I’m confident you’ll love these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies! I worked hard to create a chewy pumpkin cookie that’s not cakey like most pumpkin cookie recipes. Omitting the egg, using melted butter, and blotting the pumpkin guarantee these pumpkin cookies taste like my favorite chewy chocolate chip cookies with brilliant pumpkin spice flavor.
Sometimes you just need a chocolate chip cookie, especially when pumpkin spice season—I mean fall—takes over.
Out of all my pumpkin recipes, you’re looking at one of the best. Right up there with my great pumpkin pie recipe! Originally published in 2013, these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies are a constant hit with bakers around the world. I bake at least 3-4 batches each fall season and they ALWAYS put me in a fall state of mind. Sometimes I even replace the chocolate chips with chopped pecans or roll them in cinnamon sugar to yield pumpkin snickerdoodles!
These Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies Are:
- Soft-baked, but not as soft as a piece of cake
- Chewy
- Egg-free
- Buttery
- Perfectly spiced and you can use homemade pumpkin pie spice!
- Relatively quick—only 30 minutes to chill the dough
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies Video
This is Not a Cakey Pumpkin Cookie
I have appreciation for all pumpkin cookies, but I definitely prefer chewy pumpkin cookies over cakey pumpkin cookies. My regular pumpkin cookies taste like soft & cakey muffin tops. They’re obviously good, but sometimes you crave a pumpkin cookie that has the same dense & chewy texture as a regular chocolate chip cookie.
I call this the “cakey pumpkin cookie problem.” When I began recipe testing today’s cookies, I was desperate to find a solution that would help guarantee a denser texture. And guess what? I finally solved it. You see, pumpkin is soft, mushy, and full of moisture. In fact, pumpkin puree is approximately 90% water by mass. (That’s what helps make pumpkin bread so moist!) But for cookies, excessive moisture = cakey texture. Think about cake batter or muffin batter—it’s a lot more wet than cookie dough, right? We actually want cookie dough to be sturdier and drier to produce denser, chewier cookies.
My 4 Tricks to Apply in this Recipe
- Blot the Pumpkin: This first trick is actually optional, but I find it remarkably useful when I make pumpkin oatmeal cookies. Using a paper towel, blot out some of the pumpkin’s moisture so all that’s left is the flavor. See photo below. Use the blotted pumpkin in the cookie dough.
- Melted Butter: As you know from chewy chocolate chip cookies, melted butter makes cookies ultra chewy. Instead of creaming butter and sugars together, start with melted butter and whisk in the sugars. You don’t need a mixer!
- Skip the Eggs: What is the purpose of eggs in a cookie recipe? They bind ingredients together, tenderize the texture, and leave behind moisture. After some experimenting, I cut out the egg completely. Pumpkin replaces the eggs. If you’re looking for other egg-free baking recipes, give my shortbread cookies a try.
- Give it Time: Let the cookies cool on a cooling rack for awhile. They’re delicious warm from the oven, but I find both their chewiness and flavor amplify over time. Sometimes I even leave them uncovered on the cooling rack overnight. The next day, they’re chewier and more flavorful. That being said, this is an awesome make-ahead dessert recipe!
Chill for Only 30 Minutes
This pumpkin chocolate chip cookie dough is a little sticky. Chill for at least 30 minutes before rolling into balls and baking. The cookies only spread slightly in the oven, so slightly flatten out the cookie dough balls with the back of a spoon before baking.
Chewy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Prep Time: 45 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes
- Yield: 18 cookies
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
I’m confident you’ll love these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies! Omitting the egg, using melted butter, and blotting the pumpkin guarantee a chewier texture.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (8 Tbsp; 113g) unsalted butter, melted & slightly cooled
- 1/4 cup (50g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 6 Tablespoons (86g) pumpkin puree (see note)*
- 1 and 1/2 cups (188g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon store-bought or homemade pumpkin pie spice
- 1/2 cup (90g) semi-sweet chocolate chips, plus a few extra for the tops
Instructions
- Whisk the melted butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together in a medium bowl until no brown sugar lumps remain. Whisk in the vanilla and blotted pumpkin until smooth. Set aside.
- Whisk the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and pumpkin pie spice together in a large bowl. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix together with a large spoon or rubber spatula. The dough will be very soft. Fold in 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips. The chips may not stick to the dough because of the melted butter, but do your best to combine.
- Cover the dough and chill for 30 minutes or up to 3 days. Chilling the dough is imperative for this recipe.
- Remove dough from the refrigerator. Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
- Scoop the dough, about 1.5 Tablespoons of dough per cookie, and roll each into balls. Arrange cookie dough balls 3 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Using the back of a spoon or the bottom of a cup/measuring cup, slightly flatten the tops of the dough balls. (Without doing so, the cookies may not spread.)
- Bake for 11-12 minutes or until the edges appear set. The cookies will look very soft in the center. Remove from the oven. If you find that your cookies didn’t spread much at all, flatten them out with the back of a spoon when you take them out of the oven. If desired, press a few chocolate chips into the tops of the warm cookies. This is only for looks.
