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
This turned out to be like my favourite Starbucks choc chip cookies but better.
I’m a brand new baker! This was so simple and DELICIOUS! I’d recommend this to anyone I can lol Try this recipe! It is sooooo worth it!!!!
I love this recipe and been using for a year already! Just a question for the sweetness, my brother find it very sweet, how much can I deduct on the sugar but not compromising the overall taste, appearance, and texture of the cookie? TIA
Hi Lynn, You can try reducing the sugar, but keep in mind that sugar plays an important role in the taste, texture, and structure of a recipe, so we’re unsure of the results when using less sugar. We’d recommend starting small, and then you can reduce further in future batches as needed.
Hello,
Would this dough be ok to make a cookie bowl with or does it spread too much?
Hi ZEB, we haven’t tested this dough as cookie bowls, but it should work well if you use it inside of a large muffin tin to help it keep shape. You might also try it with our soft chocolate chip cookies—that dough spreads a bit less since we use creamed butter instead of the melted butter that we use here. Let us know what you try!
Can i not chill this recipe if i dont what will happen
These were absolutely amazing! Looking into getting one of your books <3 Your recipes are always top knotch.
This is my go-to cookie recipe whenever there’s a cookie emergency. I usually have some of this frozen as well.
Made this for the first time and my kids have just said we’re never allowed to buy cookies again. They are absolutely incredible.
When I chill mine I put the whole batch on about 18 to 24 inch long peice of cling wrap and roll it up like a log. Put it in the freezer for 1 hour and then unwrap it and cut it in halves until I have about 1bamd a quarter inch peices. Saves tons of time and they come out perfect.
Hi Anna, this recipe yields 16 XL cookies or 20 medium/large cookies.
This is the best chocolate chip cookie recipe I’ve ever found. I followed this precisely and the results were really addictive.
Thank you…thank you… thank you! I’ve finally found what I’ve been looking for for the longest time. The cornstarch is one of ingredients I’ve been missing.You also showed a trick of rolling the dough into a small cylinder instead of a ball, which definitely helped with the appearance of a true CCC. My wife even loved them…and she’s not a big cookie eater.
I’am a rookie baker. It’s been 10 yrs. Since I’ve baked. I thought I would try your chocolate chip cookie recipe! OMG They turned out amazing! I am so proud of myself (thanks to you) your cookies and I are a BIG hit . .OUR GRANDKIDS ❤️ them. Niagara Falls thank you
Hi Sandy, we’re so glad they turned out well for you! Happy baking!
This is the very best chocolate chip cookie recipe I have ever used! Perfection!
Followed recipe and cookies still fell… what am I doing wrong?
Hi Paige, thank you for giving this cookie recipe a try! Here are our best tips to keep cookies from spreading. Make sure to let the melted butter cool a bit before continuing with the recipe as well.
These came out sooo good. Best chocolate chip cookie I’ve had in a long time.
This recipe was so on point and easy to follow. Thank you! High balls! Post chocolate chip! Genius!
This recipe was the perfect thing for me to share with my friends! It was so delicious and heartwarming!
Hi, can’t wait to try this recipe out! What temperature should I bake the cookies at with a fan oven?
Hi Martha, We always recommend conventional settings for baking (not convection/fan) and our recipes are written as such. 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.
Do you think I could brown the butter and still get the same results?
Hi Coco, 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.
These are the very best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever baked! I didn’t have cornstarch but they came out so good! Thank you Sally for this amazing recipe!
I love Sally’s recipes.. Use them a lot.
I never have unsalted butter, can I use salted butter, and do I need to change anything.
Hi Pam, If using salted butter, reduce the added salt to 1/8 teaspoon.
Help! I’ve been making this recipe for years and it’s always turned out perfectly. In December 2022, I made several batches and they all came out flat. I tested my oven temp (I even tried baking them in a different oven), made several different batches on different days and couldn’t figure out the problem. I even thought it might be my farm eggs, but the store-bought ones had the same results. Fast-forward to yesterday, I tried the recipe again and AGAIN they all fell flat. I’m completely at a loss. I started thinking maybe you changed the recipe since I’m pretty sure I’ve been using it longer than this has been posted but the only difference is the original name was Chewy Chocolate Chunk Cookies; the ingredients are the same. Any suggestions on what could be the problem would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Alyssa, I’m just seeing your question/comment now! The recipe did not change since originally publishing it in 2013, but I did change some of the wording and I updated the photos. When making several batches, are you doubling the recipe at all? Because I wonder if it’s something to do with the increased volume. If you’re making a single batch and the cookies are too flat, try adding another 2-3 Tbsp of flour which will help soak up the butter.
Just perfect! First time for me..
I added about 1 3/4 cups of mixins (chocolate chunks and coconut flakes combined) how do I make up for it before I bake them?
This is my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe! Makes the perfect, soft, chewy cookie. I weigh out my dough at about 40g for a medium sized cookie – makes about 24 give or take how much dough I eat before they make it to the oven! My favourite add in is half choc chips and half chopped Oreos!
We made these tonight and they were unbelievable
These are the perfect chocolate chip cookie. Crisp crust, chewy middle, medium-thick center. The balance of crisp to soft is amazing. The brown to white sugar ratio plus generous amount of vanilla add some nice, deeper than typical flavor. I won’t be looking for another recipe. Feel like I’ve tried them all and finally found the one.☺
I made a lot of cookies before. This one was too sweet and cakey for me. I wanted a chewier texture not cakier. Other recipes don’t use the extra cornstarch and egg yolk, maybe those were the culprits?
Hi Cely, were you sure to follow the bake times? If over-baked, or if the flour was over-measured by accident, the cookies will come out chewy. I add cornstarch to help thicken the dough, and to produce softer cookies. The egg yolk adds some extra chewiness. Thank you for your feedback.
I have been baking for many years, mostly successfully, but I can’t seem to perfect goofy chocolate chip cookies. I love the thickness of shortening cookies, but won’t do it for chocolate chip as the butter has the best flavor. Half and half isn’t ideal, I seem to get the worst qualities of each. I have tried many recipes, King Arthur was winning , but I want to try yours.
My question is about size. I don’t want giant bakery size cookies. I want smaller ones since you get so many more (I know, but there is something satisfying about having a plate of 6 different small cookies rather than one or two big ones.) I don’t want flat, not cakey, but 2.5 – 3 inch diameter finished cookies. No 1/4 cup dough balls, more like walnut size (even ping pong balls make too-big cookies. Will these work for more old-school, standard size cookies? P.S. ill probably try anyway, but it would be a nice option to post along with any tips such as shape or slight temperature change or something. Thanks so much?
Hi Nancy, you can certainly make smaller dough balls for smaller baked cookies. We’re unsure of the exact bake time, but temperature should remain the same. To keep the cookies on the thicker side, we’d recommend the same shaping method outlined in this recipe. Let us know if you do give these a try.