With 30 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!
I originally published this recipe in 2013 and have since added new photos, a video tutorial, and more helpful success tips. This recipe is such a fan (and personal) favorite that I included it in my New York Times best-selling cookbook, Sally’s Baking 101.
One 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 beloved… and, a warning: they disappear FAST.
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.
I’ve 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.
One 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, pumpkin crumb cake 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 or up to 3 days. I usually chill it overnight.
(No time to chill? Make these soft & chewy chocolate chip cookie bars, giant chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chip cookie cake, 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 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.
Because of the melted butter in this dough, the dough is very soft and a little greasy before chilling, so it’s harder to shape the cookie dough balls. We recommend chilling first, then shaping. If after chilling the dough is very hard and difficult to scoop, let it sit at room temperature for 15 minutes and then try again.
We typically do not recommend jumping right to the freezer without chilling the dough first. A quick freeze like that can cause the dough to chill unevenly and then spread unevenly during the baking process. For best results, we recommend following the recipe as written. If you don’t have time to wait for the dough to chill, try this recipe for 6 giant chocolate chip cookies instead, which doesn’t require dough chilling (see recipe Notes in that post for details on using the dough to make 24 regular-size cookies).
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 (with video tutorial).
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?
Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 13 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours, 45 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. This recipe is also in my New York Times best-selling cookbook, Sally’s Baking 101.
Ingredients
- 2 and 1/4 cups (281g) 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 for 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
- In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, cornstarch, and salt together. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk the melted butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together until no lumps remain. Whisk in the egg and egg yolk until combined, then whisk in the vanilla extract. The mixture will be thin. Pour into dry ingredients and mix together with a large spoon or spatula. The dough will be very soft, thick, and shiny. 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 refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to 3 days. I highly recommend chilling the cookie dough overnight to prevent overspreading.
- Preheat oven to 325°F (163°C). Line large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. If the dough has chilled for longer than 2 hours, let it sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes.
- Using a cookie scoop or Tablespoon measuring spoon, scoop the chilled cookie dough, about 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, then use your fingers to shape the cookie dough so that it’s taller rather than wide—almost like a cylinder. This helps the cookies bake up thicker. Repeat with remaining dough. Arrange the cookies 3 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets.
- Bake the cookies for 13–14 minutes or until the edges are very lightly browned. The centers will look very soft, but the cookies will continue to set as they cool. Cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely. While the cookies are still warm, I like to press a few more chocolate chips into the tops—this is optional and only for looks!
- Store tightly 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 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 in a bowl 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) 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.
Reader Comments and Reviews
I absolutely adore this recipe but I don’t have space for it to chill in the fridge, will it still turn out well if I start baking straight away?
Hi Lily, you do not want to skip the chill time—the cookies will overspread into puddles!
I wanted to try your Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies, but this Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe is my absolute favorite. Do you think that if I sub 6 Tbsp. of blotted pumpkin puree for the extra egg yolk, and add pumpkin pie spice, this recipe could turn into a good Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe? Or is the texture of your Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe similar to this one?
Hi Elaine, pumpkin can be a finicky ingredient with the amount of moisture it contains, so it’s best to use the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies recipe. They wonderfully soft and chewy as written!
I’ve made these a lot and love them. But I’m away visiting family and they don’t have cookie sheets. Can I make these into bars? The dough is already made.
Hi Dianna! Here’s our cookie bars recipe, using the same dough.
They were hard and not soft.
Hello! I was wondering… If I make them into mini cookies, will it affect the texture alot? I don’t really mind if it doesn’t turn out as chewy as I expect it to be since I am making them into mini ones.
Hi Hazz! Here’s our favorite mini cookies recipe – you can use mini chocolate chips in that recipe.
Hi Sally,
Saw the reviews and defo wanted to try this out but the cookies turned out quite cakey. We followed recipe exactly but didn’t add cornstarch and also used baking powder instead of soda. Would this impact it or is there another reason it turned out cakey. We didn’t add too much flour either or over mix. Can you help ?? Thank you so much !!
Hi Zara, thanks for trying this recipe. Make sure you’re using baking soda. Baking powder is not a 1:1 swap, and I’m not surprised your cookies tasted cakey. This recipe needs baking soda instead.
I absolutely love this recipe, I probably undercook them just a tad to get that extra soft chewiness and do half semisweet and half dark chocolate chips! Before I go searching for a recipe I was wondering if you have a sugar cookie recipe with similar softness that works well for cookie cutters for decorating! And if you have a gingerbread recipe as well (softness ideal but not necessary!) Thank you for this chocolate chips cookie recipe, its a godsend!
