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
No idea why this recipe didn’t work for my but my dough came out dry & crumbly like a snickerdoodle dough ♀️
I will try again but I doubled checked all my measurements & steps the only thing I did differently was add the corn starch salt & baking powder after the flour.
Hi Sarah, 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. Thank you for giving these a try!
My dough came out crumbly too. I measured by weight with everything. I have made this twice and it’s happened both times. I have no idea what is different. I have not had any success with cookies from this site. Everything else, perfection. No clue.
I only have salted butter, can I use that?
Hi Nancy, You can use salted butter and reduce the added salt to 1/8 teaspoon.
Sally,
Can you tell me why the glass mixing bowl is preferable to me metal bowls, including the bowl on my KitchenAide mixer?
Either are great! We usually use glass when shooting photos/video just because you can see inside them.
Hi Sally, would I be able to halve this recipe?
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.
Love your post and site.Love your recipes and your content. Thanks so much for it including what kind of bowl to use.a lot of people might not know about all of this stuff.
this recipe is always a crowd pleaser. i was told to open a bakery with these. definitely recommend.
Hi, so I was wondering if I could skip out on the brown sugar and only use granulated white sugar?
Hello!
I was wondering if there is a substitute for the corn starch and brown sugar. Does it make a difference if I do not add those 2 ingredients? Thank you
I wonder how tall the dough columns should be. You don’t want them too tall, or they might topple while baking, which unfortunately happened both times I made these.
Hi Tony, the photos and video tutorial above should give you a good visual. Make sure to press the dough into the pan before baking to help stabilize them if they seem to be topping over.
Great! They taste very good, like chocolate chip cookies. The recipe says prep time is 15 minutes? Might be a skill issue but that was not the case for me.
Could I put the cookies in the freezer for 1 hour and would they turn out ok?
Hi Kayla, the freezer does not chill the dough evenly so we wouldn’t replace the chill time with 1 hour in the freezer.
Serious game changer- the best cookies I have ever made!
An excellent recipe! Soft and a little chewy – just perfect. My decrepit little Portuguese oven has very iffy temperature control, but I managed to get it just about right. Definitely on my keep list!
Hi Sally, can I cream the butter (3/4 cup, not melted), granulated sugar and brown sugar in a standup mixer?
Hi Teresa, this recipe is written for melted butter. You may love this cookies recipe that uses room temperature butter instead.
Can I double this recipe?
Hi Erin! Yes, this recipe doubles well.
Thank you so much for the recipe, it is the first time I’m successful with Chocolate chip cookies! Everybody loved them!
Just following up on a previous comment: I’m not sure what you mean by dissolving the sugar in the butter, because that didn’t happen at all when I made them. I cooled the butter for five minutes after melting, as the recipe says, before adding the sugar. The mixture was quite thick and gritty, like wet sand. It was only when I added the eggs that the mixture became more fluid and smoothed-out, but even then, some of the sugar was still crystallized. I don’t think it’s possible to completely dissolve the sugar.
Hi Tony! You just want to mix until everything is smooth, like in the video tutorial above.
Chilling the dough I feel was a mistake. It made my dough extremely hard and couldn’t shape it even after waiting 15 mins. Also my cookies stayed a little too like a ball shape after baking.
Hi Bella, happy to help! It sounds like there may be 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. That will prevent the dough from becoming hard and crumbly as you described. You can read more about properly measuring baking ingredients in this post.
Your recipes are my go to! Never had a bad one from you! Thanks!
Hi i’m from the UK and wanted to ask, is it suppose to be corn starch in the mix or corn flour? and/or can you use Corn flour instead or does it not come out the same? Thank you
Hi Caitlin! In the US, these two are not interchangeable. It seems that in the UK, cornflour is the same as US cornstarch and should work here. Hope that helps!
What you call cornflour in the UK (and here in Portugal ) is cornstarch in the US.
Tried your recipe and everyone loves the cookies. Second time around making them I put the chip in the dry ingredients though and then added the wet. The chips didn’t fall out
The best cookies ever!
I want to add in some chopped walnuts, do you think the other ingredients need? to be altered
Hi Shane! As long as the total amount of add-ins is around 1 to 1 and 1/4 cups, you can swap some of the chocolate chips for chopped nuts.
This is by far the best cookie recipe I’ve ever done. I always get the most delicious chocolate chip cookies with your recipe. I always follow it step by step. In the last two weeks, I’ve done them three times (just for myself). I could literally eat them every day, I’m obsessed!! Thank you so much!!
I made a batch yesterday. I liked the texture and chewiness of the cookies but I found them too sweet. Can I reduce the sugar ( and by how much) and keep the cookie result the same.
Hi Lyn! Sugar is used for moisture and texture in baked goods as well as taste. You can certainly try reducing the sugar, but the resulting texture will be different than intended.
Successful! Can these be made a smaller size? Does cooking time need to be reduced?
Hi Edward, absolutely! Bake time will be shorter and depend on the exact size of your cookies.
I’m just trying to get a clear picture. When mixing the sugar with the butter, is the mixture supposed to be gritty with the sugar, or more like a paste, with the sugar melted or dissolved into the butter?
Hi Tony, the sugars will be completely combined/dissolved with the butter. If you take a look at the video in the recipe card, right around the 0:40 mark, you can get a better visual for this step. Hope this helps and that you enjoy the cookies!
I’ve made these before and i love them, but i’ve been trying to watch what i eat, and wanted to see if these can be made low sugar or low calorie?
Hi Denise, sugar is used for moisture and texture in baked goods as well as taste. You can certainly try reducing the sugar, but the resulting texture will be different than intended. You may have better results with looking for a recipe that has been specifically developed as a low-sugar, low-calorie cookie recipe.
Is it okay to use 1 and 1/4 cups of brown sugar and not use the chocolate chips?
Hi Emma, you might like this recipe for chewy brown sugar cookies instead!
These were absolutely delicious! Have you ever tried making them with gluten free flour? My daughter is gluten intolerant and was so envious of us raving about theses cookies so I thought I’d try to make a batch just for her
Hi Jeannie, we haven’t tested a gluten-free version of this recipe, but let us know if you give anything a try!
I’m gluten free and use Pamela’s Baking & Pancake mix and omit the baking soda from the recipe and they come out great!
Nowhere near enough butter or wet ingredients to create a good dough. Always end up adding extra, choose a different recipe.
Hi Alex, I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you. This dough is pretty loose after you make it because of the melted butter; did you by chance leave out an ingredient? It should absolutely come together without adding extra butter or liquid, so I’m sorry you experienced otherwise. The most common reason it feels dry is too much flour, especially if it’s scooped directly from the bag instead of spooned and leveled (or, even better, weighed). Just a few extra tablespoons of flour can throw off the balance and make the dough crumbly. The dough should be soft, slick, and slightly thick before chilling.
Weighed each cookie ( dough balls ) to 2oz, baked for 14 mins and no where near done
You did something wrong. After refrigerating overnight and setting out for about 1/2 hour before baking, I had to work hard with an ice cream scoop to get the dough out of the bowl to shape it for baking. The mixture is very thin when you first make it, which is why you have to refrigerate it before you bake them. This recipe is perfect!