Tessa's Recipe Rundown
Taste: Incredibly sweet, rich, and buttery, with a cozy element, courtesy of the cinnamon!
Texture: Soft and dense. Chewy in the center and crispy around the edges.
Ease: Almost effortless!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe: It’s a slightly different take on classic chocolate chip cookies, making it just unique enough not to mess with a good thing. It’s also quick and easy, with a total prep time of only 30 minutes.
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This classic, quick oatmeal chocolate chip cookies recipe combines hearty rolled oats, cozy brown sugar, and warm hints of cinnamon. Think oatmeal raisin cookies, but better!
After years of testing cookie recipes, I wanted a version that combined that nostalgic oatmeal chew with the rich flavor of a classic chocolate chip cookie. These bake up soft in the middle, crisp at the edges, and perfectly cozy! This is the kind of cookie that disappears faster than you expect — every time.
If you’re looking for a classic, no-oats version, try my soft chocolate chip cookies! They’re chewy, gooey, and one of the most popular recipes on the site.
Reader Love
These cookies are a perfect addition to a cookie box or all on their own. A true classic, you can’t go wrong with this recipe at any time of the year.
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Ingredient Notes
Each ingredient for this recipe plays an important role in creating a fun twist on classic chocolate chip cookies. The key ingredients include:
- Oats: Old-fashioned or quick oats work for this recipe, but I recommend old-fashioned oats. They create a heartier and chewier cookie texture and hold their shape better. Oats generally steal moisture (in any recipe), but old-fashioned oats are a little less absorbent than quick oats.
- Chocolate chips: I use semi-sweet chocolate chips, but you can substitute them for the same amount of milk chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, or bittersweet chocolate chips. These swaps will vary the cookie’s sweetness, so keep that in mind. You can also swap them out for chopped nuts — like walnuts or pecans — or raisins at a 1:1 ratio.
- Cinnamon: I love adding a pinch of cinnamon to complement the other flavors, but you can leave it out if you prefer.
- Sugars: For this recipe, you’ll need granulated sugar and dark brown sugar. The molasses in the dark brown sugar adds a delicious caramel element and helps keep the dough moist.
- Eggs: The eggs and egg yolk add richness and additional moisture. I haven’t found any easy substitutes, but feel free to experiment if needed.
- Butter: Make sure you’re using room-temperature unsalted butter. Around 67°F is ideal (or even a few degrees cooler). Too warm butter can cause the cookies to overspread and flatten while baking.
Reader Love
I just got done making these cookies and they turned out amazing. Thank you so much for sharing the recipe. Since I started following your advice to weigh rather than measure, my baking has gone up several notches.
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Sprinkle of Science
How to Make Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
These cookies come together quickly, but a few small details make all the difference between good and perfectly chewy results. Here’s how to make them step by step:
- Preheat the oven and pans. Preheat the oven to 350°F and line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Combine the dry ingredients. Whisk together all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Mix well to evenly distribute the dry ingredients before mixing with the wet ingredients.
- Cream the butter and sugars. Beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar on medium-high until the mixture looks smooth and well combined — about a minute or two.
- Add eggs and vanilla. Mix until the dough looks cohesive and glossy.
- Mix everything together. At low speed, gradually add the flour mixture and beat until it is just combined. Stir in the oats and semisweet chocolate chips. You’ll have a thick, chunky dough.
- Portion and bake. Portion the dough with a large spring-loaded scoop (about 3 tablespoons). Flatten slightly with the bottom of a measuring cup, and bake 14-15 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through. The edges should be lightly golden.
- Cool. Let the cookies rest on the baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling racks.
The Perfect Cookie Baking Tips
These are so simple to pull together, and with a few small technique tweaks, your cookies will look just as good as they taste. Here are some things to keep in mind:
- Use a digital kitchen scale to measure the flour. It’s easy to accidentally compact the flour with measuring cups. Compacted flour means dry, hard cookies that don’t spread. If you don’t have a scale, use the spoon and level method instead.
- Don’t reduce the sugar! Sugar does more in a recipe than create sweetness — it also affects the moisture, chewiness, and spread. If you decrease the sugar, the cookies will be less sweet, harder, drier, crumblier, and spread far less. I experimented with reducing sugar and found that it resulted in one fewer cookie dough ball.