I just made these and they’re awesome! Easy to make and came out perfect. I measured them out with a scale and made 20 cookies. Weighing all the ingredients with a scale made for less dishes to wash and also made sure that I didn’t have any errors scooping and leveling flour.
Absolutely the best CC recipe I’ve found! Sinfully rich and highly addictive. Once again though, follow all of the suggestions/hints/instructions – therein lies deliciousness.
I made the dough 2 days ago, placed it in the fridge, and baked them yesterday. They came out perfectly round and the texture was impeccable.
I made one substitution: I did not have corn starch so I used tapioca but doubled the amount, and the quality did not suffer at all.
Do we need to cool down the brown butter or we can put all the ingr right away?
Let it cool 5-10 minutes, Dee!
I know that the recipe already calls for melted butter but if I were to brown the butter, do you think I would have to alter the other ingredients to account for this?
You can certainly use brown butter here, and the flavor is outstanding! But they can be a little more crumbly using brown butter – we usually suggest using the recipe for Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies instead.
We made this cookie as instructed, followed every step and special note! Thank you for all of the information you provided. I am happy to say that the cookies turned out absolutely delicious! Buttery and soft and very chewy, just as described. I think we found our family’s new top cookie!
I really wanna thank you for posting this recipe! I bake all the time and I was having trouble every once in a while with my cookies coming out flat and not the way I like them -chewy and crispy… The first time I made your recipe I was so excited and every time since then they come out exactly the same… Perfect! Thank you very much for taking the time to post this recipe!
Hi Sally,
I wanted to let you know that I have been using your chocolate chip cookie recipe since 2020 – and I cannot tell you how many times I have made batches of your cookies. It is not uncommon to mix up the dough for 5 batches at time and give out the cookies as gifts. Everyone who has had one of these cookies has loved them. Thank you for sharing this recipe.
The Manor Family
Thank you so much for taking the time to leave this kind review, Robert!
i don’t post reviews on recipes often but these cookies are GOODDDDDD. thank you for the godsend
Love this recipe and was happy to see it in your cookbook!
Hey I think this is a great resipe . But sometimes I have trouble portioning it so how many portions should this make ?
Hi Simon. This recipe makes 16 XL cookies or 20 medium/large cookies. Use 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.
I would really like to make a bunch of mini cookies for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and this is one of everyone’s favorite recipes.
Do you think they could be miniaturized effectively if I used mini chocolate chips, but still retain some of their chewiness? (I know I’d have to cut the baking time.)
Hi Marie! Here’s our favorite mini cookies recipe – you can use mini chocolate chips in that recipe.
Thank you for your quick reply.
This is my favorite go to recipe!
Around how many cookies does this recipe make, I’m needing to make 35 give or take for a Christmas party
Hi Abi! This recipe makes 16 XL cookies or 20 medium/large cookies.
What happens if I don’t cool the dough in the fridge but bake immediately?
The cookies will spread too much.
Hi GayLynn, you can use the same amount of bread flour without making any other changes.
Somehow my dough turned into crumble… is this normal??
Hi Chloe, How did you measure your flour? Be sure to spoon and level to avoid the dough being crumbly.
This is such a good recipe and my family just loves it.
The absolute super star of chocolate chip cookies. So much better that the Joanna Gaines recipe (we had a tasting contest, Sally’s won hands down!)
You never need another recipe this is the one!
Hi! Love this recipe, but I find I always get inconsistent (yet delicious) results. Can you please tell me the temperature for the melted then cooled butter that is to be added to the recipe?
Can you also tell me a standardised weight for the egg and egg yolk that is to be added to the recipe?
Thanks!
Hi Nams, I’m so glad you love these cookies. And great questions! Butter temperature: It should be warm to the touch but not hot, around 90–95°F (32–35°C) is perfect. If it’s too hot, it can cause the dough to become greasy or the cookies to overspread. Egg weights: 1 large egg: about 50g out of shell (approx. 30g white + 20g yolk), 1 large egg yolk: about 20g
The best cookies ever, and I’ve tried a lot of different recipe!!
These must be the best cookies I have ever made! They are soft and chewy and wow! I have never made cookies with melted butter or cornstarch and what a difference they make!
Wonderful recipe. I did about half melted butter and half softened then I didn’t bother with the fridge unless it was between batches. So very wonderful! Soft fluffy yummy!
Hello, I made these cookies the other day and LOVED THEM! I do have a question, is it possible to substitute the egg to something else? If so what would you advise? Thank you!
Hi Jessica, so glad you loved them! We haven’t tested this recipe with an egg substitute, but let us know if you give something a try!
I bought your book and its got so many useful recipes. I love it when I can look at a recipe and know I already have those items in my kitchen. I just came across your Choco Chip cookies recipe and going to try it. Lots of wonderful comments I read!