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
The cookies are amazing but even when I spoon and level the flour, it hardly spreads. What can I do to make it spread more ?
Hi Nifemi, If you’re in the middle of baking a batch and the cookies still aren’t spreading, remove them from the oven, and use a spoon to slightly flatten them out before returning them to the oven, or simply bang the baking sheet on the counter 2-3 times. You can also take your big bowl of cookie dough and microwave it for 10-15 seconds to slightly warm it up before scooping/rolling/baking. Warm cookie dough spreads more. Hope these tips help for next time!
These cookies taste fantastic, but for some reason, the batter doesn’t spread when I made them, do you know where it went wrong?
Thank you!
Hi Abigail, When cookies aren’t spreading, it usually means that there’s too much dry infredient (flour) soaking up all the liquid. When measureing flour, use the spoon and level method. Do not scoop the flour out of the container. Doing so leaves you with excess flour in the cookie dough.
I’ve mad these cookies many times and even when I mess them up they still taste great!
I was wondering, if I wanted to make chocolate chocolate chip cookies, would I substitute cocoa powder or just add? And how much?
Hi Whitney, we’d recommend using our double chocolate chip cookies recipe instead—same great chewy texture but with a chocolate dough!
Merry Christmas Sally!!
These cookies have been the family favorite and pretty much anywhere I take them, it’s a hit!!! I have an odd question and I’m not a baker per se, just something my girls asked me to do. I was wondering since the cookies come off the parchment paper so we’ll, do you reuse if or use a new sheet…. I’ve been using new sheets each time… thank you!
Tom
Hi Tom, if the parchment is clean, you can reuse it. So glad you love these cookies!
This receipe is amazing! First time making cookies and it turned out exactly like described. Delicious
Hands down the BEST chocolate chip cookie recipe I’ve ever made! Unbelievably soft and delicious! This will forever be my go-to recipe!
I tried the banana bread trick for making chocolate chips stick to a wet batter: Coat them in flour first.
This really helps the chips fold in and stick to the somewhat wet cookie dough.
What can I do if the batter is sticky ?
I have also noticed , when I let my butter cool down. The water separates. Is that normal ?
We find the dough to be a little sticky, but after chilling the dough it becomes much less sticky!
This is the BEST chocolate chip recipe I’ve ever tried!
Heyy can I substitute whole wheat four 1:1 in this recipe? As I’d like to bake them for my grandparents I want to make it as healthy as possible without changing ingredients it’s taste and texture
Hi Rita, We wish we could help more, but we haven’t tried making these cookies with whole wheat flour. It will likely take some trial and error and tweaking the other ingredients to find the best combination of ingredients. Let us know if you give anything a try! If you’re interested, here are all of our recipes using whole wheat flour.
Great recipe, easy to make. Made one batch per the original and second batch substituting 20g flour with cocoa powder and ended up with great triple chocolate cookies. Will definitely use again
The cookies taste amazing but I keep getting the same problem over and over again, my cookies do not rise. I used the same measurement and spoon and level method but it’s still the same. And also can I substitute margarin for butter? Since butter is hard to get from where I live, thank you!
Hi Lei, Are you using the middle oven rack, or are the cookies closer to the top heating element. Or are you using a convection oven by chance? We always recommend 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. Margarine does not have the same baking properties (or flavor!) as butter. We don’t recommend that swap.
Hi, I followed the instructions, and my cookies taste great, but they do not look like the pictures. They didnt spread much in the oven. I shaped them exactly how it says. They came out thick and sort of dome-y shape. What could have been the issue
Hi Kris, when cookies aren’t spreading, it usually means that there’s too much dry ingredient (flour) soaking up all the liquid. 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 am having the same issue. The cookies are not spreading really at all. I pressed each with a spatula when I took them out of the oven so the domes are flattened but they are quite thick still.
This recipe was not good, the cookies came out cakey and did not spread at all. This was very disappointing to say the least.
Im in the middle of making these now and things are not going according to plan. I followed the recipe to a T, but my butter/sugar/egg mixture was NOT thin, and now it’s not forming a dough with the dry ingredients. Just a fluffy clumpy mess. Help!!
Hi Kathleen! Were your eggs room temperature? If they were cold, they would make the butter solidify and make the dough too thick.
The search is over–this is hands down the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever. This is amazing! Every single cookie came out so good that I couldn’t believe that I made them. (To anyone reading this review…don’t doubt anything about the recipe, just follow exactly what she says and you’ll be rewarded with blissfully wonderful cookies.)
Sally–thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing this!! This will be treasured by my family for years to come!
I loved it so much. The only thing is that it’s too sweet for me. How can I reduce sugar slightly so it’s not too sweet?
Hi Aida, feel free to slightly reduce one or both of the sugars, but keep in mind that if you decrease the sugar the cookies will not have the same texture (it’s used for texture and moisture in addition to taste) and it can impact the spread of the cookies, too. Thanks for giving these a try!
Love these! This recipe is a keeper. Lost my Moms recipe and have looked and looked for one that was as good as hers. These taste so good! And are chewy! Thank you for the recipe!
Comes out delicious every time!
Love your cookie recipe. My favorite addition is 1 cup toffee bits. I have even purchased toffee candy bars. I freeze them then break into small pieces.
Can you brown the butter! I love that taste on cc cookies?
Hi Eva, 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.
It’s my first time making cookies and this recipe is the best for beginners like me. The ingredients and instructions are easy to follow. I would recommend this recipe to others!
What happens if you don’t chill it?
Hi Annie, chilling this dough makes for the best cookie texture and taste, and keeps them from overspreading in the oven.
Sally, can you clarify about the add-ins? If I want to add nuts, can I add 1 1/4 c nuts in addition to the 1 1/4 c. choc chips called for in the recipe? Or do I need to reduce the choc chips so that the chips plus the nuts equal 1 1/4 c.? I have made these before, but I want to add nuts this time and want to be sure I do it correctly. Thanks.
Hi J, we mean 1 1/4 cup add-ins including the chocolate chips. So if you wanted to use half chocolate chips and nuts, you’d reduce the amount of chips by half. Enjoy!
What’s the quantity of cookies for this recipe? Wondering if I should double it
Hi Joy, this recipe yields 16 XL cookies or 20 medium/large cookies.
Can I use a smaller cookie scoop (1 tbs)? Will it need less time in the oven?
Hi RL, certainly! The cooking time will be shorter, but we’re unsure of the exact time needed. 350°F (177°C) would be a better baking temperature if you aren’t making large cookies. Let us know if you give it a try!
The best chocolate chip cookie recipe!!
I NEED TO KNOW IF I CAN USE SALTED BUTTER I DID NOT SEE IT IN YOUR HINTS TIPS AND NOTES…..BUT CAN I?
Hi Shirley, it’s best to use the type of butter called for in a recipe. But here’s a general rule: reduce or add 1/4 teaspoon of salt per 1/2 cup (1/4 lb; 115g; 1 stick) of butter.
I grew up on Tollhouse cookies and your cookies have turned me into a cookie snob! These are the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever had!
This recipe is truly amazing. I have been looking for years for a recipe to make thick soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies! This is the best recipe ever for these, 100% recommended