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, just like in these brown butter marshmallow crispy cookies. 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
Is it possible to fix the dough I already made if it is too dry and crumbly?
Hi Clara, you can try adding a little milk (1 Tbsp at a time) to bring the dough together!
how long do I bake the cookies for, and at what degrees? i’m new to baking, and it doesn’t say what temperature to bake at.
Hi Dia, see step 4 and step 6 for those details: Preheat oven to 325°F (163°C). Bake the cookies for 13–14 minutes or until the edges are very lightly browned.
I am at sea level (Florida.) Should I adjust the baking temperature and/or length of baking time for this recipe? The pictures look delicious and I am hoping mine turn out even though I am at sea level. Thank you!
Hi Becky, you shouldn’t have to make any changes to the recipe!
This is my second batch within a week. The first batch I added chopped walnuts, but I am not supposed to eat nuts, so this batch is chocolate chips only. My entire family raved about them. And my daughter made me promise to keep this recipe. Thank you for this wonderful cookie recipe and I look forward to making them again, just not this week.
amazing recipe!!
I am pretty certain I followed the recipe exactly, but these didn’t come out quite right for me. I baked them for over 15 minutes and they never got brown at all. Mine were shaped more cylindrical than in your picture even, and they are totally flat after baking. Not sure what went wrong but maybe I’ll try again at a higher temperature.
Hi Allison, we’re sorry you had trouble with these cookies. Here are our best tips to prevent cookies from spreading. Hope this helps for your next batch. Thanks for giving these a try!
First off, delicious cookies! However after they are baked and cooled they are flat as a pancake. I followed the recipe to a T and let the dough chill overnight. Each cookie was about 2tbsp. I reshaped them around halfway through cooking but they still spread so thin.
Hi Alicia, sorry to hear you had trouble with these. Here are our best tips to prevent cookies from spreading. Hopefully these tips help for your next batch!
Thanks for including gram weights so helpful! Love this recipe
This is my go to chocolate chip cookie recipe, so easy and so delicious! Today I added chopped pecans (100g) and kicked them up a notch!
I made these and they worked perfectly! I have zero baking skills, but these came out amazing. Thanks so much!
The first time I made these I made them for my son’s heavy equipment/conservation class. I made a triple batch and didn’t get one cookie . 40 teenage boys can’t be wrong and all I heard was “mmm” and “miss lauren, these are sooo good”. So I had to make a batch for family. They are just as good as the boys said. I used a pizza stone for this batch, and it worked ok, but I used a baking sheet for the remainder. They were delicious both ways, but far doughier with the pizza stone.
5+ Stars!!!
Another amazing recipe from Sally! Thank you for sharing.
I finally found the PERFECT chewy chocolate chip cookie recipe.
Omg I’ve tried soo many cookie recipes and my cookies always came out flat n thin this is the best recipe I’ve ever tried my cookies came out soft, chewy and perfect. Literally the best cookies ever. Thank you so much Sally
I rested the dough in the freezer for an hour and they turned out super. Couldn’t wait because I was making them with my granddaughter who had to be in bed by 9 pm.
Instead of sugar I used jaggery.
And they were still super!!
The chocolate
My chips didn’t melt though, maybe because of the type we get in India.
These cookies came out so well. I made a brown butter to give it a richer nutty flavor. Then I added a tiny bit of sea salt when done baking. They made 24 cookies and disappeared within 2 hours. This is my new cookie recipe.
Can the corn starch be replaced with tapioca flour/starch?
We’re sure it could, Sahar!
Have you ever attempted this same recipe but with softened butter instead? Is that possible or would I need to reduce the amount of flour in this dough to do so?
Hi Sarah, for softened butter, we recommend following our giant chocolate chip cookies recipe – you can make smaller cookies with that recipe.
This is the BEST chocolate cookie recipe I have EVER tried!!
I chilled the dough overnight and followed the recommendation of shaping each unbaked cookie into more of a cylinder. Just Wow- big hit with the family! Sally you made me a star!!
My granddaughter and I made these last night and I am shocked there were any left over to take home. We added chopped walnuts and used a smaller cookie scoop and we ended up with almost 5 dozen cookies. The cookies were so rich, I’m glad we made them smaller, about two or three bites per cookie. We will definitely be making another batch soon.
These cookies are amazing!! Best chocolate chip cookie dough ever. The cookies didn’t bake properly though, they weren’t scoop able after chilling overnight and they didn’t flatten while baking. The taste is great, but what did I do wrong? How long do you melt the butter for?
Hi Torrie! It sounds like there may have been too much flour in your 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 – or use a kitchen scale. You can read more about properly measuring baking ingredients in this post.
Hey so when the cookie dough is done chilling do we wait the 15 minutes or can we let it sit for longer? Might just be my fridge but my cookie dough feels very hard when I took it out and I’ve left it sitting out for an hour already. Any tips is appreciated!
You can let it sit a little longer if needed, Leah! Does your fridge run quite cold? An extra stiff dough can also be caused by too much flour in the 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 – or use a kitchen scale. You can read more about properly measuring baking ingredients in this post.
Worst cookies ever. Followed the recipe even looking twice and didn’t come out how it should’ve been. Waste of time!…
Hi T, sorry these didn’t turn out for you. We’re happy to help troubleshoot with some more details.
Hello, can i put less sugar in it?
Hi Anna, you can try reducing the sugar, but keep in mind that sugar plays an important role in the taste, texture, and structure of a recipe, so we’re unsure of the results when using less sugar. We’d recommend starting small, and then you can reduce further in future batches as needed.
Followed to the letter and I’m quite pleased. Delishs 🙂
I’ve started making these with browned butter and my husband said they’re the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever made!
Hello! I love this cookie recipe! I’m wanting to make a batch and add in some extra things I have from the holidays. Would it be okay to add chopped dried apricot and pretzel bits to this recipe? Thanks!
Hi! Can someone help me with my question? thanks
Hi Erin, you can add other add-ins to this cookie recipe, yes! We would reduce the amount of chocolate chips by the amount you add.
Great, thank you! I plan on making these to keep as dough in the freezer. Do you think the pretzels would be okay or do you think they’d be mushy after being frozen?
They may not be as crunchy, but should be ok!
Yep – I see why this the one! Really benefits from more brown than white sugar, the extra egg yolk. Remarkable doesn’t even need a hand mixer. Standing the cookies up in cylinder shapes reduces spread – and even for a beginner – these came out perfectly just as pictured and described: thick, soft, chewy, and far more bakery style than homemade style. Don’t know why I would ever use a different recipe!
The cookies were moist and delicious. my only problem was having to chill them for 2 hours. Otherwise they were good!
My friends and family love these cookies. I make the chewy chocolate chip cookies all the time, making the cookies this morning.
I’ve made this recipe twice this month. It’s so easy to throw together and put in the fridge overnight. And the cookies are so soft and chewy. Highly recommend!
I find these bake off rather well from frozen, baking around 14-15 minutes with one 180 turn in the middle.
Hi there, how much egg should I use for a half batch? Would 1 medium egg work?
Hi Kat, To halve the recipe, you would have to use half of one egg and half of one egg yolk. We would recommend making the whole recipe, freezing any extra dough balls, and then just baking as many as you want at a time.