I have a few tricks that make these the best soft chocolate chip cookies that you’ll ever try. With hundreds of positive reviews from bakers around the world, I’m confident you’ll fall in love with this chocolate chip cookie recipe too. Chilling the cookie dough is imperative and cornstarch makes them extra soft and thick!
Chocolate chip cookies are a household favorite, a timeless classic, an unparalleled snack… warm, cold, dunked in milk, in dough form, or in baked form. No one can resist the comfort of a chocolate chip cookie and everyone has their favorite recipe, whether it’s on the back of the yellow chocolate chips bag or scribbled in your grandmother’s recipe book.
Heck, I even have separate recipes for crispy chocolate chip cookies and chewy chocolate chip cookies!
Like many of you, I’ve searched far and wide for the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe: the best chocolate chip cookies, a recipe I can bake again and again for years. I’ve lost sleep, I’ve burnt dough, I’ve tested and retested and retested… and retested, countless times. And I’m so happy to report that I finally found a chocolate chip cookie recipe that I’ll treasure for years. And I know you’ll enjoy these cookies too!
How to Make Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Start With Butter: Use room temperature butter. You can soften butter quickly with this trick or set the butter out 1–2 hours before you begin.
- Use a Mix of Sugars: Cream the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar together. This process aerates the butter, which promises soft chocolate chip cookies. Brown sugar yields soft chocolate chip cookies, and white sugar helps the cookies spread. For chewier and more flavorful cookies, use more brown sugar than white sugar.
- Dark Brown Sugar: Light brown sugar and dark brown sugar are interchangeable in most recipes. Though either works in this chocolate chip cookie recipe, I love using dark brown sugar for extra flavor because it contains more molasses.
- Add Egg & Vanilla Extract: Eggs provide structure and richness, while vanilla adds flavor.
- Use Cornstarch in Dry Ingredients: Cornstarch, a thickening ingredient, is the secret weapon in this cookie recipe, just like in shortbread cookies. 2 teaspoons give the cookies extra lift and leave them extra soft. You can’t taste it! You also need all-purpose flour, baking soda, and salt.
- Add Dry Ingredients to Wet Ingredients: Combine all the ingredients, then add the chocolate chips.
- Chill the Cookie Dough: For extra thick chocolate chip cookies, chill the cookie dough for at least 1 hour. Chilling cookie dough will make or break the recipe! The colder the cookie dough, the less the cookies will over-spread. If you’re interested, here are 10 tips on how to prevent cookies from spreading.
- Extra Chocolate Chips: This is optional, but as soon as the cookies come out of the oven, press a few chocolate chips on top. They’ll melt right down into the cookie, making them extra pretty. And melted chocolate is never a bad thing! I recommend doing the same with double chocolate chip cookies.
Room temperature butter is cool to touch and about 65°F (18°C), which may be cooler than your kitchen. To test it, poke it with your finger. Your finger should make an indent without sinking into the butter. The butter should not be shiny or greasy. You can’t cream cold butter and you can’t cream partially melted butter, either. Room temperature butter is imperative to the outcome of these cookies! You need 3/4 cup, which is 1.5 sticks, 12 Tablespoons, or 170g.
Don’t Have Time to Chill Cookie Dough?
If you don’t have time to chill the chocolate chip cookie dough, try my crispy chocolate chip cookies, giant chocolate chip cookies, or Nutella chocolate chip cookies. Or even these soft and chewy chocolate chip cookie bars or cookie dough frosted cookie cups, which don’t require individual cookie rolling, either!
I also have an entire section of no-chill cookie recipes. 🙂 Snickerdoodles and shortbread are two more favorites!
How to Freeze Cookie Dough
Freezing chocolate chip cookie dough is really easy. I have a whole post dedicated to how to freeze cookie dough, but here’s a recap:
- After the cookie dough has chilled in the refrigerator, roll the cookie dough into balls. Chill the cookie dough balls in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
- Place the solid and cold cookie dough balls into a plastic zipped-top freezer bag.
- Label the bag with the month and the baking temperature, and place the bag in the freezer.
- Freeze cookie dough for up to 3 months. The date will help you determine when the cookie dough is fresh, and the temperature is written for obvious reasons. Really, you can write whatever is helpful to you. The date, temperature, time, recipe name, etc.
- When it’s time to bake the cookies, remove them from the freezer. Preheat the oven according to the recipe’s instructions.
- Bake the cookies for a minute or 2 longer, since the dough is frozen.