- Be sure to use unsalted butter at a cool room temperature. Too warm butter can cause the cookies to overspread and flatten while baking.
- For thicker cookies, put the dough balls in the freezer while the oven preheats. The cooler the dough is when placed in the oven, the thicker and chewier the cookies will turn out. You can also refrigerate the dough balls for up to 2 days before baking — just keep them well-covered and don’t leave them any longer than that!
For pretty cookies:
- Use a large spring-loaded cookie scoop to create perfectly round and even dough balls.
- Roll the dough balls between your palms to smooth out, then flatten slightly so they spread evenly.
- Dot the already shaped dough balls with a few more chocolate chips.
- Bake on a heavy-duty, unlined aluminum half-sheet pan lined with parchment paper for golden brown cookies.
Check out my giant chocolate chip cookies for even more cookie science and bakery-style tips!
More Cookie Recipes You’ll Love:
- Biscoff Browned Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Bourbon Rye Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies
FAQs
You can use light brown sugar instead at a 1:1 ratio. Light brown sugar has less molasses so the taste will be milder, and the cookies will be more golden than deep brown. You can also try making dark brown sugar at home!
Rolled oats (also called old-fashioned oats) are best here because they provide a hearty, chewy texture. On the other hand, quick oats are more processed and will not create a mushy dough.
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Ingredients
- 1 ¾ cups (222 grams) all-purpose flour, measured correctly
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt (fine sea salt)
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 ½ sticks (170 grams) unsalted butter, at cool room temperature
- 1 ¼ cups (250 grams) packed dark brown sugar
- ¾ cup (150 grams) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs plus one egg yolk, at cool room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 cups (297 grams) old-fashioned rolled oats
- 1 ½ cups (255 grams) semisweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F and line large baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, use a stand mixer to beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar on medium-high speed until smooth and well combined (about 1 to 2 minutes).
- Beat in the eggs and vanilla, and then, on low speed, gradually add the flour mixture and beat until just combined.
- Stir in the oats and chocolate chips.
- Using a large spring-loaded cookie scoop, drop 3-tablespoon-sized balls of dough onto prepared cookie sheets and flatten slightly with the bottom of a measuring cup.
- Bake for 14 to 15 minutes, or until the edges are slightly browned, rotating cookie sheets halfway through. If you prefer a slightly softer cookie, bake for about 12-13 minutes, or until the edges are slightly brown but the middle still looks underdone (it will firm up while cooling).
- Let the cookies cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely.
Notes
This post was originally published in 2013 and has been updated with recipe improvements, recipe tips, new photos, and a new video. Photography by Ashley McLaughlin.
These cookies are a perfect addition to a cookie box or all on their own. A true classic, you can’t go wrong with this recipe at any time of the year.
I have family members who ask for oatmeal cookies, so one day I made several different recipes to taste test for a favorite. I had a go-to. After trying this recipe, I have a new go-to. They baked up high, remained soft in the middle, and had good flavor. Sadly, the recipient likes raisins, so I subbed those and added toasted pecans. Thank you for sharing this with us.
Do you recommend Sea Salt or regular table salt?
Hi Jane Mary! Tessa prefers to use fine sea salt in baking, but you can learn more about the differences between salt types in her Salt 101 article here! 🙂
Excellent Recipe!
I made these tonight and they turned out perfect!
They have the right amount of sweetness.
I wish I could eat raisins but this recipe with chocolate chips made up for it.
I used half of the dough and stored the rest in the freezer.
Not sure how long they can be stored in the freezer but
they won’t last long there, lol
With the holidays coming I will be trying
more recipes from Tessa
Thank You!
P.S. Is it okay to store the remaining cookie dough in freezer ziplock bags?
If so, for how long?
Hi Layla! So happy to hear that you enjoyed this recipe! Check out Tessa’s article on How to Freeze Cookie Dough (& Bake From Frozen) here! Happy baking 🙂
Hi, I was wondering if I would be able to use the stated amount of butter called for in the recipe and brown it?
