Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: Perfectly sweet with a hint of cinnamon and loads of chocolate chips. Chocolate chips are WAY better than raisins 😉
Texture: Thick, chewy, soft, crisp at the edges, and a little chunky.
Ease: Super easy.
Pros: Quick and easy recipe, ready in just 30 minutes!
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Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies are ultra-chewy and soft, with the perfect slight crispness at the edges. Heaven!
And bonus: they’re super quick and easy to make!
The best thing about these cookies? Chocolate chips instead of raisins.
What Makes Cookies Chewy, Crisp, or Cakey?
My free guide reveals the ingredients and tweaks that matter.
Is there anything worse than biting into what you think is an Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie, only to discover they’re RAISINS instead!? It’s such a horrendous surprise.
Can you tell I’m not a huge fan of raisins?
Sprinkle of Science
How to Make Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
How to Make Soft, Chewy Cookies
- Measure Your Flour Correctly: Use a digital kitchen scale to measure your flour. When measuring with cups, it’s so easy to accidentally compact the flour, resulting in 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 SO much more than just sweeten your baked goods. Learn all about sugar’s role in baking here. More on the sugars used in this recipe below.
- Eggs: This recipe uses two large eggs plus one egg yolk, for moisture and richness, helping to make these cookies softer and chewier. I have not found anything that can easily replace the magic of a real egg, but feel free to experiment with egg substitutes if needed.
What Kind of Oats are Best for Oatmeal Cookies?
You can use old-fashioned or quick-cooking oats in this recipe. Quick-cooking oats are smaller in size and will provide a more uniform texture, whereas old-fashioned oats will provide a more craggy, rough texture.
Oats tend to zap moisture in any recipe, which is why simply adding them into a Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe won’t work well.
The Chocolate Chips & How to Customize the Mix-Ins
I love using semi-sweet chocolate chips, but feel free to replace the semi-sweet chocolate chips with the same amount of:
- Milk chocolate chips – will make the cookies slightly sweeter
- Butterscotch chips – will make the cookies slightly sweeter
- Bittersweet chocolate chips – will make the cookies slightly less sweet
- Toasted and roughly chopped walnuts or pecans – I recommend lightly toasting the nuts and allowing them to cool before using
- Raisins – if you must!
- Any other mix-ins you like! Just keep to the same overall weight of mix-ins in the recipe as written for best results.
Cinnamon in Oatmeal Cookies?
A dash of cinnamon gives these Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies the BEST flavor – but feel free to simply omit it if preferred.
The Sugar
This recipe calls for both granulated sugar and dark brown sugar. I love to use dark brown sugar in this recipe – its rich butterscotch flavor complements the nutty oats beautifully.
Dark brown sugar contains more molasses, bringing more moisture to this dough and helping keep the baked cookies softer for longer.
Can I Use Light Brown Sugar Instead of Dark Brown Sugar?
You can use light brown sugar if needed, at a 1:1 ratio – just note that your cookies will be slightly lighter in color and won’t be as rich in flavor.
Out of brown sugar? If you have granulated white sugar and molasses, you can make brown sugar yourself!
Why Are My Cookies Flat?
Butter temperature is KEY!
Be sure to use unsalted butter that’s at a cool room temperature – around 67°F is perfect (or a couple degrees cooler if your kitchen is warm). Butter that’s too warm may cause the cookies to over-spread and flatten while baking. In general, the cooler the dough is when it enters the oven, the thicker your cookies will be. If you want thicker cookies, try popping the balls of dough in the freezer while your oven preheats.
Just take a look at the impact butter temperature can have on how much a cookie spreads:
How to Make Pretty Cookies
- Use a large spring-loaded cookie scoop to portion out perfectly even and round balls of Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie dough.
- Roll the balls of dough between your palms to smooth out, then flatten slightly so they spread evenly.
- Dot the balls of shaped dough with a few chocolate chips on top.
- Bake on a heavy-duty unlined aluminum half-sheet pan lined with parchment paper for golden brown cookies. Learn more about baking pans here.
Should Oatmeal Cookie Dough be Chilled Before Baking?
While this recipe doesn’t require refrigeration, chilling the dough will yield a thicker, chewier cookie. Keep the dough well-covered in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.