Bake the frozen cookie dough balls whenever that chocolate chip cookie craving hits, or when you need a big batch of fresh-baked cookies. I do it all the time!
Sometimes the simplest recipes are what stick. I really don’t need to convince you—it’s a chocolate chip cookie. THE chocolate chip cookie!
PrintThe Best Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Prep Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
- Yield: 2 dozen
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
I have a few tricks that make these the best soft chocolate chip cookies that you’ll ever try. With hundreds of positive reviews from bakers around the world, I’m confident you’ll fall in love with this chocolate chip cookie recipe too. Chilling the cookie dough is imperative and cornstarch makes them extra soft and thick!
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup (12 Tbsp; 170g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 3/4 cup (150g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1/4 cup (50g) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups (250g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 and 1/4 cup (225g) semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- In a large bowl using a handheld mixer or a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter, brown sugar, and sugar together on medium speed until combined and creamy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed.
- In a separate bowl, whisk flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt together. Add into the wet ingredients, then beat on low speed until combined. The cookie dough will be slightly thick. On low speed, beat in the chocolate chips.
- Cover dough tightly and chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour and up to 3–4 days. Chilling is imperative for this cookie dough.
- Remove cookie dough from the refrigerator and allow to sit at room temperature for 10 minutes. Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside.
- Once chilled, the dough will be slightly crumbly, but will come together when you work the dough with your hands. Roll cookie dough, about a heaping 1.5 Tablespoons of dough per cookie (I use this medium-size cookie scoop), and place 3 inches apart on baking sheets.
- Bake for 11–12 minutes, until barely golden brown around the edges. The cookies will look extremely soft when you remove them from the oven. Cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet. If the cookies are too puffy, try gently pressing down on them with the back of a spoon. They will slightly deflate as you let them cool. If desired, while the cookies are still warm, press a few extra chocolate chips into the tops. This is optional, just for looks.
- Transfer cookies to a cooling 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 3–4 days. Allow to come to room temperature, then continue with preheating the oven in step 4. 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): Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Baking Sheets | Silicone Baking Mats or Parchment Paper | Cookie Scoop | Cooling Rack
- Be sure to check out my top 5 cookie baking tips AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking tools.
- Adapted from Anna Olson
Can I cut down on the butter and the sugar?
Good day Sally!
Can I use melt chocolate in this recipe? Want to double the recipe but I only have 200g of choco chips, wondering if I can mix the melt choco buttons!
Thanks in advance
Tess
Hi Tess, I don’t recommend adding melted chocolate but you can certainly chop the chocolate buttons into smaller pieces or chop any chocolate bar/candy you have, use M&M’s, etc.
These were ridiculously good! Thank you Sally!
My cookies came out delicious but did not flatten enough.. not sure what I’ve done wrong?!
I’m trying your recipe today for the cookies. I wonder, can I add cocoa to make them double chocolate without changing other ingredient measurements?
Hi Rebecca, For chocolate cookie dough I recommend you follow my recipe for Inside Out Chocolate Chip Cookies, and you can use regular chocolate chips instead of white chocolate if you would like.
These came out perfectly, they are addicting! And I only chilled for like half hour- maybe I over measured the flour or something I don’t know why they didn’t spread too much but they were picture perfect and the family gobbled them up 🙂
Nice recipe, I usually follow whatever recipe is on the package of the chips, but this time I chopped up a bunch of leftover chocolate I received from valentine’s day, so needed a recipe to turn to. I left out the cornstarch since I didn’t have any on hand and my oven begins temp at 180C so I just cooked for about 8 minutes, but these are really good! I also used salted butter, but just left the extra salt out of the mix. I will try again following exactly next time! <3 Thanks a lot!!
Each time I make chocolate chip cookies from a recipe I find that the final batter before baking is gooey and quite sticky. Not sure what I’m doing wrong. If you could give me tips that would be great. Just trying to find that perfect chocolate chip cookie but I can’t seem to make them quite right.
Hi Holly, This batter is very soft and sticky before chilling! Chilling the dough for at least an hour before rolling it into balls is mandatory.
I chilled for maybe 2 hours and still no luck. Spread like crazy but they tasted delicious. Do you recommend chilling overnight?
Hi Sally,
first of all: I love love love your recipes!! Each one I’ve made so far has turned out perfectly. THANK YOU!!!
Now my question: how long will these cookies stay good? I live in Germany and would like to make some and send them to a friend in Austria.
Thanks a lot! 🙂
Hi Jacki! See the last step for storing. Here are my best tips for how to ship cookies.