Hi Al! This is actually a complicated question to answer! American butter is about 80% butterfat and 20% water (typically, depending slightly on the brand of butter), so when you brown butter, you lose that extra moisture/water as it evaporates through the browning process. It takes some experimentation to alter a regular non-browned-butter recipe to work with browned butter for that reason. You can simply try adding a little water back into the recipe, or start with more butter than the recipe requests, in order to compensate for the moisture you’ll lose as it browns. It’s something you’ll have to experiment with a little in order to perfect, but it can be done, and it’s a fun experiment in the meantime
I just got done making these cookies and they turned out amazing. Thank you so much for sharing the recipe. Since I started following your advice to weigh rather than measure, my baking has gone up several notches.
Hi, For the first time trying one of your wonderful recipes, this one didn’t work out at all. I followed the recipe exactly. You said “No dough chilling required” and that is what I did.
The cookies spread out and lost their shape. Half baked, I decided to “save” them and I placed the “cookies” from pan #1 on top of the ones on pan#2. I finished baking them as if they were brownies. I cut them in bars, while still hot, and that way I was able to use them and not through them in the garbage.
Any comments?
I love all your recipes, this one was the first one that I’m not sure if I’ll try again.
Thank you very much for sharing.
Hi Karla! I’m sorry to hear that these cookies didn’t turn out as they should! There are a few reasons why these cookies may have spread so much. I’ll note a few suggestions here, and hopefully something here will help!
– Your butter may have been too warm when creaming, and/or you may have under or over-creamed your butter and sugar. As Tessa says in the pink tip box above the recipe, “Butter that’s too warm may cause the cookies to spread and flatten while baking.” Have a look at this article, all about creaming butter and sugar, and the ideal temp of butter at this time.
– 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 ingredients (particularly flour) 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!
– How old are your leavening agents? If your baking soda/powder are not fresh, they won’t do their jobs and your baked goods can not rise properly, fall after baking, and much more. Tessa talks about the science behind leavening agents, and how to test for leavener freshness, in this article here!
I hope something here is helpful, Karla, and I hope you give these cookies another try sometime! Let us know if there’s anything else we can help you with – we’re always happy to help troubleshoot 🙂 Happy baking!
Hi! Can I omit the chocolate chips and make it plain?
Hi Kae! We haven’t tried omitting the chocolate chips in this recipe, and I think it would make the cookies flatter than pictured, but it should still work okay. Alternatively, Tessa does have this delicious recipe for Oatmeal Creme Pies – they’re a plain oatmeal cookie, and if you don’t want them sandwiched with the filling, you can just skip that 🙂 Happy baking!
Should this dough be chilled for best results? At one point it says it doesn’t need to be, but then there is a section about how long to refrigerate oatmeal cookie dough.
Hi PJ! As Tessa said in the post, it’s not vital that these cookies be chilled before baking. Oats mean the chill window is shorter because they’ll dry out much faster than most cookies – 24 hours won’t hurt them, but don’t exceed 48 hours in the fridge. We find that most cookies do improve in flavor and structure after 24 hours in the fridge. Let us know what you think once you’ve given these cookies a try!
These cookies are perfect! I made a batch with the chocolate chips and a batch with cranberries. Moist and soft ❤️
Hi there! I just made this recipe but I’m using butterscotch chips, is that okay? can the oatmeal recipe be a base oatmeal recipe?
Hi Brittani! As long as it’s the same amount as written in the recipe, that should work just fine! 🙂
I ADORE this HTH recipe as I love oatmeal cookies! I have a question however – if I added walnuts should I cut back on the amount of chocolate chips or can I keep it them same and just add on nuts?
Hi Lydia! We are so glad to hear that you enjoy these cookies so much! If you wish to add some chopped nuts, I would definitely recommend cutting back on the chocolate chips to accommodate the same weight/volume of nuts – so say you will add 1/2 cup of chopped nuts, then add 1/2 cup less of chocolate chips. This will ensure your cookies will still have the same texture and ratio of cookie-to-mix-in 🙂 I also recommend toasting the nuts and cooling them, before adding them to your cookies – really kicks the flavor up a notch! Enjoy!