- Cool cookies on the baking sheets for at least 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. The longer the cookies cool, the even better they taste! The flavor gets stronger and the texture becomes chewier. I usually let them sit, uncovered, for several hours before serving. Chewiness and pumpkin flavor are even stronger on day 2.
- 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 3 days. Allow to come to room temperature, then continue with step 4. Baked cookies freeze well up to 3 months. Unbaked cookie dough balls freeze well up to 3 months. Bake frozen cookie dough balls for an extra minute, no need to thaw. Here are my tips for how to freeze cookie dough.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Glass Mixing Bowls | Whisk | Rubber Spatula | Baking Sheets | Silicone Baking Mats or Parchment Paper | Medium Cookie Scoop | Cooling Rack
- Pumpkin: Squeeze as much of the moisture out of the pumpkin puree as you can before adding it to the cookie dough. I simply squeeze the puree with paper towels. See photo in the post for a visual. This will help produce a less cakey cookie. Less moisture is a good thing here! Measure 6 Tablespoons AFTER the pumpkin has been squeezed/blotted. Do not use pumpkin pie filling.
- Pumpkin Pie Spice: You can find pumpkin pie spice in the baking aisle of most grocery stores or make your own homemade pumpkin pie spice. If you don’t have either and want to use individual spices, use 1/4 teaspoon each: ground ginger, ground nutmeg, ground cloves, and ground allspice. This is in addition to the 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon—you will still add that.
- Chilled Dough: If you are chilling the pumpkin cookie dough for longer than 30 minutes, the cookie dough will likely have to sit on the counter at room temperature for at least 15 minutes before scooping/rolling because it will be quite cold and solid. The amount of time it needs to sit at room temperature depends on how long the dough has chilled. If I chill my cookie dough for around 24 hours, I let it sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes.
- Bigger Batch: Cookie recipe can easily be doubled by doubling each ingredient. Chill the cookie dough for 45 minutes.
- Be sure to check out my top 5 cookie baking tips AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking tools.
These are soooo yummy and FINALLY the first batch of cookies I’ve made in a while that haven’t been “cakey.” So glad someone else is so concerned with this issue 🙂
Hi! I’ve been scouring the internet for a non cake-like, chewy, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies for my upcoming halloween party! In reading your ingredients I realized the only things keeping this cookie for vegan are the butter and chips- I know it’s easy to substitute the chocolate for dairy-free enjoy life choc chips without affecting the texture, what are you thoughts on using coconut oil in place of the butter? or using melted coconut butter?
any ideas?
They look delish! Normally I would also try to make things gluten-free and refined sugar-free, as well, but I know that the brown sugar is a key ingredient to a good cookie!
thanks so much for any thoughts! xo
Brown sugar is indeed a key ingredient. I’ve had readers report back saying melted coconut oil worked out well for them. I have never tried it myself though. Let me know how you like them. Enjoy!
My 5 year old granddaughter and I made these over the weekend. I ended up having to make another batch because the first one disappeared so quickly. These are, without a doubt, the best cookies I’ve ever put in my mouth. AWESOME!
I can’t even begin to express my love with this recipe. It is not only a fall favourite but an all year round favourite. It’s low cal and delicious. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. 🙂
I just made these tonight and they were great! Thanks for sharing!!!
OMG! I’ve just made your cookies and they are a-maz-ing. Coldn’t help myself and ate one straight form the rack (just cooled a bit)- the cookie was so delicate and the liquid chocolate- too good to be true! Thank you so much for this wonderful recipe!
I just made these cookies and used white chocolate chips instead of chocolate. YUM!! Wonderful recipe! Thank you! 🙂
These cookies turned out absolutely DELICIOUS. They are so moist and flavourful and have such a great texture! The cookies do get chewier as time passes and this recipe will work great for me as I am participating in a bake sale next week and will need to make it a couple days before. So pleased! Thanks so much for this great recipe!!
I had to try these! I’m crazy for anything with pumpkin in it!! They are chilling in my fridge so to speak! Can’t wait to try them tonight! Thanks for sharing this recipe!!! It’s much appreciated to pumpkin fans like me!
These cookies are delicious, Sally. Thank you for yet another great recipe. Today is 48 hours later and you are right, the pumpkin flavor is front and center. Unfortunately there are only 2 cookies left.
Just made these. You are killing me with all these pumpkin recipes!
LOVE THEM THOUGH!
I have been making the cake like pumpkin choc chip cookies for years, and I do love them, and just finished making 4 batches to send out. But for the past couple years I’ve tried numerous recipes like this, so that I could also have a chewy pumpkin cookie, I love that texture as well. Every recipe has been awful until now. I doubled all my other cookies today except for this one, and I wish I had tripped it. Bravo, this is one of the best cookies I’ve ever eaten, pumpkin or not. Thank you so so much! It just got added to my yearly baking list. You Rock.
