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.
Keywords: chocolate chip cookies
Would these work with Oreo cookie pieces instead of choco chips? I’m a very beginner cookie baker so I wanted to ask before attempting it.
Hi Kristen, chopped Oreos will work great as an add-in here. Enjoy!
I’m just about to try this. Can I use bread flour instead of all purpose flour and still use with it the rest of the ingredients listed down? Or do I have to omit an ingredient or change the quantity? Thank you!
Hi Racquel, you can use the same amount of bread flour without making any other changes. Let us know how you like them!
Very bread-like, I don’t know if the bake time was correct. They’re fine but I definitely wouldn’t make them again. Not sure why the ratings are so high
★★
these were the best cookies we’ve ever had in our 19 years of living
Hi can I make these even bigger (100g)?
Hi Robin, you can try that, or you can use this recipe for 6 giant chocolate chip cookies. Enjoy!
This is an amazing recipe. Thanks so much
It tasted as if something was missing they were not sweet enough for me nor giving that mouth watering chocolate chip cookie taste
★
Turned out nothing like the recipe
★
I’ve made this recipe twice, the first time even after chilling they spread while baking too much. The second time I scooped out the dough and put the sheet pan in the freezer to chill for 10 minutes before baking and this helped a lot. They took about 14 minutes to bake. My family loved them.
★★★★★
Ok flavor is amazing and I followed the re open to a T. They crack on the top (no texture) and even the 3 TBS size at 14 min are browning on the top before the edges but underdone inside. Please help!
★★★★
Hi Sarah, are you using the middle oven rack, or are the cookies closer to the top heating element. Or are you using a convection oven by chance? We always recommend conventional settings for baking (not convection/fan). The flow of air from convection heat can cause baked goods to rise and bake unevenly and it also pulls moisture out of the oven. If you do use convection/fan settings for baking, lower your temperature by 25 degrees F and keep in mind that things may still take less time to bake.
Help!! They puff up too much
★★★★
Hi Sarah! Too much flour in cookie dough can cause them to be puffy. 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 made these cookies for the first time two days ago and shared them with my neighbours- they were a hit! I created 35g cookies which i baked for 10 minutes- just perfect!
I’m baking another batch today- I reduced the sugar by about 20%; and used browned butter. They were still a little soft when I created the balls, so now they are chilling in my freezer for a few hours before I bake them. The batter tasted amazing with the brown butter- I’m excited to see how this batch turns out!
Just wondering if I use Monkfruit Sweetener instead of white sugar and Truvia (brown sugar sweetener) in place of regular brown sugar will the texture and taste will be altered. To swap its 1:1 for both sweeteners.
Hi Heather, We’d love to help but we are not trained in baking with sugar substitutes. For best taste and texture (and so you don’t waste your time trying to adapt this recipe since it may not work properly), it may be more useful to find a recipe that is specifically formulated for sugar substitutes. Thank you!
Best cookies ive had in years 5/5 stars
★★★★★
my cookies dont spread much. I have to kind of press them with a spatula when they are half baked.
★★★★★
Just made these goodies and they are not going to last through the night unless I freeze them. I did need to extend the cooking time to 14 minutes.
★★★★★
I made these today with the sprinkles. Thank goodness I gave most of them away or I would be overindulging! So delicious!
★★★★★
I love this recipe!!!! Do you think I can substitute coconut oil for butter in this recipe?
Hi Nicolette, for best results, we recommend sticking with butter, although some readers have reported success with melted coconut oil. The taste will be different with that substitution.
This recipe is insanely good. I haven’t baked cookies in years and I made this for Lauren’s class party. It was a HIT!
I love this recipe! Would love to try them with browned butter. Would I increase amount of butter since water evaporates from butter when browning?
Hi Kathy, 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.
This is my first time baking and I decided to follow your recipe. The cookies are incredibly soft, chewy, and chocolatey. They turned out so well and I’ll definitely be making these again. You’ve inspired me to try more of your recipes! Thank you, Sally!
★★★★★
I love this recipe so much..I’ve used it sooooo many times now it’s always in my freezer. Nestle Tollhouse who?!
