Tessa's Recipe Rundown
Taste: Tons of sweet vanilla and butterscotch flavor with the right amount of chocolate chips.
Texture: Thick and chewy, with slightly crisp edges, and plenty of gooey chocolate chips.
Ease: Simple 30-minute recipe.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe: These are my go-to Chocolate Chip Cookies — I’ve made this recipe hundreds of times! I always have this dough in my freezer, ready to bake off whenever the craving strikes.
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My Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies are thick, chewy, and gooey. If there’s one thing I’m passionate about, it’s chocolate chip cookies.
You might think me a little unhinged, but I’ve tested this particular recipe over 20 times, with nearly every variation you could think of, to deliver you the superlative chocolate chip cookie!
All that hard work paid off because this is now one of the MOST popular recipes on my site, with over seven million visitors and 1,000 5-star reviews.
Reader Love
I’ve been baking for 50 years and this is the best chocolate chip cookie ever. I love it so much I always have dough balls in freezer ready to bake. Thank you so much for sharing!
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Reader Love
Everyone’s favorite cookie recipe! Everytime I make this recipe it’s guaranteed everyone will ask for it. Easy and great to keep in the freezer!
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Why is this the BEST Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe?
My recipe is simple enough to make on a weeknight, with no fancy ingredients. It’s been meticulously tested and the result is beautiful golden brown cookies, crisp at the edges and a little gooey at the center.
I’ve even made these cookies on The Today Show!
Important Ingredient Notes
Understanding how and why basic baking ingredients work can make you feel like a pro in the kitchen. I chose each ingredient only after careful testing so each one truly does matter.
All-Purpose Flour (measured correctly): I highly recommend using a digital kitchen scale to weigh your flour, or using the spoon-and-level method. It’s shockingly easy to accidentally add too much flour when measuring with cups, which can result in cookies that won’t spread, turn cakey, or go dry.
Baking Soda: After intensive testing, I chose to use only baking soda for leavening in this recipe, which resulted in perfectly golden brown cookies with just enough spread to bake evenly.
Salt: Don’t skip this! Once, my husband forgot the salt in this recipe and I realized it immediately after the first bland, underwhelming bite. I prefer fine sea salt for the taste, but you can also use table salt. Avoid Kosher salt, which doesn’t disperse evenly into the dough. I’ll even sprinkle these cookies with flaky sea salt when they come out of the oven for a salty-sweet bite.
Butter: I prefer to use unsalted butter in my baking because it’s typically fresher than salted butter (salt is a preservative) and it gives me full control of the salt content. If all you have is salted, no worries. Simply cut the salt in half (½ teaspoon) in this recipe.
White Sugar: Also called granulated sugar, this encourages more spread so I only use a small amount.
Brown Sugar: Brown sugar contains molasses, which helps contribute that beloved butterscotch flavor associated with chocolate chip cookies. That molasses draws in more moisture, making for thicker, softer, and chewier cookies that stay good for longer.
Eggs: Essential for binding together the cookie dough, eggs also add extra protein and fat for added richness and structure. Substitute the eggs with 50 grams of plain, unflavored, unsweetened yogurt if needed.
Vanilla: Again, don’t skip this ingredient! It imparts a sweet aroma that tells our brain something amazing is about to happen. Cookies without vanilla can fall flat.
Chocolate Chips: I prefer semisweet chocolate chips (Ghirardelli or Guittard are my favorite) because they have the perfect sweetness to balance out the other flavors of the cookies. If you prefer milk or bittersweet chocolate instead, feel free to use either.
- If you prefer fewer chocolate chips, decrease the amount to 1 ½ cups, just note your cookies may turn out slightly thinner. If you prefer chocolate chunks, swap in the same amount!
How to Make Chocolate Chip Cookies (Step-by-Step)
Whisk together the dry ingredients. This helps to evenly disperse the salt and baking soda.
Add the butter. Make sure it’s at a cool room temperature (about 67°F) to avoid flat cookies. You can use an electric either hand held or a stand mixer.
Cream the butter & sugars. This will take about 2-3 minutes on medium-high speed.
Mixture should be light and fluffy. Meaning, it’s lightened in color and looks more voluminous in texture. Scrape down the bowl at least once.
Add eggs & vanilla. Make sure the eggs are at room temperature so they mix evenly. Scrape down the bowl again.
Add dry ingredients. Begin mixing on low speed to avoid a flour cloud!
Add chocolate chips. To avoid overworking your mixer or the dough, stir them in by hand with a stiff rubber spatula.
