t need a mixer to make these cookies, just like these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and M&M cookie bars.
- More brown sugar than white sugar: More brown sugar than white sugar: The moisture in brown sugar promises an extra soft and chewy baked cookie. White granulated sugar is still necessary, though. It’s dry and helps the cookies spread. A little bit of spread is a good thing.
- Cornstarch: Why? Cornstarch gives the cookies that ultra soft consistency we all love. Plus, it helps keep the cookies beautifully thick. We use the same trick when making shortbread cookies.
- Egg yolk: Another way to promise a super chewy chocolate chip cookie is to use an extra egg yolk. The extra egg yolk adds richness, soft tenderness, and binds the dough. You will need 1 egg + 1 egg yolk, at room temperature. See the recipe Notes for how to bring your eggs to room temperature quickly.
The dough will be soft and the chocolate chips may not stick because of the melted butter. Just keep stirring it; I promise it will come together. Because of the melted butter and extra egg yolk, the slick dough doesn’t even look like normal cookie dough! Trust the process…
The most important step is next.
2 Major Success Tips
1. Chill the dough. Chilling the cookie dough is so important in this recipe! Unless you want the cookies to spread into a massive cookie puddle, chilling the dough is mandatory here. It allows the ingredients to settle together after the mixing stage but most importantly: cold dough results in thicker cookies. Cover the cookie dough and chill for at least 2–3 hours and even up to 3–4 days.
After chilling, the dough is quite solid, so let it sit at room temperature for 10 minutes (to soften it up slightly) before shaping. (No time to chill? Make these soft & chewy chocolate chip cookie bars instead!)
- Further reading: How to Prevent Cookies from Spreading
2. Roll the cookie dough balls extra tall. After the dough has chilled, scoop out a ball of dough that’s 3 Tablespoons for XL cookies or about 2 heaping Tablespoons (1.75 ounces or 50g) for medium/large cookies. I usually use this medium cookie scoop and make it a heaping scoop. But making the cookie dough balls tall and textured, rather than wide and smooth, is my tried-and-true trick that results in thick and textured-looking cookies. We’re talking thick bakery-style cookies with wrinkly, textured tops. Your cookie dough should look less like balls and more like, well, lumpy columns, LOL.
Watch the video below to see how I shape them. I also demonstrate how I use a spoon to reshape them during baking if I see they’re spreading too much.
Another Success Tip: When you remove the cookie dough from the refrigerator, the dough may be slightly crumbly. Scooping and then shaping it with warm hands keeps it intact.
Tools I Recommend for This Recipe
I’ve tested many baking tools and these are the exact products I use, trust, and recommend to readers. You’ll need most of these tools when making sugar cookies and snickerdoodles, too!
- Baking Sheets
- Silicone Baking Mats or Parchment Sheets
- Medium Cookie Scoop
- Cooling Racks
- See More: Best Cookie Baking Tools and 8 Best Baking Pans
Can I Freeze This Cookie Dough?
Yes, absolutely. After chilling, sometimes I roll the cookie dough into balls and freeze them in a large zipped-top bag. Then I bake them straight from the freezer, keeping them in the oven for an extra minute. This way you can bake just a couple of cookies whenever the craving hits. (The chewy chocolate chip cookie craving is a hard one to ignore.)
If you’re curious about freezing cookie dough, here’s my How to Freeze Cookie Dough page.
Facebook member Leigh commented: These are the only CC cookies I’ve made for years (and this recipe is how I came to be such a fan of SBA!) This recipe worked great when I lived in Denver and had issues with baking at altitude, and it’s still our favorite now that we’re back at sea level. I usually make 4x-6x batches and freeze tons of cookie balls to bake later.
In Short, Here Are the Secrets to Soft & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies:
- Cornstarch helps product soft and thick cookies.
- Using more brown sugar than white sugar results in a moister, softer cookie.
- An extra egg yolk increases chewiness.
- Rolling the cookie dough balls to be tall and lumpy instead of wide and smooth gives the cookies a bakery-style textured thickness. It’s a trick we use for cake batter chocolate chip cookies, too.
