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 is my favorite chocolate cookie recipe of all time, I found it by accident looking for “melted butter chocolate chip cookies” on google one night. I am sure I have made them at least 40 times now, a gift friends look forward to! I wanted to mention a few things. First of all, I don’t get spreading, but I like them thicker so I really make a slender ball from chilled. Next I wanted to mention the importance of using very fresh baking soda (I started using the kind in a tin rather than boxed as it keeps it much fresher) or baking powder when that applies. Lastly, I mix about 80 grams of chopped pecans in with semisweet chocolate chips and or chunks.
This recipe is so wonderful, so simple, so reliable that I have adapted it to a melted butter lemon cookie too!
Thank you so much!
Can I double the recipe?
Definitely!
OMG! these turned out so good though they didn’t exactly spread as much as i hoped. They still tasted amazing though! thanks!
I love this recipe so much. Unfortunately my cookies didn’t spread out, they still tasted amazing, any advice?? Denise
Hi Denise, if you find the cookies are not spreading enough, you can take them out of the oven and lightly tap the baking sheet on the counter to help initiate spread. Or, you can use the back of a spoon to gently press them down. How are you measuring your flour? Be sure to spoon and level (or use a kitchen scale) to ensure the flour isn’t over-measured, which can prevent spread, too. Hope this helps for your next batch!
Literally the best cookie I’ve ever had.
These are delicious, chewy cookies. They browned a bit too much so will try a shorter time, next time.
Amazing cookies! I made them for a baby shower and they stole the show. I did add some sea salt to the top after they baked and it was the perfect touch.
first time using this cookie recipe (but have used your recipes before) and they turned out amazing! i chilled for 3 hours and they came out with the edges crisp and the insides soft. thank you so much!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!!
I had never made cookies before. I followed your recipe but ended up adding more brown sugar in a moment of panic (oooops!).
The cookies now are out of the oven, they look and smell amazing, and I can’t WAIT to make this again!!!!
Forgot to leave my five star rating exclamation point for the hands-down absolute best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever. If you don’t think you’ll use all of the dough, freeze it and use it right out of the freezer for awesome cookies or a rock cookie dough fix!
Sally, this is hands down, the absolutely best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever! I make it all the time and freeze the dough too. I have actually sliced it right out of the freezer and baked it and they bake out just wonderful!
Super delicious. All the tips were important to making a great tasting and great looking cookie. Thank you!
Super delicious. All the tips were important to making a great tasting and great looking cookie. Thank you!
These are my go to chocolate chip recipe! Everyone loves them! But my cookies keep coming out very flat when they’re cooling :/ any advice??
Hi Gabby, the cookies will deflate a bit when cooling, this is normal, but if they deflate quite a bit, they may have been under-baked. For next time, you can try extending your bake time just a minute or two. Hope this helps!
Oh God, I’m doubling the recipe and I doubled the butter twice. Everything’s all mixed up. How can I rescue it?
Hi Hanna, unfortunately there isn’t much you can do at this point, and that much additional butter will cause the cookies to overspread. You could try baking them into cookie bars to prevent spreading, but they will still be quite greasy.
Hey! Instead of using chocolate chips, can I use small pieces of baking chocolate instead? The chocolate chips I can find are always pretty small and don’t taste good at all in the cookie. Would it mess with the recipe in any way?
Hi Zoya, yes, you can use chopped baking chocolate bars instead. Enjoy!
Yes, these cookies are very delicious for sure!
Quick question. You always say eggs, butter etc must be at room temperature. But the recipe then calls for the batter to be refrigerated before baking. Ingredients are all nice and blended, but now cold. This just seems contradicting.
Hi Carol, great question. You’ll want room temperature ingredients when making your dough so that the ingredients can incorporate more easily. Here is more on the importance of room temperature ingredients, if you’re interested. We then place the dough in the refrigerator (once everything is mixed together) so that the cookies will maintain their shape and not overspread in the oven. Hope this helps!
This is a great recipe that I have made a few times and it comes out fantastic every time 🙂 one question though – if I want to cut the recipe in half this time, would I still do a whole egg + extra yolk? Or just one whole egg?
Hi Kalie, To halve an egg, you can crack it in a bowl, whisk to combine the yolk and white, measure it, then use half. Should be a couple Tablespoons. You can also mix up the one yolk separately and then only use half. We would recommend making the whole recipe, freezing any extra dough balls, and then just baking as many as you want at a time.
These are the greatest cookies I’ve made! However my son has recently been diagnosed with a wheat allergy – can this be made with gluten free flour?
Hi Ellie, I haven’t tested this recipe with gluten free flours, but many readers have reported success using 1:1 flour substitutes (like Cup4Cup). If you try it, let us know how it goes!
Definitely coming back to make this. It’s simple, easy and most importantly delicious! I am 14 and love to bake and cookies are always a struggle for me because they don’t taste right but this recipe does. Thank you so much!
These are delicious, picture perfect cookies!! I make without melting the butter and therefore there is no need to chill them. I also make with dairy-free butter. I have tried becel margarine and vegan butter with success.
Made for the second time. Love it! Easy recipe steps to follow and comes together in no name. Delicious! Thanks Sally!
Can I substitute brown butter? Since we have to melt it anyway?? I think that might add some extra depth of flavor… same ratio? If I make the brown butter the day before and let it solidify overnight on the counter, it would only take a few seconds to zap it in the microwave to melt it. Thoughts??
Mich, you can certainly 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.
Just made these. I put the dough in the fridge because I’m going to bake them tomorrow but I couldn’t resist and made just one in the air fryer to test it out. Delicious! Saved this recipe thanks!
This was so good 100/10. I added a bit of cream of tartar and a peanut butter filling inside and it was the most successful chewy soft cookies I have ever made. It tasted absolutely divine. 10/10 would recommend and it’s so easy as well
These were so delicious, my family and I enjoyed them very much.
Wow these cookies are truly good my fam loved them
Best recipe ever!
Yes I love this recipe
I chilled the dough overnight and left it out for 15 minutes before shaping. Unfortunately, the dough was too hard to work with, and I ended up leaving it out at room temperature for about 1 hour. I didn’t need to use the spoon to keep them from spreading because they didn’t move much. My son said they were very good.