Perfect! I had to cut the chilling time in half because I ran out of time (having a newborn and a toddler is tough!) and they still were phenomenal. I added dark chocolate chips as well as dark chocolate chunks. Soooooo yummy. My new go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe. Thank you Sally!
Perfect chocolate chip cookie. Instead of dotting them with chocolate chips right when they come out, I sprinkle with some good quality sea salt. Everybody at worked loved it!
excellent cookies – used the exact recipe and they turned out perfect.
Hi,
Can I use salted butter in this recipe? Would I omit the salt or halve it?
Thanks, Cindy
Hi Cindy! You can leave the recipe as is or reduce the salt down to 1/4 teaspoon. Depends if you like sweet/salty or not.
Thank you! I ended up buying some unsalted butter since I wanted to follow the recipe exactly for the first time. They came out very good! I’ll be trying out some of your other recipes.
I love these cookies and so my kids!
Hi Cyndie! You can add any add-ins including chocolate chips and chopped walnuts, as long as the total amount of the add-ins is about 1 and 1/2 cups.
These cookies are amazing. Everything is amazing. Sallys Baking Addiction is my go-to for anything I need. I’ve made heaps from Sally over the years and they work perfect, first time. Her icings are magic, cookies and cakes and slices are divine.. she’s a weapon! Ive had people ask for recipes and I’ve told them every time where I got it.. now they just say another of Sallys? You go chik!
a great recipe for soft chocolate chip cookies!!
Finally a cookie that did not go flat! And tastes delicious. Thank you,will make these again
These were excellent. They were perfect the first time and just what I was looking for in a perfect chocolate chip cookie. Excellent tips and explanation of the steps and why it is important to follow them made it easy to achieve perfection the first time.
Loved these cookies! I’m at 7000 ft. altitude. I added an extra egg, used Lilys sugar free choc chips and some leftover butterscotch chips. I used organic coconut granulated sugar and baked 10 minutes. They are perfect and going fast! Thank you so much!
Yum! These cookies are awesome – maybe my new fave chocolate chip cookie recipe 🙂 I actually used olive oil in place of butter and they came out great. I did have to roll them into balls by hand because the dough was not quite together and then about 8 minutes into baking I flattened them down with a glass to help them spread. With those changes they came out great! Thank you Sally for all of the amazing and delicious recipes.
These cookies are absolutely delicious! One quick question – I made half the recipe after chilling the dough for about 1 hr and made the other half after freezing for a few days. Both times the cookies looked beautiful and tasted amazing but they didn’t hold their shape when I picked them up after cooling fully (they just gently broke apart into a few pieces right after picking them up). Any idea why this might have happened?
Either way my husband and I really enjoyed them 🙂 they will definitely be my go-to chocolate chip cookies!
I’m planning to bake this and use them for small size ice cream sandwiches, so I wonder if I can shape them a bit bigger (perhaps 2x size?). I checked your Giant Chocolate chip cookies but those are way too big. Do you recommend any variation on the recipe to achieve this?
YUM! You can make them larger without making any changes to the ingredients. The bake time may be a couple of minutes longer depending on their size.
Needed an extra egg. Don’t know how people used this recipe without. So crumbly without.
My go-to CC cookie recipe is a crispy cookie recipe at it’s heart no matter how I tried to contain their spread, so I decided to give these a try. It ended up being a really fool-proof recipe for thicker, softer cookies. I can’t believe I managed cookies that aren’t flat, lol. Thanks!
A new family favourite! We prefer soft chewy cookies & these are delicious every time. Thanks for sharing
Great recipe, so soft. I hate hard crunchy cookies so this was great for me. Possibly needed a minute longer in the oven but I’ll know for next time.
We had a baking class with the children and this recipe turned out perfectly!
Hi Sally, I just want to thank you for sharing these amazingly delicious recipes. I recently got into baking as a form of self meditation as it is so therapeutic. I enjoy these baked goods so much. I can’t thank you enough for all the work you put into creating these perfect recipes.
Could this recipe be used in a skillet? I only have an 8in cast iron. Would you recommend cutting the recipe in half? Thanks!
Hi Lorrie, I recommend my recipe for a skillet cookie. You can use all chocolate chips instead of M&Ms if you wish.
This cookies are amazing !!!! Everyone loves them . 2 things I learned , chill the dough for at least two hours so they won’t spread and get flat ,also easier to roll and not as sticky . Weight each ball 25g each , once on parchment put a bit of pressure to flatten them out a bit . Bake for 10 min .