- Using melted butter (and slightly more flour to counteract the liquid) increases chewiness.
- Chilling the dough results in a thicker cookie. Almost as thick as peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, or their gluten free counterparts, flourless peanut butter oatmeal cookies 🙂
Q: Have you baked a batch before?
Print
Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours, 22 minutes
- Yield: 16 XL cookies or 20 medium/large cookies
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
These super soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies are the most popular cookie recipe on my website for good reason. Melted butter, more brown sugar than white sugar, cornstarch, and an extra egg yolk guarantee the absolute chewiest chocolate chip cookie texture. The cookie dough is slick and requires chilling prior to shaping the cookies. Review recipe notes before beginning.
Ingredients
- 2 and 1/4 cups (280g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch*
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup (170g / 12 Tbsp) unsalted butter, melted & cooled 5 minutes*
- 3/4 cup (150g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg + 1 egg yolk, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 and 1/4 cups (225g) semi-sweet chocolate chips or chocolate chunks
Instructions
- Whisk the flour, baking soda, cornstarch, and salt together in a large bowl. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk the melted butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together until no brown sugar lumps remain. Whisk in the egg and egg yolk. Finally, whisk in the vanilla extract. The mixture will be thin. Pour into dry ingredients and mix together with a large spoon or rubber spatula. The dough will be very soft, thick, and appear greasy. Fold in the chocolate chips. The chocolate chips may not stick to the dough because of the melted butter, but do your best to combine them.
- Cover the dough tightly and chill in the refrigerator for at least 2–3 hours or up to 3 days. I highly recommend chilling the cookie dough overnight for less spreading.
- Take the dough out of the refrigerator and allow it to slightly soften at room temperature for 10 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 325°F (163°C). Line large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside.
- Using a cookie scoop or Tablespoon measuring spoon, measure 3 scant Tablespoons (about 2 ounces, or 60g) of dough for XL cookies or 2 heaping Tablespoons (about 1.75 ounces, or 50g) of dough for medium/large cookies. Roll into a ball, making sure the shape is taller rather than wide—almost like a cylinder. This helps the cookies bake up thicker. Repeat with remaining dough. Place 8–9 balls of dough onto each cookie sheet.
- Bake the cookies for 12–13 minutes or until the edges are very lightly browned. (XL cookies can take closer to 14 minutes.) The centers will look very soft, but the cookies will continue to set as they cool. Cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, press a few extra chocolate chips into the tops of the warm cookies. This is optional and only for looks. After 10 minutes of cooling on the baking sheets, transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: You can make the cookie dough and chill it in the refrigerator for up to 2–3 days. Allow to come to room temperature then continue with step 5. Baked cookies freeze well for up to 3 months. Unbaked cookie dough balls freeze well for up to 3 months. Bake frozen cookie dough balls for an extra minute, no need to thaw. Read my tips and tricks on how to freeze cookie dough.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Glass Mixing Bowls | Whisk | Wooden Spoon or Rubber Spatula | Baking Sheets | Silicone Baking Mats or Parchment Paper | Medium Cookie Scoop | Cooling Rack
- Cornstarch: If you don’t have cornstarch, you can leave it out. The cookies are still very soft.
- Egg & Egg Yolk: Room temperature egg + egg yolk are best. Typically, if a recipe calls for room temperature or melted butter, it’s good practice to use room temperature eggs as well. To bring eggs to room temperature quickly, simply place the whole eggs into a glass of warm water for 5 minutes.
- Can I add nuts or different add-ins? Yes, absolutely. As long as the total amount of add-ins is around 1 – 1 and 1/4 cups, you can add anything including chopped nuts, M&Ms, white chocolate chips, dried cranberries, chopped peanut butter cups, etc. I love them with 3/4 cup (135g) butterscotch morsels and 1/2 cup (100g) Reese’s Pieces. You could even add 1/2 cup (80g) sprinkles to make a sprinkle chocolate chip cookie.
