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
Was wondering why oven temp temp is was wondering why the oven temperature so low, I thought that made cookies spread. ?
Hi Lynne, we find 325 degrees just right for these cookies. It doesn’t make the cookies overspread, but if you find yours do just a bit, see the recipe video for a tip on how to bring the cookies back to their proper shape.
Cookies are good. I only refrigerated for 3 hours. I made one batch , and the cookies came out a little flat. I will make another batch tomorrow to see if refrigerating longer makes a difference. Thank you for the recipe.
I got started and realized I didnt have any brown sugar so I substituted granular sugar. How will this affect the outcome. The dough is chilling right now.
Hi Herb, the cookies may be very slightly less soft & chewy without the moisture from brown sugar.
Hi. Thanks for your recipe. I usually use Olive Oil in place of butter in patisserie… I don’t taste much of a difference with butter. Is it the reason why I have trouble getting them chewy. OK, I will try 1 1/1 egg and corn starch to test the difference. And brown sugar (we call that cassonade I think in French) Best… Leo
This was so yummy. Sally makes the best cookies
I love all your recipes and can’t wait to make this one! If I wanted to sub some wheat flour for the white flour, what would you recommend?
Hi Jessica, we recommend sticking with all purpose flour for these cookies.
Sally, your recipes are just the best! Everything I’ve baked from here has been a family and friend favorite! These cookies get even better in the days after they’re baked!
In your baking recipes , does it matter if we use iodized or kosher salt ? I usually only ever have kosher salt on hand
Hi Canel, We use table salt unless otherwise noted.
These were wonderful, although mine turned out a bit too greasy. After putting them on kitchen towel, they tasted significantly better, but they lost quite a bit of butter still. They didn’t have fat puddles in the middle or anything extreme, but I’m surprised they were this buttery, because I used a kitchen scale and followed the instructions precisely to the gram, including the weight of a Large egg US vs Germany.
Is this just cultural difference (EU baked goods tend to use quite a bit less butter and sugar and I haven’t baked overseas-style much) and they’re meant to be like this, or is there a difference in US vs European flour?
After de-greasing them they taste lovely, thanks for the recipe!
European butter has a higher butterfat than American. It’s much better quality. I am in Canada and it’s the same. If I use quality organic butter that is made locally, it is too greasy like you said.
I made these yesterday and they are the best batch of cookies I have ever made. Your website is basically my baking bible. Thank you!
BEST COOKIES EVER…..MY NEW RECIPE! I double/triple the recipe and share with family. In demand.
This recipe is so good!!!!
I recommend it to everyone who wants to try out a new cookie recipe!
Best cookies of my life. If somehow you can manage to not eat them all today, they are (hard to believe) even better the next day. They also adapt great to a cast iron skillet, cooked as one giant cookie.
Wow!
If I say these cookies are the best I’ve ever had in my life, damn they are. Highly recommend it!
I normally don’t leave reviews, but these were absolutely perfect! They were a huge hit. I followed the recipe exactly and let the dough chill about 2.5 hours. This will become my new chocolate chip cookie recipe.
This is the best chocolate chip cookie recipe that I have ever made. They are soft chewy buttery and the best tasting cookie in my recipe box now. I’ve made them three times so far. Thanks for the recipe
I’ve made this recipe Both times they tasted really good. Today the dough was crumbly. Did I measure wrong or overmix?
Hi Jackie, 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!
How important is it to have unsalted butter?
Hi Anna, If you only have salted butter you can use it and reduce the added salt to 1/8 teaspoon.
This recipe is great! I didn’t want to wait for the cookies to cool, so I upped the amount of corn starch and baking soda just slightly (1/2 tsp more of each). I mixed the wet ingredients first in a stand mixer followed by the dry, folded in the chocolate chips, and baked them without any cooling. They came out perfect – the best chocolate chips cookies I’ve ever had!
I was always a lover of the classic chocolate chip cookie recipe but this recipe wins! It’s soft and chewy, with just enough crunch at the edges. The extra egg and cornstarch does the trick. My new go to recipe!!
Hi I have a question. So my oven has this feature where you can use “convection bake” or normal bake. People say that when you’re baking cookies, you use convection bake. So I was wondering which one would be the best for your recipe. Thank you!
Hi Khadija, We always recommend and write our recipes for 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.
I really love this recipe! Can I double the recipe? and if so do I double every single ingredient? or do something different with the leavener?
Hi Shellby, yes, you can double this recipe by doubling all ingredients.
This recipe didn’t work out for me it was terrible the cookies are harder then a rock it doesn’t even taste good I don’t know what I did wrong but it doesn’t taste good
Hi Lily! Hard cookies can be caused by over-baking (an easy fix for next time!), or too much flour in the dough. 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.
Hi, I was looking for a chewy-soft delicious melt in your mouth chocolate chip cookie and was absolutely not dissappointed! Thank you so much for such an amazing recipe and with clear details! It was easy to follow and it worked! I hate it when the receipe is not clear and worse, it doesn’t work for your average home baker! I’l keep on trying your recipes. Thank you so much for making it so delicious and fun to bake at home!
Worst chocolate chip recipe I have ever tried! I am 76! Had not used cornstarch before in this type of cookie recipe but not sure what exactly made them turn out more like chocolate chip biscuits or scones. Edible but that’s about all!
Hi Tarry! It sounds like your dough was too dry. 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 a recipe for chocolate chip cookies that were formed into a slight dome shape before baking. I cannot find the recipe. Did it come from your website? I use your recipes a great deal so I thought it might have been one of your recipes.
Hi Joan, yes! We like to form the cookies into taller domes/columns. You can see how we do so in the video for this recipe.
My dough were very hard after I got it out of the fridge is that a problem?0
Hi Rochelle! This is normal, if it is too hard, let it sit at room temperature for 10 minutes or so.
Hello from Riyadh
I followed the recipe to the letter, but after baking the first batch for 13 minutes, they still needed more time in the oven. The second batch I baked for 18 minutes and they came out wonderful.
Thank you
They are so beautiful and buttery
My family ate it in a day
Honestly the best cookie recipe I have ever tasted!