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
Best CCC ever! TY!!
I don’t have time to let them cool in a refrigerator so will it mess it up if I don’t?
Hi Liza! The cookies will spread too much if not properly chilled. You could always bake them as bars so you don’t have to worry about them spreading. Or, next time, try our no-chill chocolate chip cookies recipe – feel free to make them smaller than the giant size.
I did this by accident the first time and I liked the way they came out. Kind of like a Lacey cookie. You would have to be careful not to let them run off the edge of the cookie sheet though.
So I love this recipe so much and have used it for several years now! I brought the ingredients to the mountains this week and when I made them they got all caramelized on top like a meringue. They also didn’t lost their fluff. How would I better account for altitude and what made them caramelize like that?
Hi Emily, we wish we could help, but we have no experience baking at high altitude. Some readers have found this chart helpful: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/high-altitude-baking.html We’re glad these are favorites for you!
I loved this recipe so much!
Just made theses for the 4th time and they turned out very puffy and cakey. WHY?
Hi Mary, 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.
Love this recipe! One question… why do you use melted butter instead of softned butter. I’ve heard /know that softened butter is used for chewier cookies, which are these. Thanks!
Hi Laura! You can see a list of ingredients and why we use them in the blog post above. So glad you love them!
Omg these are amazing!!!!
Great Job
I have used your website for many years! However, it seems the format of the page has changed and there is no longer a simple “search” option. Just one user opinion, but I think in addition to your filter options, it would be nice to retain this feature.
Hi Erika! The search button is at the top of the page, a magnifying glass in a blue circle in the top right hand corner. Thank you so much for making our recipes!
I have made this recipe no less than a dozen times and I always have people asking me for the recipe! I have gotten smarter and will make more dough than I need so I can have cookie dough balls in the freezer to bake at a moments notice!
I made chocolate chip cookies with my nephew earlier this week and they were flat, they tasted ok but just flat. So I googled and found this recipe and was a bit apprehensive to make them for an outing tomorrow. However they came out fluffy, chewy, and soft. I am thrilled with this recipe and will use it in the future. My only possible addition is to add nuts to cut the sweetness.
Best chocolate chip cookies on the planet. Thank you.
Hello,
Would it work to replace a portion of the white flour with spelt or kamut? Thank you.
Hi Joan, we haven’t tested it but fear those would dry out the cookies too much. Here are our healthier baking recipes if you’re interested in browsing there!
Hi Sally, love this recipe, I’ve been making it for years <3
I have to make about 150 mini cookies for a wedding, what adjustments (if any) would you recommend ? Thanks !
Hi Fanny, bake time will be a bit shorter for mini cookies. You can use the bake time for these mini M&M cookies as a guide. Hope they’re a hit!
I’ve been baking this cookies for numerous times. My friends and my family love it.
I don’t know what happened followed to recipe for your soft chewy chocolate chip cookies and they turned out hard. I was so disappointed. I thought I used the recipe quite a while ago and thought they had turned out great but this time I don’t know.
Been making these for a while and have picked up a few tips. If you’re in a hurry, form the cookies into shape first then freeze several close together on a baking sheet for about 30 minutes. Then separate them out into 9 per baking sheet before baking. I find they stay softer in the middle this way as well. SOOOOO good! I also make mine with salted butter and omit the salt and they are *chef’s kiss*
These cookies are not chewy
These are amazing!!!! Just got the second batch in the oven now and they’re coming out so good. I tried another recipe from a different site which were very flat and greasy so this recipe was a pleasant surprise. Thank you from New Zealand 🙂
I am diabetic and was wondering when one of your recipes calls for granulated or brown sugar, can I substitute it with Splenda to make it more diabetic-friendly?
Hi Sandie, We’d love to help on the question of Splenda, 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.
These are hands down our favorite chocolate chip cookies. If I make any other kind, my family complains and asks why I would dare deviate.
I have made TONS of chocolate chip cookie recipes, but have never been really happy with any of them. This recipe just may be the one I’ve been looking for! First, the details in the instructions are spot on. And shaping in a cylinder instead of a ball is brilliant! I made the recipe today, using the med scoop and weighing them to be around 1.75 oz each and made 18. I baked at 325, yes 325 was just fine for a golden color, for around 12 minutes. I did let the dough sit out for around an hour as it was too solid to scoop at 10 min (after chilling overnight). I added a couple of chips on top after baking and the look was exactly what I wanted: roundish, crinkly, golden brown, semi thick, med-large (around 3″ ), very tasty chocolate chip cookies. I wasn’t looking for “cookie cutter round”, but more “rustic”, and these delivered. Thank you Sally!!!
Can this recipe be doubled?
Hi AJ, yes, this cookie dough doubles nicely.
Very good. I wanted some crispy and I got it. I used convection bake and it took a lot longer than in recipe. I kept watch after 10 mins. First in took over 15 mins. 325 is low but I followed the recipe. Even the extra yoke. 2 1/2 doz or more. I made them high as says. I wanted larger but wasn’t sure how many. Went with smaller cookies. Chilled overnight till next night. Used parchment.
I’m not allowed to bring anything to family functions except iced tea. Yes I’m that bad a cook. These came out exceptionally well. My husband was very happy. If I can do this successfully anyone can!! They stay soft (?). Is that the right word? My new go to recipe for cookies!! Maybe I’ll bake some for my next family function,
So glad you enjoyed them, Kim!
Definitely an awesome recipe but I followed all the steps and my cookies are still sitting high up and look nothing like yours do. I have no idea what im doing wrong
Hi Alli, 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. That can cause it to soak up too much of the wet ingredients and prevent the cookies from properly spreading. An easy fix for next time!
Hi lexi!! Yes and I actually dont level off often with a knife but I made sure to do it this time. Im going to try them again today and see if maybe I don’t leave the dough in the fridge for as long as I did maybe they will make a difference or it might be my oven temperature. Hopefully they work out I love this recipe. It tasted so good!!!
Best cookies ever!!!
I have tried a ton of different recipes, this is one of the best. I was able to use crud I instead and doubled the recipe exactly as called for. I also mix all my dry ingredients first and combine my wet ingredients then add those in and bring everything together by hand so it creates a crumbly textured mix. Then I scoop it and squeeze each ball together and place on my cookie sheet and they bake perfectly.
Held shape. Soft and chewy. I baked mine 1-2 minutes less. But I make them small. 🙂
Thank you so much!
Delicious and totally upgradeable!
I used this recipe as my base recipe for cookie monster cookies. (I dyed the dough blue) also added white chocolate chips, oreo bits, and chips ahoy bits. They turned out so soft and chewy and perfect! Thanks Sally for another great recipe!
Sally, can I double the recipe?
Hi Bonnie, yes, this recipe doubles well. Enjoy!
Hello, this is my absolute favourite cookie recipe! I’m wondering if they can be altered for a gluten free alternative? Would a 1-1 ratio of gluten free flour work in replace of the all purpose flour?
Thank you 🙂
Hi May, many readers have used a GF flour blend instead of all-purpose flour here. I have not personally tested it though.
I was needing to know if whole wheat flour could be used in this recipe. If so, how much and what other ingredients would need to be altered. . Thanks so much!
Hi Jennifer, we recommend sticking with all purpose flour for these cookies.
Omg. I have finally found THE chocolate cookie recipe that I will be making from now on. I don’t know why but I have always struggled at making a good chocolate chip cookie. The ones I make are alright, but not ones that anyone would remember. These are so good! They are thick, chewy, and look great. I did chill mine in the freezer overnight. I did have to cook mine for an extra few minutes to get the correct golden brown look (my oven never cooks things long enough).