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?
PrintChewy 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) 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.
Keywords: chocolate chip cookies
Please clarify the flour measurement. I noticed you have 280 grams of flour in this recipe and in your cookie book 2 1/4 cups flour is 270; here it is 280. I usually double this recipe but do not want dry cookies. Which amount is best to use? Thank you. Your recipes are my favorites!
Hi Marie! The 280 here reflects how we measure flour – you can read more about measuring baking ingredients here. Happy baking!
LOOOOOOVE This so much!
★★★★★
I don’t really understand all the hype this recipe has. I’m not going to trash them, they were decent cookies, but they were definitely not the best i’ve ever had. They were not chewy at all….soft yes, but not chewy so for me they did not deliver what they promised. I followed every single step….making them into columns, chilled the dough overnight, etc and they still spread more than I would have liked and in the end were just ok. I love so many of your recipes but these cookies were a disappointment.
★★★
This is the best chocolate chip cookie recipe !! Once I tried it, I never looked back. The only things I do different. I do use my mixer and I use half soft and half melted for the butter..
These cookies taste sooo good! However, mine did not spread so much. I followed everything you said. What do you think went wrong? Thank you!
★★★★★
Hi Larashine, usually 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. You can read more about properly measuring baking ingredients in this post. We’re glad you loved the cookies!
I use kitchen scale for measuring my flour. Do you think its the type of flour? I live in the Philippines so we have different brands of all purpose flour here.
★★★★★
Hi Larashine, that could very well be it! Different flours have different protein contents which can allow for varying amounts of spread. For next time, you can try flattening your cookie dough balls just a bit before placing them in the oven. If they still aren’t spreading, remove the tray from the oven and gently bang it on the counter or use the back of a spoon to gently flatten. This should help initiate more spread.
Amazing. Worth the effort!
★★★★★
I always loved this recipe! They were thin, gooey in the center and crispy on the outside… lately they turn out pretty thick and most of the time aren’t gooey in center at all but instead rather sand-like textured. Did you change the recipe or could be because I brown my butter?
Hi Anthea! The recipe has not changed. The process of browning butter leads to a loss of moisture in butter, which can change the outcome of baked goods. We suggest using our brown butter chocolate chip cookies recipe instead.
thank you sally! will be using this recipe to make cookies for my grandkids <3
Can these be made with a vegan butter?
Hi Dorit, We haven’t tested these with any vegan substitutes but let us know if you try anything!
My daughter raved about this recipe and shared it with me. I, however, have that one annoying question- can these be made with gluten free flour?
★★★★★
Hi Christine, we haven’t tested these cookies with gluten free flour, but let us know if you do.
This is the absolute best chocolate cookie recipe. So soft and chewy. THANKS
Hi! I’ve made these cookies a million times and absolutely love them! I tried making them as 2 bite cookies but they came out really thin. I chilled it in the fridge, rolled them and baked from frozen as I usually do with them. Anyway you know why they’re coming out super thin?
Hi Becca! Are you making them smaller? That could affect the spread, but we haven’t tested it ourselves. Here’s our best tips for keeping cookies from spreading and here’s our mini cookies recipe as well (you can use mini chocolate chips instead of m&ms in those)!
These came out fantastic. Have you ever tried making them with brown butter?
Hi Glenn, we’re so glad you enjoyed the cookies! 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.
What if i skip the egg yolk? Anyone?
Hi A, the extra egg yolk is key to the chewy texture in these cookies. For a cookie recipe that only uses a whole egg, we’d recommend our soft chocolate chip cookies instead.
I did this for my brother, and he loved it and now he wants me to make more of it!!!!
Can I use salted butter?
Hi Ben, If you only have salted butter you can use it and reduce the added salt to 1/8 teaspoon.
Baking time seems to be longer than what’s listed. I measured out my cookie dough balls to be about 1.125 (1 1/8) ounces.
Hi, I’ve run out of eggs (I only have one left!!). Can I substitute the egg yolk with chia seeds or something else?
I’ve made three batches of those cookies and they’re the best chocolate chips cookies I’ve ever made, so I don’t want to mess up the recipe with my substitution
★★★★★
Hi SM, we don’t recommend that substitution. Best to wait until you have the extra egg yolk, or you can make these soft chocolate chip cookies that call for only 1 egg.
hi could i sub oil for butter?
could this substitution work for any of your cookie recipes?
they all look so yummy but were dairy free here..
thanks a lot!
Hi Sherry, You can try coconut oil which seems to have been successful for some readers, or vegan butter such as the Earth Balance brand. We haven’t personally tested either so let us know what you try!
i absolutely loved this, made it five times so far. only choc chip cookies recipe out there that’s actually good.
Amazing cookies! As described in the recipe, chewy centre ; perfect. Will save it for my recipe book 🙂
★★★★★
These are ok! They taste great but mine spread so much they’re almost flat. Any idea what went wrong? I chilled overnight and shaped into columns.
★★★★
Hi Emily, Here’s our best tips for preventing cookies form spreading for your next batch.