Bake or chill. If time permits, wrap the entire mass of dough or scoop into balls and cover tightly in plastic before refrigerating for up to 72 hours to improve flavor and texture.
Sprinkle of Science
If your cookies end up flat, butter that was too warm is likely the culprit. When creaming butter and sugar, your butter should be at a COOL room temperature. 67°F is perfect – or even a couple degrees cooler if your kitchen is very warm. If your butter is too warm, your cookies will spread into flat puddles.
Doing so will create dry, crumbly, hockey puck cookies that don’t spread (left). I promise, sugar does MUCH more than simply sweeten. You can learn more about how sugar functions in baking here.
Although not required for this recipe, I highly recommend chilling the cookie dough for 24-72 hours before baking. You can always bake off a few cookies immediately and chill the rest.
Chilling cookie dough improves your cookies in every way! It allows the moisture in the dough to be better absorbed by the flour, creating a thicker, chewier texture. It enhances the flavor and creates a richer, deeply butterscotch-y cookie. And it improves the golden brown exterior as the cookies bake, for crisp edges.
You can either scoop first and chill (make sure to wrap tightly in plastic), or chill the entire mass of dough, let it come to room temperature, then scoop.
Learn more about why chilling cookie dough matters here.
Each of the pictured cookies was from the same batch of cookie dough, baked at the same temperature of 350°F, and baked for 12 minutes. The only difference? The type of baking pan used!
Key takeaway: If you’re using a nonstick pan, you’ll likely need to decrease the baking time, possibly even the baking temperature. Check out my Best (and WORST) Baking Pans article here for more details on the science of baking pans.
- T-Fal Air Pan: pale cookies that spread more
- Wilton Non-Stick: browned heavily with less spread
- Walmart Mainstays: pale cookies, pan warped and rusted
- Viking Ceramic Lined: cookies burnt on the bottom
- Nordicware Unlined Aluminum: my favorite Goldilocks pan, I own 10 of these!
- OXO Gold Nonstick: browned heavily with less spread
Baking powder and baking soda are not interchangeable. Baking soda reacts with acidic ingredients in your dough or batter. In this recipe, it’s the brown sugar. It elevated the pH, leading to more browning and even spread. It’s my preferred choice for chocolate chip cookies!
Tessa’s Tip for Soft Cookies
Carry-Over Cooking: After ensuring you’ve measured your flour correctly, the trick to soft cookies is to take them out of the oven just before they look like they’re done baking. They should still appear slightly wet in the very center. The residual heat of the oven and pan will finish baking the cookies through to soft perfection once you allow them to cool completely.
My Favorite Cookie Tool: A Scoop
Using a stainless steel spring-loaded cookie scoop when portioning cookie dough is one of the secrets to beautifully uniform, evenly shaped, evenly baked cookies, and quickly. My cookie scoop is one of my most frequently used kitchen gadgets. Learn more about cookie scoops and how to use them here!
Storage
Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.
To Keep Cookies Soft: add a piece of bread or a flour tortilla to your container of cookies about a day or two after baking them, or whenever you find the texture starting to harden. The moisture from the bread or tortilla will migrate to your cookies, making them soft and chewy again.
Freezing Instructions
I love the taste of cookies straight from the oven the best. I always keep cookie dough in my freezer so I can bake a few cookies off at a time in just minutes. If chilling your cookie dough to enhance the flavor and texture, do this FIRST. This magic only happens in the fridge, not the freezer.
- Portion your cookie dough into scoops. Place on a rimmed baking sheet.
- Place the sheet in your freezer for 1 hour, or until the dough balls are hardened.
- Remove to an airtight container and freezer for up to 2 months.
- Bake directly from the freezer at 325°F for 13 to 15 minutes.
Here are more tips for freezing cookie dough.
Troubleshooting & FAQs
If your cookies spread into sad, flat cookie puddles, it probably means that your butter was too warm when creaming. Your butter should be at a COOL room temperature; about 67°F is perfect. Butter that’s too warm can’t cream properly and will cause your cookies to overspread.
If your cookies didn’t spread and look like domes, taste bland, and feel dry and tough, it’s most likely that you accidentally added too much flour. I highly recommend using a digital kitchen scale to measure your ingredients, especially flour. It truly will improve your baking forever!
If you don’t have a scale, use the spoon and level method to measure your flour. Do NOT compact the flour into the measuring cup.
Also, check that your baking soda is fresh and still active. Baking soda helps promote spread and browning, for perfectly spread cookies with a golden brown edge.