Do not refrigerate longer than 48 hours. Oats are a drying ingredient and really soak up moisture. Learn more about chilling cookie dough here.
Can I Freeze Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies Cookies?
Portion your cookie dough into balls, place inside an airtight container, and freeze for up to 6 weeks. Thaw overnight in the fridge before baking. Learn more about freezing cookie dough here.
More Cookie Recipes You’ll Love:
- Bourbon Rye Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies – Joe’s new favorite cookie!
- Soft and Chewy Sugar Cookies
- Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Monster Cookies
Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
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Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cups (222 grams) all-purpose flour, measured correctly
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 1/2 sticks (170 grams) unsalted butter, at cool room temperature
- 1 1/4 cups (250 grams) packed dark brown sugar
- 3/4 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 1/2 cups (255 grams) semisweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. 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 an electric 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. 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 scoop, drop 3-tablespoon sized balls of dough onto prepared baking sheets. Flatten slightly with the bottom of a measuring cup.
- Bake for about 14 to 15 minutes, or until the edges are slightly browned, rotating baking sheets halfway through. If you prefer a slightly softer cookie, bake about 12-13 minutes, or until the edges are slightly brown but the middle still looks underdone (will firm up while cooling). Let the cookies cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely.
Recipe Notes
The Ultimate Cookie Handbook
Learn the sweet SCIENCE of cookie baking in a fun, visual way to customize your own recipes frustration-free. Plus, my best 50+ homemade cookies!
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.
The Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies were easy to make and I followed the recipe exactly! They were a big hit! So delicious! It will probably become a ‘go to’ recipe because you can whip them up quickly and even freeze the unbaked cookies (I used a cookie scoop) for baking on the fly! Everyone loved them, so you can’t go wrong!
Perfect! So happy to hear you found your go-to recipe, Kathy!
A crowd pleaser
Amazingly delicious! A hit in our house. Perfectly buttery and soft.
Yummy!
These cookies are just perfection. I followed the recipe exactly except doubling the cinnamon.. love that stuff! Thanks for sharing this amazing recipe, I will try raisins next time. Baked 24 huge cookies for time suggested. @treatmesweeetly
So glad you love this recipe, Gail!
Oatmeal cookies have never been my favorite but this recipe is a winner. Next time I’ll add the whole bag of chocolate chips though.
These cookies are delicious! And so great as ice cream sandwiches!!! I got so excited about making them into ice cream sandwiches that I forgot to take a picture of them as a plain cookie!!!
So glad to hear you loved these cookies, especially as part of ice cream sandwiches, yum! You are more than welcome to reuse your photo from last month’s baking challenge for this month 🙂
These cookies are perfectly crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. I prefer mine with raisins over chocolate chips (sorry Tessa!), but am thinking of trying with white chocolate chips instead!
Quick & easy to do! Even when I have a very furry helper who constantly tries to distract me! This recipe is FOOLPROOF! I had very little milk chocolate chips…so I used milk choc chips plus white choc chips. The result is incredibly moist, yummy with just the right amount of a soft crunch to the bottom! Thank you Tessa! Of course I had to make some using raisins…my boyfriend’s fave! Thought he was gonna climb right through the phone to get at them!
haha, you always write the best reviews, Rita! So happy to hear your cookies were such a hit! Love the addition of white chocolate chips!
These cookies are the perfect chewy cookie while also melting in your mouth at the same time! They are my go-to oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe!
I made your recipe for the Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies and the Snickerdoodle Cookies last week to send to a friend who is terminally ill. I have known him and his wife for 24 yrs. They were my former neighbors for 10 years. I have your cookbook and baked them a few weeks back. His wife said he loved them so much he just devoured them so, I made them again and included the Snickerdoodles too. I didn’t take a picture of them before they were mailed but wanted to say thank you so very much. It means a lot to me that I can make a small difference in their lives at this time.
Gratefully yours, Donna Swingley
Thank you so much for taking the time to let us know, Donna! I passed your comment on to Tessa, and you definitely made her day. So honored you chose our recipes to send to your friends! They are so lucky to have such a caring and loving person in their life, and I’m sure you made their day too 🙂
Have made these multiple times, super easy and delicious! Everyone loves when I make this recipe.