With plenty of melty chocolate, chewy oats, and a sprinkle of sea salt, these dark chocolate chunk oatmeal cookies are guaranteed to be your new favorite cookie variety. They’re extra buttery and soft with slightly crisp edges and a touch of cinnamon and molasses for classic oatmeal cookie flavor. This cookie has it all!
Alright, I’m saying it. Oatmeal cookies are forever the best cookie on the planet. (This statement probably doesn’t surprise many of you!) Regular chocolate chip cookies are a bonafide crowd-pleaser, but they don’t hold a candle to the texture, chew, and toasty flavor of its oatmeal counterpart.
I originally published these dark chocolate chunk oatmeal cookies several years ago and after making them at least 1200x, I decided to spruce up the photos and make a couple slight changes to the dough including using more oats and adding a sprinkle of sea salt. We’re still using plenty of dark chocolate chunks, whole oats, and a touch of molasses for classic flavor. (See recipe notes below for the exact changes.)
Why You’ll Love these Dark Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies
Let me count the ways!
- Loaded with pure dark chocolate
- Super soft inside
- Chewy, hearty oats
- Cinnamon, brown sugar, and molasses for extra flavor
- Buttery crisp edges
- Topped with crunchy sea salt
- No crazy ingredients or mixing techniques
And I know you’ll appreciate this too: the cookie dough chilling time is short, making these a pretty quick cookie that holds its shape beautifully.
The Best Oatmeal Cookie Base
If you’ve made some of my oatmeal cookie recipes before, you’re likely familiar with today’s variation. I usually stick to the same base recipe and you can see that in my Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, White Chocolate Chip Cherry Oatmeal Cookies, Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies, Oatmeal Scotchies, and Oatmeal M&M Cookies.
Have I mentioned I love oatmeal cookies?
I use a little more flour in today’s cookies because of the melty chocolate. Filled with brown sugar, cinnamon, butter, and vanilla flavors, this oatmeal cookie is ALWAYS a guarantee in both the texture and flavor departments. I’ve actually nicknamed them my “slow bend” cookies—the centers are so buttery and chewy that they don’t crunch and break when you start to bend them. The best!
How to Make These Dark Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies
- Cream butter + sugars: Use a hand or stand mixer to cream softened butter with brown sugar and granulated sugar until smooth. For extra flavor and chew, always use more brown sugar than granulated white sugar in oatmeal cookies.
- Add eggs, vanilla, + molasses: Add eggs, then mix on high for about 1 minute until incorporated. Add vanilla and molasses, mix until combined.
- Dry ingredients: Mix flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt together in a separate bowl. Pour this into the wet ingredients. Combine together on low.
- Add the extras: Beat in the oats and chocolate chunks on low speed. Pieces of chocolate will break down, so there’s chocolate in literally every single piece of cookie dough.
- Chill: The cookie dough is pretty sticky, so chilling it is imperative. Without at least 30-60 minutes in the refrigerator, your cookies will spread into flat puddles. Chilling cookie dough is one way to guarantee thicker cookies. If you’re interested, see my 10 tips for how to prevent cookies from spreading. My white chocolate macadamia oatmeal cookies are another quick chill recipe to try.
- Roll: Roll cookie dough into balls and place on a lined baking sheet. Since it’s a textured and chunky dough, I usually use a cookie scoop to help. Since the cookie dough chilled, it’s much easier to work with.
- Bake: Bake the cookies at 350°F (177°C) until lightly browned around the edges. The cookies might look under-baked, but they will continue to set as they cool. While they’re still warm, sprinkle each with a little sea salt.
Best part: Right out of the oven, experience pools of melty chocolate in every single bite.
Best Chocolate To Use
There are so many chocolate products on the market, so let me help you navigate the best choice for today’s cookies. As if you were making chocolate truffles or chocolate ganache, stick to pure quality chocolate here. I’m referring to baking chocolate, which is sold in 4 ounce bars in the baking aisle. Chocolate chips definitely work since these are cookies, but if you want big chunks of melted chocolate, choose chocolate that’s meant to melt. Chocolate chips contain stabilizers that prevent them from melting in the oven.
I recommend bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate. For a sweeter cookie, you can use white chocolate or milk chocolate. I prefer Ghirardelli or Baker’s brands. (FYI Baker’s milk chocolate variety is sold as “German Chocolate.”)