Sure! Simply double all ingredients to make approximately 52 large cookies – no other modifications needed. Note: be sure to double-check every ingredient as you double it, so you don’t accidentally mis-measure something!
Yes, a hand mixer will work just as well as a stand mixer here.
Sure! I recommend 1 cup of chocolate chips and 1 cup of nuts.
Yes. Simply cut the salt in half (½ teaspoon) in the recipe.
As soon as the cookies come out of the oven, swirl a round cookie cutter (a little larger than the size of the cookies) around the edges. This pulls the edges of the cookies in for a perfectly round cookie – and, bonus, it also makes them even thicker!
You can also dot the tops of the cookie dough balls with a few extra chocolate chips before placing them in the oven, for extra pretty cookies.
I’ve had good results using Bob’s Red Mill oat flour in place of the all-purpose flour at a 1:1 ratio. The resulting cookies will taste a little nuttier, and will soften more and become chewier as they sit. See my full oat flour experiment on Instagram here!
Yes, replace the eggs with 50 grams of plain, unflavored, unsweetened yogurt. See my full egg substitute experiment on Instagram here.
No. Oatmeal zaps moisture, so recipes must be specifically engineered to include it. Luckily, I already have an Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe here!
Yes, just note that they won’t be as soft and chewy in the center. Use a medium 1.5-tablespoon-size cookie scoop and bake only for about 10-12 minutes instead. You will get about 50 cookies.
Yes, simply halve all ingredients and use a hand mixer instead of a stand mixer to achieve a uniform dough.
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Ingredients
- 3 cups (380 grams) all-purpose flour**
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 2 sticks (227 grams) unsalted butter, at cool room temperature (67°F)
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
- 1 1/4 cups (247 grams) lightly packed light brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 2 cups (340 grams) semisweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar until creamy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl. Add the vanilla and eggs and beat until combined, scraping the bowl down as needed. Gradually beat in the flour mixture. Stir in the chocolate chips.
- Divide the dough into 3-tablespoon sized balls using a large cookie scoop and drop onto prepared baking sheets.
- If time permits, place the dough scoops into an airtight container and refrigerate for at least 24 hours but no more than 72 hours. This allows the dough to “marinate” and makes the cookies thicker, chewier, and more flavorful. Bake from the fridge.
- Bake for 11-13 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool for 5 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely.
- Although I prefer cookies fresh from the oven, these can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days. See post for storage tips.
Notes
More Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes:
- Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies (ultra flavorful!)
- Marbled Chocolate Chip Cookies (classic and double chocolate chip cookie dough in one cookie!)
- Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies (for serious PB lovers only!)
- Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Hot Cocoa Cookies
See ALL of my types of cookie recipes & cookie baking tips here!
These are the most perfect cookies I’ve ever made! I followed the recipe and used half bread flour and half all purpose. They’re gorgeous and delicious. Thank you for this recipe!
This is officially my go to recipe for chocolate chip cookies. They turned out thick, soft and chewy just as described. I halved the recipe thinking we won’t eat that many cookies but I couldn’t have been more wrong!
I have made this recipe so many times. It’s the best. The time in the refrigerator I think is key.
Tried the recipe and the first batch I made came out good! Rested in fridge for over an hour and they were nice and soft. I did run across two issues though.
They would hardly brown! I have a gas oven, baked on 350 with a ceramic pan for 15 minutes and they were really under cooked. I even had to throw them back in the oven for 3 more minutes after they had cooled for 30 minutes because they were unpleasantly under baked in the center.
I made the rest of the batch after 24 hours of resting in the fridge. I used the Nordic pan this time. They still hardly brown and when the cooled this time, they were hard as a brick. I think I cooked them about 18 minutes this time, checking ever 3 minutes after the first 12 minutes of baking.
I measured the flour by weight but the recipe didn’t specify if it before or after sifting so I used weight without sifting.
Any tips would be appreciated as the flavor of these cookies was really good and I would like to try again.
Hi T! I’m glad you enjoyed these cookies, even if they didn’t turn out exactly as they should! A few things:
– Try refrigerating the dough for 24-72 hours before baking. Here at Handle the Heat, we advise you chill pretty much all cookie doughs for 24 – 72 hours to maximize the flavor! Think of it like marinating meats, but for cookies! All that depth of flavor happens while the dough rests.
– You mentioned you measured the flour by weight (and there is no sifting needed for this recipe – or most cookie recipes! Just finer baked goods like cakes, generally speaking, will need sifted flour – and even then, not always!). Did you measure the other ingredients by weight too? Is it possible you accidentally missed an item?