- Be sure to check out my top 5 cookie baking success tips AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking tools.
Can you make a cookie cake with this recipe? My grand daughter wants a chocolate chip cookie cake for her birthday. Is there anything I would need to do different to make this recipe work for a cookie cake?
Hi Shirley, here is our chocolate chip cookie cake recipe instead!
Our family new favorite cookie recipe.
Can the dough be frozen so we have fresh cookies daily?
You bet! See recipe Notes for details.
This is thee best chocolate chip cookie recipe I’ve ever made! It’ll be my go-to from now on!
Perfect. Every. Time.
Please make round up of all the cookie recipes that use melted butter!! We love those types of recipes and I don’t like digging to find them
Best. Cookies. Ever. These came out fantastic; my whole family couldn’t stop eating them (myself included)! This is also an easy to follow recipe for new bakers (like myself) the step by step instructions and videos were very helpful, and response to my initial questions from a previous comment are appreciated.
Hi! is it possible to make these gluten-free? almond or chickpea flour? and also ok to use a flax egg? thank you!
Hi Nancy, we haven’t tested it, but if you are looking for a gluten-free cookie you might have success experimenting with a gluten-free all-purpose flour like Bob’s Red Mill or Cup4Cup. We don’t recommend almond flour as it has very different baking properties and is not always a 1:1 swap. We haven’t experimented with chickpea flour or egg substitutes here, either. You might enjoy these flourless almond butter chocolate chip cookies instead. If you give anything a try, we’d love to know how it goes for you!
The BEST recipe!!! My cookies come out better than the professionals. I use less chips and I do form the individual “mounds” before chilling, but those are my only adjustments.
This turned out EXACTLY like I wanted. This makes me so happy as I live in high elevation. Will it work the same if I brown the butter first?
So glad you enjoyed these, Kelly! You can use brown butter here, and the flavor is outstanding. But they can be a little more crumbly using brown butter – we suggest using the recipe for Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies instead.
Too thick and did not spread out! Ugh. What did I do wrong?
Hi Sarah! Cookies that don’t spread are usaully cause by too much flour in the dough. How did you measure the flour? Make sure to spoon and level (or use a kitchen scale) when measuring.
My tip when using browned butter is to just add an extra tablespoon or two than the recipe calls for since the butter evaporates when browning on the pan, which is why the batter may be more crumbly!
Wonderful recipe! Have made them twice and now my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe. The friends I made them for loved them.
Hi my daughter tried these and they came out so sweet could it be because we used dark brown sugar instead of light?
Hi Rebecca, you can use either light or dark brown sugar in the recipe, though we typically use light. Using dark brown sugar wouldn’t make enough difference to be overly sweet, but will make your cookies appear a bit darker. Did you make any other adjustments to the recipe? The sugars and chocolate do make these a sweet treat!
Can you bake these as a bar cookie?
Hi LizB, this recipe is great for a 9×9-inch square baking pan or try this chocolate chip cookie bars recipe.
These turned out perfect!! Easily my new go-to cookie recipe
My husband and I simply love this recipe!!
What a fabulous and sumptuous snack to have while watching the World Series.
Go Yankees!
So glad they’re a hit, Larry!
I love you cookies so much.
My husband loves these cookies. Thank you for sharing
The best ever chocolate chip cookies. A question. I always think that the baking soda taste is rather strong. Any suggestions? Baking powder maybe?
Hi Jane, is your baking soda fresh? We haven’t experienced a bitter taste with these cookies, but perhaps it could be the box of baking soda you’re using. We’d try it again with a fresh box. We don’t recommend swapping for baking powder instead.
I made them and they came out amazing! I love big cookies so I scooped a larger portion. Very yummy and soft!
I have a hard time with overly sweet chocolate chip cookies, but this! OMG! I love them!!