- No matter which level of sweetness you choose, cut the bars into little chunks that are similar or slightly larger than regular chocolate chips. But keep in mind that the smaller the pieces, the more they’ll blend right into the cookie dough turning this into a chocolate oatmeal cookie… which isn’t necessarily a bad thing!
More Dark Chocolate Recipes You’ll Love
- Dark Chocolate Almond Clusters
- Salted Caramel Dark Chocolate Cookies
- Chocolate Cupcakes
- Salted Dark Chocolate Cookies
- Dark Chocolate Orange Biscotti
Dark Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies
- Prep Time: 45 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 3 dozen
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Soft and chewy with slightly crisp edges, these oatmeal cookies are full of flavor and exploding with melty dark chocolate. Chill the dough for at least 30 minutes in the refrigerator before baking.
Ingredients
- 1 cup (230g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 cup (200g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1/4 cup (50g) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 Tablespoon pure vanilla extract (yes, Tablespoon!)
- 1 Tablespoon (15ml) unsulphured or dark molasses (do not use blackstrap; I prefer Grandma’s brand)
- 1 and 2/3 cups (210g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 cups (255g) old-fashioned whole rolled oats*
- two 4-ounce semi-sweet chocolate bars, chopped (1 and 1/2 cups)*
- optional: coarse sea salt for topping
Instructions
- Using a hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream the softened butter and both sugars together on medium speed until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs and mix on high until combined, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed. Add the vanilla and molasses and mix on high until combined. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt together. Add to the wet ingredients and mix on low until combined. Beat in the oats and chocolate on low speed. Dough will be thick, yet very sticky. Chill the dough for 30-60 minutes in the refrigerator (I always chill this dough for only 30 minutes). If chilling for longer (up to 2 days), allow to sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes before rolling and baking. The cookies won’t spread as much if chilled for longer than 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside.
- Roll balls of dough (about 1 and 1/2 Tablespoons of dough per cookie) and place 2 inches apart on the baking sheets. I recommend using a cookie scoop since the dough can be sticky. Bake for 11-12 minutes or until lightly browned on the sides. The centers will look soft and under-baked. Remove from the oven, immediately sprinkle each with sea salt (if using), then let cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. The cookies will continue to “set” on the baking sheet during this time.
- Cover and store leftover cookies at room temperature for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: Baked cookies freeze well up to three months. Unbaked cookie dough balls freeze well – up to three months. Bake frozen cookie dough balls for an extra minute, no need to thaw. Here’s how to freeze cookie dough.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Baking Sheet | Silicone Baking Mat or Parchment Paper | Medium Cookie Scoop | Cooling Rack
- Molasses: If you don’t have molasses, you can leave it out. It’s used to add a little extra flavor, and won’t affect the texture if you skip it. You could also replace it with pure maple syrup.
- Oats: For these oatmeal cookies, I use and recommend old-fashioned whole oats. They provide the ultimate hearty, chewy, thick texture we love!
- Eggs: Room temperature eggs preferred. Good rule of thumb: always use room temperature eggs when using room temperature butter.
- Chocolate: Though chocolate chips work just fine, if you want big chunks of melty chocolate, use pure baking chocolate. See Best Chocolate to Use in the blog post above. I prefer semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate here. Chop chocolate into chunks around the same size or slightly larger than chocolate chips.
- Be sure to check out my top 5 cookie baking tips AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking tools.
- Adapted from Loaded Oatmeal Cookies (The original recipe base. If you’d like to make them that way, follow that recipe and use 1 an 1/2 cups chopped chocolate instead of the listed multiple add-ins). Recipe originally published on Sally’s Baking Recipes in 2015.
Keywords: dark chocolate chunk oatmeal cookies, dark chocolate oatmeal cookies
They were pretty tasty. I did add chopped nuts. I think it might be better to flatten the dough before baking instead of in balls. They stayed round and that meant no crispy edges.
I love these cookies! Is there a reason you don’t use blackstrap molasses? That’s what I’ve used with your recipe(s), and they always turn out great!
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Hi Lisa, Blackstrap molasses can often be bitter, but it’s really personal preference—if you enjoy it, certainly feel free to use it instead!