Best cookies I’ve ever made. Only one problem – the dough by itself is so good (and has no eggs) that I end up eating half of it before baking a single cookie.. Every time… Haha. Excellent recipe!!
I’ve made multiple batches of these in the past few weeks; I keep getting friends/family/coworkers asking for more! I make them with white chocolate chips (LOTS) and, although they don’t turn out like the pictures (much more dense and gooey, they virtually don’t spread or crumb at all), they are still fantastic! The spiced cookie balances really well with the white chocolate chips, although I’m sure equally as great with milk chocolate 🙂
Sally, I’ve been baking for years and I don’t think I’ve ever gotten as many compliments as I have for these cookies! The recipe is flawless! The directions are as well, flattened them before and after baking and they turned out perfect. Thank you for a new favorite! 🙂
Sally, these cookies are absolutely AMAZING! I had such a hard time not eating a cookie right away – it was difficult waiting for that hour to pass before sampling them like you had suggested 🙂 This recipe is a definite keeper and I know my family will love them when I bring the cookies over tomorrow! Thanks for sharing this!
I just made these … and they are delicious!!!! Super soft and slightly chewy. The spices are just perfect. The only thing I did different was use white chocolate chips – less of an overpowering taste to the pumpkin. The batch made 12 big cookies and I know I will have to make more this weekend. Thank you for the recipe!!!
I’ve made these 3 times already and they are AMAZING! I doubled the recipe because my family loves them so much! Can’t wait to try the Pumpkin Oatmeal recipe. Your recipes rock!
I am eating the first cooking as I type this. They are amazing. I am in love. I didn’t have chocolate chips so I substituted with chocolate chunks 😉
I could barely wait the 10 minutes before putting them onto the wire rack. I waited 2 minutes before sampling the first one and when my husband comes home I doubt there will be any cookies left to test day 2 chewiness.
Thanks for an awesome recipe.
These cookies had the perfect texture and tasted SO good too. My search for a chewy pumpkin cookie is now over, so thank you so much!
Also, I always seem to stumble across your blog when searching for recipes and have never been let down by any of them. 🙂
These came out wonderfully! Thank you for all your hardwork to find out the perfect mix of ingredients for a perfect consistency! I love pumpkin and white chocolate, so I used white chocolate chips instead of dark chocolate. Delicious! I can’t wait to try your milky way cookies!
I’ve never made pumpkin cookies before, but I stumbled onto this recipe and made it exactly as described, using gluten free flour for my wheat-allergic husband. What a hit! We love the consistency/texture and the lack of cakiness. 😉 Thanks for sharing!
Sally- these are to die for!! I’ve been going through my “Fall To-Bake List” and came across these babies. I made pumpkin bread last week, but it does not even come close to the goodness that is this recipe.
All I can say is…Oh.. my god. I typically use a different recipe for my pumpkin cookies but these are SO MUCH BETTER. Thank you!!
-Erin
I made these today, and they taste incredible! I’m very excited to see you have a cookbook coming out soon; it looks gorgeous, and I’m thrilled that you’re including lots of photographs. I definitely eat with my eyes before my mouth, and I love being able to see what the end result should look like. Congratulations on all your success!
Sooo these are pretty much the most amazing things! And I am NOT a pumpkin fan. They are the right amount of cookie and pumpkin. I’m making these for everyone right now. I also threw the wet ingredients in the fridge while I mixed the dry and it seemed to make them a little more cookie consistency while mixing but also made the chocolate chips stick a bit more. Still chilled them as well after all incorporated. My biggest thing is that I can “sample” as much as I’d like because there are no eggs! But I do that anyway with normal cookies…soo…. 😀
These cookies are amazing. I made a different recipe yesterday and they were awful. I don’t like pumpkin spice, cloves, or nutmeg so I didn’t add them and they still turned out great. Baked 2 minutes longer but my oven always seems to need a few extra minutes. Thanks for the great recipe,
I love this recipe, I never though of making pumpkin cookies. I came across your blog while searching for inspiration for my blog. I love it!!
All of your cookies that I have made have been phenomenal and these are no exception, especially for a pumpkin FREAK like me! Your chewy chocolate chip cookies are the best I’ve ever had so I was excited to see you introduced pumpkin into them. I have never had pumpkin cookies before so I have no idea what a cakey cookie is like and after making these, I have no desire to try another recipe where as these are so perfect and I’m so happy there are no eggs in them because it made for some good cookie dough eatin! lol. Is it weird that I want to include these in my holiday baking?
I tried these out last night and they turned out so great!! I’m thinking about adding pecans to the next batch. Thanks for doing all the “chewy cookie” research!
I made these cookies on Sunday and they are heaven! So chewy, so pumpkiny, the spice amount is perfect too! I went with dark chocolate chips and even though I wanted to dump the whole bag in, I refrained, and I’m SO glad I did. The choco-pumpkin balance is perfect!