What is the nutrition break down
Hi Madi, we’re so glad you enjoyed the cookies! 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. Readers have found this one especially helpful: https://www.verywellfit.com/recipe-nutrition-analyzer-4157076
Hii I was so excited to try this recipe but my dough came out really crumbly. Did I mis-measure the butter possibly? Not quite sure what happened. 🙁
Hi Ale, we’re happy to help troubleshoot. How did you measure your flour? Be sure to spoon and level (or use a kitchen scale) to ensure the flour isn’t over measured. Too much flour can often dry out the dough and make it crumbly as you mention. An easy fix for next time!
Hi Sally! I was wondering, if I want to give these cookies a kind of coffee base, can I add/swap some flour for some espresso or instant coffee powder? Or more adjustments would be needed? Thanks!
Hi Chiara, you can add 1 tsp of espresso powder to these cookies without any other changes. Let us know if you try it!
Recipe question: how can I reduce the sweetness? Is it just a case of switching some of the white sugar for brown? Or would I be better off using light brown instead of dark brown sugar as I did?
These are by far the best cookies I’ve ever had, but some people haven’t got as much of a sweet tooth as me. I use choc salted caramel bars in mine and they’re divine. I’m going to make my own caramel and drip a couple of drops in the balls. I’m also thinking of doing white choc and cranberry, pistachio and orange and choc mint.
★★★★★
Hi Claudio, we’re so glad you enjoyed the cookies! Sugar plays an important role in the taste, structure, and texture of the cookies, so changing the amount can have impacts beyond just the sweetness of the cookies. You can certainly tinker with reducing it, but keep in mind that the cookies will not turn out the same.
I love this recipe!! I’m new to baking and this recipe is incredibly easy to follow and make. I have made these cookies about 7 times so far and they always come out perfect and absolutely delicious. Thick, chewy and full of rich flavor. I really love all of the Sally’s Baking recipes and after discovering this one, I have tried many more and they all impress me and make it look like I have been baking forever. I actually have this cookie dough chilling in my fridge right now but instead of chocolate chips I put Heath Bar crumbles in it so hopefully it works out.
This is the best chocolate chip cookie recipe I’ve ever tasted. They literally taste like cooked cookie dough and they’re so soft but crispy in the right places 🙂
Some tips I’ve learned after making them so much now.
-I’ve found mixing the sugars directly into the flour, and adding the butter then, let it cool, then add the eggs, just works out to a better texture for the cookies for me, rather than mixing the egg and sugar inti the melted butter separately.
-store them in a container or a sish with plastic wrap over to keep them fresh for days and not get stale or hard
this recipe is really the best one!!! i would like to make a giant one with that dough, do u think it’s possible ?! cause i really want to use this recipe
if so, do u think i should bake it in a pan like a circular pan or just form a big cookie directly on the parchement paper ??
Hi Clara! Here are our recipes for a cookie cake and a cookie pizza – very similar to this one!
Hello Sally, I hope you are well.
If it is not inconvenient, I would like to place an order.
I live in Brazil, and here we use the International System of Measurements, Kilo, grams, etc.
Well, I would like to ask if it is possible, instead of using domestic measurements in your recipes, such as cups and spoons, you could use the weight of the ingredients, it would be much easier for people from other countries, like me, to make your wonderful recipes using a scale, where the ingredient measurements would be more precise.
Sorry if I was inconvenient, it wasn’t my intention.
Thank you very much for your attention.
Hi Rose! We include the weight of most ingredients in our recipes – see above, listed behind the cup measurement. Hope this helps!
I use your recipes all the time. Am stuck on making your Chocolate Chip recipe. I use others also. Your directions are easy to follow. I get compliments on anything I bake from your site! Thanks for teaching me how to be a better baker!
So glad to hear this, Celia! Thank you so much for making our recipes.
No idea if they will taste good…I image so, but they are a right MESS. I refrigerated the dough overnight and even made them a little less than 2 tablespoons. 9 cylinders on a large cookie sheet and they spread out and connected and I ended up with essentially a large chocolate chip pancake. I wasted a lot of ingredients and couldn’t present them at the dessert potluck. I am going to have to stop by the grocery store and buy something. Boo hoo.
★★
I sure would have cut them into bars & taken them to the potluck. They sure beat store bought cookies!
★★★★★