– I also want to mention your leavening agent. If your baking/soda powder are not fresh, they won’t do their jobs and your baked goods can not rise properly, won’t spread properly, and won’t brown properly. Tessa talks about the science behind leavening agents, and how to test for leavener freshness, in this article here!
– Your oven temperature could be off. Did you know that most ovens are not accurately reflecting their real temperature? Check out Tessa’s article here about ovens, full of tips!! If you don’t have an oven thermometer to ensure your oven is at the temperature it says it is, invest in one now! They are inexpensive and really help your baking so much! This oven thermometer is one of Tessa’s favorites.
– Lastly, you mentioned a couple of different baking pans. I realize that’s not entirely the issue here, because neither batch baked well, but ceramic pans aren’t ideal for baking cookies. Different materials of pans conduct heat differently, so some will cook the bottom too quickly, and not leave the cookie appropriate time to spread out gently and evenly – or not quickly enough, and allow the cookie to spread far too much. Tessa discusses and shows the differences between a variety of baking pans in this article here!
Hopefully something here helped! Feel free to reach back out to us with any further questions – we are always happy to help!! 🙂
Do you have the chill the dough ?
Hi Kellie! It’s not entirely crucial that you chill this dough, but there are SO many wonderful benefits to chilling the dough for 24-72 hours. Check out all the wonderful tips about this and so much more, in the pink tip box above the recipe! 🙂
These were fantastic. I have made plenty of nice looking chocolate chip cookies over the last year but not any that TASTED this good. The flavor was great. I was really impressed. Texture was exactly as described and really perfect.
Can you do a mix of half semi-sweet chocolate chips and half semi-sweet chocolate chunks?
Hi Chloe! Yes, that will work just fine 🙂
can I use an egg substitute? My granddaughter is allergic to eggs.
Hi Carol! Unfortunately, we don’t test our recipes with substitutes, so we don’t know if anything exists that will adequately replace all the things an egg does in baking! Best of luck in your search! 🙂
I don’t know where I went wrong. I followed the recipe exactly. My cookies came out more cake like than gooey. Any suggestions? Thanks
Hi Charleyn! I’m sorry to hear that your cookies didn’t turn out as you’d hoped! It sounds like perhaps you accidentally added too much flour. How do you measure your ingredients? By volume (using cups), or by weight (using a digital kitchen scale)? When measuring by volume, it’s so easy to mis-measure flour/sugar/etc and throw off the entire chemistry of a recipe. Tessa talks about how to best measure ingredients to ensure accuracy every time, in this article here! I hope that helps, and I hope you give these cookies another try sometime! 🙂
I’ve made these cookies several times and freeze most of the dough to bake in small batches. I follow the recipe exactly. So good!
Can regular salt be substituted for the sea salt?
Hi Becky! Yes, absolutely – Tessa just prefers the flavor of sea salt, but you can use any type of salt. Learn more about salts here!
Thanks very much. Just getting ready to make the dough .
Can you clarify the size of each cookie for me? The recipe reads to divide the dough into 3-tablespoon-sized balls using a large cookie scoop. Is one cookie 3 tablespoons of dough? I can’t wait to make these.
Hi Rachel! Yes, each cookie is 3T-Tablespoons. You can make them smaller if you wish (and bake for less time), but we find the best results are at the 3-Tablespoon size. I hope that helps! Let us know what you think of these cookies once you have tried them 🙂
Thank you so much for your response. The 3 tablespoons came out gooey in the middle, so I switched to 2 tablespoons. However, the gooey cookies cooled down sufficiently after a while and tasted perfect. I guess I just needed to trust the process. These are the BEST chocolate chip cookies. I packed them for coworkers as Christmas gifts, and they loved them!
So glad to hear that you and your coworkers enjoyed the cookies, Rachel 🙂
Hi there! Could I freeze the dough for a few hours (instead of fridge overnight) and have similar results? I didn’t want to wait overnight lol!
Hi Kylene! No, you can’t speed the process up by putting the dough in the freezer, unfortunately. You want to chill your dough for 24-72 hours, and then bake or freeze. The magic happens in the fridge. Once you put the dough in the freezer, the moisture in the dough will actually freeze; it’s like the dough is in suspended-animation and the flour/starch won’t be able to absorb moisture because the moisture is frozen. Tessa goes into this in more detail about the science behind this, in this article here! If you don’t want to wait, just bake off a couple cookies right away, to satisfy the craving, and then let the rest of the dough chill for a day or two for all the benefits. Let us know what you think once you’ve given it a try 🙂