With 21 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 donโt even need a mixer!
I originally published this recipe in 2013 and have since added new photos, a video tutorial, and more helpful success tips.
One reader, Adrienne, commented: โThese are the best cookies Iโve ever had. Incredible. Donโt cut corners or youโll miss out. Do everything she says and youโre in for the best cookies of your life. โ โ โ โ โ โ
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 lovedโฆ and, warning: they disappear FAST.
The recipe is also included in two of my published cookbooks (in Sallyโs 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.
Iโve tested this cookie recipe over and over again to make sure theyโre absolutely perfect. I still have a big space in my heart (and stomach) for these Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies. Todayโs recipe is similar, but I increased the chewiness factor.
One reader, A.Phillips, commented: โLook no further. This is it. This is the perfect cookie recipe. Follow her instructions exactly and the cookies will be chewy and amazing. โฆ These are the most perfect cookies Iโve made and Iโve tried at least 20 different recipes. โ โ โ โ โ โ
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. Itโs 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 donโt 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. Itโs 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 doesnโt even look like normal cookie dough! Trust the processโฆ
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 2โ3 hours and even up to 3โ4 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 or crispy chocolate chip cookie bark 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 thatโs 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. Weโre 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 theyโre 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
Iโve tested many baking tools and these are the exact products I use, trust, and recommend to readers. Youโll 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 youโre curious about freezing cookie dough, hereโs my How to Freeze Cookie Dough page.
Facebook member, Leigh, commented: These are the only CC cookies Iโve 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 itโs still our favorite now that weโre 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. Itโs 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 ๐
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 2โ3 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 325ยฐF (163ยฐC). 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 wideโalmost like a cylinder. This helps the cookies bake up thicker. Repeat with remaining dough. Place 8โ9 balls of dough onto each cookie sheet.
- Bake the cookies for 12โ13 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 2โ3 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 donโt 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, itโs 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 to 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) Reeseโs 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.
Reader Comments and Reviews
Can cookie recipes contain 1/2 white flour and 1/2 whole wheat flour? Iโm diabeticโฆwhat about using Stevia white sugar and Stevia brown sugar, or maybe 1/2 of each with regular sugars? #Baking #Diabetes #Recipe #Flour #Sugar #Sweeteners
Hi Del, We wish we could help more, but we havenโt tried making these cookies with whole wheat flour. It will likely take some trial and error and tweaking the other ingredients to find the best combination of ingredients. Let us know if you give anything a try! If youโre interested, here are all of our recipes using whole wheat flour.
Chewy, chocolatey, and very decadent cookies. I made two batches over this weekend-I slightly over-baked the first batch because they just didnโt look like they were done in the baking time specified in the recipe. They were really good, but the second batch ended up that much better. Follow it exactly and you wonโt be disappointed!
Can this recipe be used to bake as bar cookies?
Hi Tess, this recipe is great for a 9ร9-inch square baking pan or try this chocolate chip cookie bars recipe.
Help โ My dough was crumbly and it was difficult to shape my cookies. I do live in very dry climate. I refrigerated the dough which made the problem worse.
Hi Ellie, a dry dough is usually caused by too much flour in the cookie dough. How did you measure the flour? Make sure to spoon and level (instead of scooping) to avoid packing in too much flour into your measuring cups โ or use a kitchen scale. You can read more about properly measuring baking ingredients in this post. An easy fix for next time!
I only have light brown sugar. Can I use that and get the same result?
Hi Maria, yes, either light or dark will work!
Hi,
I love your cookies! I wanted to make them for an event, but I am out of normal butter. I was wondering if I could replace it with clarified butter? Would it be a one to one ratio, or something else?
Hi Elizabeth, we havenโt tried this substitution so we canโt say for sure. Let us know if you give it a try!
These cookies wont last a week. They never do at my house ๐ great recipe. If your eggs are small just use 2 eggs verses 1 eggyok and an egg. I substitute vanilla with almond extract. Yum.
Hi Sally. I am following the recipe exactly (using a scale) and my cookies are still coming out a little greasy on the bottom (leave residue on the parchment paper) Is this normal?
Hi Jules, 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 have been making this recipe for years. They are always a hit!
I have a friend who canโt eat regular flour .
Recently I experimented with gluten free flour and added a TBS of butter and 2 Tablespoons of brown sugar to the recipe. Everyone loved them, and had no idea they were gluten free.
You always have the best recipes!
If I baked the cookies 24 hours ago and itโs been in a zip lock back at room temperature on my counter..is it still ok to freeze the cookies until I want to serve them? Or too late to freeze once theyโve been out for 24 hours?
Hi Nafis, you can freeze them at this point.
Can you use hard margarine like Imperial or Parkay to get the same results?
Hi Lorraine, margarine does not have the same baking properties (or flavor!) as butter. We donโt recommend that swap.
Hi, Sally! Thank you for the recipe! Iโve tried this and the cookies turn out amazing! However, they were too sweet for my asian palates. It brings me to a question: if I reduce the sugar, how to maintain the shape and the chewiness and softness textures of the cookies? Iโd appreciate it if you help me out! Thank you!
Hi Ica, weโre so glad you enjoyed the cookies! Feel free to slightly reduce one or both of the sugars, but keep in mind that if you decrease the sugar the cookies will not have the same texture (itโs used for texture and moisture in addition to taste) and it can impact the spread of the cookies, too.
Hi there! Just saying, I reduced the white sugar amount to 1/3 a cup and it still stayed as delicious and chewy as ever.
This is a very nice recipe! I noted that they are a little bit softer and spread, unlike the photo. I made my cookie dough 24 hours in advance to give adequate chilling time. Is there a way to prevent this?!
Hi Maria, our post on how to prevent cookies from spreading will be helpful for troubleshooting. Thank you for giving these a try!
Hey! I made the cookie batter a bit too early. I have 2 events coming up- this Sunday and Monday.
I made the batter this past Monday and itโs been sitting in the fridge as the recipe says it can stay refrigerated for up to 3 days..so technically I am supposed to bake the cookies tomorrow (Thursday).
I am worried I made the batter too early and by the time my event will take place these baked cookies in room temperature would have been 4 days old. Do you suggest I bake them tomorrow regardless or can I keep the cookie batter in the fridge for an extra day and bake Friday?
What happens if the batter is refrigerated for 4 days instead of 3 days?
Please help what do you suggest I should do?
Hi Nafis, weโd recommend making the cookies tomorrow and then you can freeze them until ready to serve.
If I chose not to freeze, and just kept them at room temperature in zip lock bag? Is that ok?
If I did freeze the cookies.. Iโd freeze on Thursday and defrost on Saturday..is it worth freezing for 2-3 days?
Hi Nafis, yes, thatโs fine. Cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 1 week.
These turned out perfectly. Iโve bookmarked about eight chocolate chip cookie recipes a couple months ago and planned to go through them all to find the one that works the best for me and my oven. This is my seventh recipe and came out the best. This is the one. Really canโt be improved upon.
These were aweso.e! The only issue I ran into was I use stainless steel bowls and they were cold and when I mixed the butter and brown sugar together it was thick not runny so I would suggest to warm up your stainless bowls with hot water before you use them.
I made the Chewy chocolate chip cookies for a friendโs birthday. He is 86 and calls himself the Cookie Monster. Instead on putting chips on top to decorate I had some left over Raw Sugar and rolled the balls in it before baking. I also gave a few to other friends and everyone one of them called after having just one and said they were the best chocolate chip cookies ever, donโt loose that recipe, itโs a keeper. Thank you for the new recipe.