I love your recipes, Sally! My family is obsessed with the cinnamon rolls. I’m new to baking, I tried to cook these the first time and I felt like my dough was too hard. The cookies didn’t spread well in the oven as I hoped. I rolled them with my hands after refrigerating the dough overnight, baked at 325 for 14 minutes. Would cooking on convection be the best? I also felt like I may have let my butter cool for too long. Let me know what you think?
Thanks!
Kristen and my daughter Ava
Hi Kristen and Ava, When cookies don’t spread, it’s because there is too much flour in the dough. How do you measure the flour? Make sure to spoon and level (instead of scooping) to avoid packing in too much flour into your measuring cups – or use a kitchen scale. Thanks for giving these a try!
Thank you, I did that I was letting my daughter who is 2 add it into the bowl so, I’m sure we weren’t as precise 🙂 They were still delicious though – I’ll try do keep an eye on that next time, thank you!
Sally, Can this recipe be doubled ?
Hi Sally, yes, you can double this recipe.
My cookies came out kinda cakey? Any idea why?
Hi Amy, Cakey cookies are usually caused by too much flour in the dough. How did you measure the flour? For your next batch, make sure to spoon and level (instead of scooping) to avoid packing in too much flour into your measuring cups – or use a kitchen scale. You can read more about properly measuring baking ingredients in this post. Hope this helps!
Flavor is nice but even though I weigh the ingredients, use new baking soda, and use an oven thermometer and timer, they seem to flatten too much and can be dry and over baked when the recipe cook time is followed. I’ve made this many times and it just doesn’t seem to be for me.
The Best!!!!! I have not baked cookies in 2 years. I came across this recipe and looked at all the reviews and read the recipe of course! Me and my husband just ate almost all of them lol!!I’m so happy I used this one!!!! So Delicious!!!! Thank you so much!!! Can’t wait to try more recipes from you!!!!
I wanted to confirm that you use baking soda as stated and not baking powder. My dough wasn’t the consistency you described at all and there is an after taste.
Hi B Jones, Usually when you can taste baking soda, it is an indication that your baking soda may be a little old. It’s not an even swap with baking powder (more on that here). We recommend trying again with fresh baking soda!
This recipe is my ultimate go to for chocolate chip cookies! I have a question though. Is it possible to make these as cookie bites? Like bake them in a mini muffin pan? And if so, how would I adjust the recipe/oven temp/time? If you happen to know of course.
Hi Marissa, you can make these smaller! Or here is our recipe for mini cookies.
The Best!!!!! I have not baked cookies in 2 years. I came across this recipe and looked at all the reviews and read the recipe of course! Me and my husband just ate almost all of them lol!!I’m so happy I used this one!!!! So Delicious!!!! Thank you so much!!! Can’t wait to try more recipes from you!!!!
Not the best recipe on the site, I feel the baking temp is too low to get that nice caramelized sugar and browned butter flavors. Found the cookies’ flavor lacked depth, just sweet tasting. Texture was fine.
These taste so good! Mine were really greasy though. My flour was weighed which came out to be 2 cups only… if I did the full recommended cups it would go over the weight so not sure what to do!? Maybe I should have added by cup not weight?
Hi Bess, if the baked cookies seem too greasy, make sure to let the melted butter cool a bit before continuing with the recipe next time.
I love this recipe a lot. I am comment while making it a fourth time and the cookies are always good. The only problem with them were because of me, like I didn’t know cookies hardened when cooling or that I accidently melted the chocolate into the dough because the cholcate wasn’t cold and the ingredients were warm. But, in all, this is my go to cookies and everyone in my family loves them.
This recipe was delicious! I added caramel bits with my chocolate chips because I was low, and it was very tasty! But be careful to keep an eye on them while they are in the oven because if you overcook them they will get hard around the edges, but even if you do they are still super yummy.
Awesome recipe! I have made these cooking twice now with a twist of my own. I add rum instead of vanilla, and I add in some pumpkin and mashed banana. My husband devours them!
I made these without baking soda and tripled baking powder. Do not do this. My cookies did not spread at all and I weighed my flour. The consistency isn’t cakey at all, just tall chewy cookies lol.