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.
I’ve always made tollhouse cookies. My husband hated it. I found this recipe and made his day!! He was unexcited that I was making a cookie cake, then tasted it and was in love!!!! Thank you!!!!
These cookies are so good once finally done. I made these and chilled most of the dough but I was impatient and baked a couple because the dough was pretty firm. They didn’t spread much and were actually kind of tough, no problem. I made the rest the next day and let the dough sit for 30 minutes, oh my gosh please don’t skip the chilling. The cookies had such a nice bite they remind me of chips ahoy in texture but the taste is phenomenal. Especially good after a day
I made this twice already. I freeze the dough balls and bake a few whenever I want some freshly baked cookies. I absolutely love this recipe.
Hi! Can I use chocolate bars since I don’t have chips right now.
Absolutely! Chopped chocolate bars are lovely here.
Just a quick question. Why do you use melted butter rather than creaming the butter with the sugar? if you creamed the butter, the batter wouldnt be greasy would it? thanks
Hi Judy, Melted butter produces the chewiest cookies. It can, however, make your baked cookies greasy as you mention, so we 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! If you prefer to use creamed butter, we’d recommend our soft chocolate chip cookies recipe instead.
Mine come out puffy/fluffy. I bang on counter and they still don’t go flat. Any tips?
Hi Elise, thank you for trying this recipe! I’m so sorry to hear these cookies didn’t turn out for you. A puffy/cakey cookie is likely 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. I hope the next batch turns out better!
Just chilling it for half an hour still works. it tastes fine.
Do I have to put the dough in fridge?
Yes, this cookie dough requires chilling for at least 2 hours. Hope you enjoy the cookies!
Best cookies ever! Soft, buttery, and look like they are from the bakery!
I haven’t tried to make these yet but definitely want to! Will it work if I brown the butter? Have you tried it? Wondering too how it would change the texture or flavor?
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.
The perfect classic chocolate chip cookie. I like to not wait, patience is not my virtue, so I patted the dough into a big square and put it in the freezer while the oven preheated. I then cut into squares, shaped them as called for and voila. What is also great is browning the butter, if you feel fancy.
Would it be okay to sift the flour?
These are so good! I made these for my neighbor who turns 93 on Monday. My wife liked the crunch with the gooey insides. Will definitely be making these again.
Hi, I need help. I left the chocolate chip cookie dough in the fridge overnight. Took it out, let it sit the 10 minutes, and it was as hard as a rock. It’s been another 20+ minutes and it’s still as hard as a rock. I tried to shape a chunk I hacked off and it fell to pieces.
What can I expect here? Or what can I do?
Hi Elle, the dough will be hard after chilling. Allow it to slightly soften at room temperature until you can roll it–it sounds like yours just needs more time.
i’ve made alot of chocolate Chip Cookies with different recipes these, came out Awsome! the family devoured them before the day was over. they were our opinion of perfect taste texture and lightly crisp but so soft too. I will use this recipe again and again.
My family love these. Do you know approx. calories?
Hi Rachel, I’m glad your family loves these! We don’t usually include nutrition information as it can vary between different brands of the same ingredients. Plus, many recipes have ingredient substitutions or optional ingredients listed. However, there are many handy online calculators where you can plug in and customize your exact ingredients/brands. If you’d like to calculate it, readers have found this one especially helpful: https://www.verywellfit.com/recipe-nutrition-analyzer-4157076
I make these every year for work and they always look forward to it! This recipe is my secret weapon!
Hello I would love to make this cookie, but I am tired scrolling. There is so many ads and it just keep jumping. Please help. Thank you so much. I never bake chocolate chips cookies from scratch before.
Hi Babi, you can try using the Jump to Recipe button, and then clicking the Print button to open the recipe card in a new tab. Hope you love the cookies!
I want to make heart cut out cookies but not sugar cookies. Do you think I can use this dough as a cut out recipe? If so, any advice?
Hi Anita, this dough wouldn’t work well for cookie cutters. You could add mini chocolate chips to our favorite roll out sugar cookie dough, or some readers have had success using cookie cutters with our cookie bar recipe after it’s baked. Let us know what you try!
I recently made this recipe exactly as written and they were fantastic – these rival the best bakery cookies I have had! Do you think you could make this cookie with a chocolate base by adding cocoa powder, or would it alter the texture too much? How much would you advise using, if so?
Hi Dorothy! Here’s our favorite double chocolate chip cookies recipe.
It is a shame these are so good!! I can’t stop at one. Such a fun recipe to make and even more so to eat! Thank you Sally!
These are really the best chocolate chip cookies. I have come to trust Sally’s baking recipes. When I bake I look for her recipes as they are all good
. Thank you!
My all time favourite cookie recipe!!!
The chewy chocolate chip cookies are amazing!! I made
I made the chewy chocolate chip recipe today for the 2nd time. The dough would not come together when I tried to mix it. The only thing I did differently was use Dairy Gold butter. Is there anything I can do to use this batter?
Hi Luci, we’re glad you enjoyed the cookies! When it didn’t come together, was it because the dough seemed too slick/greasy? Diary Gold is a European butter, which could be the culprit. European style butters often aren’t ideal for baking smaller items with short bake times such as cookies and cupcakes. Larger items like quick breads are usually fine, but these higher fat butters create excess spread in cookies. It, of course, depends on the brand and recipe you are using but that’s our general experience. For future batches, we’d recommend another brand of butter if you have it available to you!
I have made many batches of chocolate chip cookies. These, by far, are the best!! My husband, daughter and her boyfriend gave high praises, as well.
I’m 76 and have been making chocolate chip cookies since I was 10! These cookies are by far the very best I’ve ever made!! Easy to make, able to freeze dough, and taste great! I added pecans but that’s the only difference from the original recipe. Before chilling, I wrapped in plastic wrap and molded dough into a cylinder about 3” in diameter. Then instead of scooping, I sliced in 1” slices, cut slices into fourths, and rounded into a mini cylinder. They came out perfect every time! Thank you Sally!!
This is my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe. I tried the recipe for the KAF chocolate chip cookie recipe of the year, and my husband and I still prefer this one. For those looking to emulate the KAF giant cookie size, I just use this recipe and measure cookie dough balls at 75 grams, and bake for 18–20 mins. Delicious!
Foolproof, Easy and So Delicious!
These cookies were great! Exactly what I was craving. I love both the fact they can be mixed by hand and that they need refrigeration. Sometimes after I make dough, I don’t feel like baking. I know, I know, it’s weird. But these were great because I could just relax for a few hours or even a couple of days! And they were delicious!
First rate chocolate chip cookie recipe! I followed exactly as stated. My cookies needed 16 min to bake and taste soft on the onside and chewing on the outside. Thank you Sally for the helpful suggestions and in depth details.
Question: do you typically use King Arthur All purpose flour,unbleached for this cookie?
Hi Jan, we’re so glad you enjoyed the cookies! KAF is usually our go-to, and yes, we prefer using unbleached flour when possible. However, feel free to use another brand if you prefer. Thanks again!
This recipe seems foolproof. Living in a drier climate caused them to fall apart on me. Very crumbly. Guessing I should use less flour?