I’ve made this recipe at least 20 times and this is the first time it was a disaster. Followed the directions the same way. After the first batch came out flat and wet, I looked back at the recipe and mistakenly followed the recipe for the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies which really only seems different in 3 ways (1/6 less flower, 1/4 cup more sugar and less cinnamon). Today I got up and tried again and the same thing happened. Flat, wet undercooked. I even tried baking them longer. So disappointed to have a huge batch of dough in my fridge that I can’t do anything with
Hi Amy, a bad batch of cookies can be so disappointing! Did you multiply the recipe for an extra large batch? It can be easy to mis-measure when multiplying, which is usually the culprit – especially if you’ve made the recipe successfully so many times before. Perhaps you could try adding more flour to the dough?
I’ve made this recipe several times, but I’ve noticed the measurements of ingredients changed at some point (not sure when). Here’s what I have as the original ingredients:
• 1 c unsalted butter, softened
• 2 c packed brown sugar
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 4 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp molasses
• 3 ⅓ c old-fashioned whole rolled oats
• 2 c flour
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 c dark or semisweet chocolate chips
I have made these cookies dozens of times and ALWAYS delicious. May I replace the dark chocolate chunks with dark chocolate covered raisins? I know you have a recipe on the site using Raisinets (which is basically the same thing), but there is the addition of molasses in this recipe which I love.
★★★★★
Hi Amy, so glad you love this recipe! Yes, you can absolutely use chocolate covered raisins in these cookies.
What’s the main different between this receipt and the “Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies” recipe?
Also I don’t have molasses, can I substitute with honey or shall I completely skip?
Excited to make chocolate oat cookies, love all your recipes !
Hi Kristy! This is the same base recipe as our other oatmeal cookie recipes. You can leave out the molasses if you don’t have it. But, if it is available, we highly recommend getting some and using it here. It adds fabulous flavor. Happy baking!
My cookies didn’t spread out as much as they look in the picture. I used maple syrup as a sub for molasses so this could be why my cookies were also not very sweet.
★★★
Delicious and super easy to make!
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I usually love your recipes, but this one did not work out at all for me. The cookies melted in the oven & never set right. Not sure what happened…I’ll try a different oatmeal cookie recipes of yours, maybe I get luckier with those.
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I was going to use maple syrup instead of molasses too. Would it be a 1 to 1 ratio or would you want more syrup since it’s not as thick as the molasses? I’d ideally like the maple flavor to show up in the cookie
Hi Michael, you can use the same amount of maple syrup. You are correct that the flavor will not be as strong as molasses, but we don’t want to add more liquid to the dough. For a stronger maple flavor you can use maple extract.
Haven’t made these yet…wondering if an alternate flour could be used such as oat, almond, or 1-1 GF. Please advise. Thank you!
Hi Judy, we haven’t tested these cookies with alternate flours. They aren’t necessarily always a 1:1 swap as they soak up wet ingredients at different rates. A 1:1 gluten-free flour blend would likely be your best option. Although some readers report using an all-purpose 1:1 gluten-free flour in many of our recipes with success, you should expect slightly different results anytime you substitute ingredients. Let us know what you try!
Hi Sally! What can I replace with molasses? Thank you!
Hi Rai, you can simply leave it out. Or replace with pure maple syrup.
These turned out exactly as I’d hoped! Chewy and delicious, I did half with salt sprinkle and half without (for the kids). Hard to find molasses in my local shops in Australia so used golden syrup, which worked out perfectly. 10/10, will make again!
★★★★★
I bake and followed recipe exactly as written. Mine are not flat as in picture nor are they chewy. They are more cookie/cakey like. Too expensive to make to taste like these did. ♀️
I followed the recipe as well, they were not flat and were cakey, lacked sweetness too.
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I love adding pecans to this recipe. I’ve made them for my office a few times, and they never last long.
★★★★★
Delicious and easy to make! I didn’t have molasses on hand but regardless, it tasted fantastic.
★★★★★
Did you leave molasses out completely? Or did you replace it with anything?
These were the best cookies I’ve made in a long time! I ended up halving the recipe, and I used semi-sweet chocolate chips since I didn’t have anything else on hand. I think we also used blackstrap mollasses and it was yummy. Super good can’t wait to make these again. Cooked 11 minutes exactly in a convection oven.
★★★★★