These chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies are the perfect cookie with a soft and moist center, melty morsels of chocolate, and crisp edges. It’s the only chocolate chip cookie recipe you’ll ever need because it’s classic—not fussy, complicated, or time-consuming.
There’s no need for refrigeration, special tricks, or complex cooking techniques to get the best chocolate cookie. Our foolproof, classic recipe tastes exactly how it should—insanely delicious. After all, it’s the incredible flavor and easy-to-make recipe that keeps traditional desserts like Gingerbread Cookies, Banana Bread, and Baklava so popular for ages!
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Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
My high school used to sell the best chocolate chip cookies at lunchtime. They were soft, thick and irresistible. With this cookie recipe, I sought to recreate that memorable texture and this recipe takes me back to the days when I saved up my quarters for the rare treat of the cafeteria cookie.
There is no match for homemade chocolate chip cookies with chewy and soft texture, gooey chocolate chips, and the sweetest aroma coming from your oven. As America’s most loved cookie, they are perfect for every occasion, whether you’re making Christmas cookies, comforting a neighbor, or surprising your kiddos with a sweet after-school treat.
Just like with Chocolate Crinkle Cookies or Christmas Sugar Cookies, everyone needs a go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe, so here’s why this one is a keeper:
- The cookies stay soft for days
- Easy, straightforward recipe with tips to make it foolproof!
- No resting/refrigerating time—so you can satisfy your craving immediately
- Pantry staple ingredients
- True to the classic flavor everyone loves
- Stores and freezes well
- Make ahead option to always have dough on hand
Chocolate Chip Cookies Video
In this video, Natasha shows you how easy it is to whip up a batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies. *Note that we updated the recipe and now use 1 tsp of baking soda because we loved the results even more.
Ingredients:
The best chocolate chip cookie recipe is made with pantry and refrigerator staples—nothing fancy or hard to find here.
- Unsalted butter – room temperature butter creates the best consistency to trap air for a chewy, airy dough with the best texture and rise.
- Granulated sugar – white sugar adds sweetness without adding moisture for the perfect spread
- Brown sugar – molasses keeps the cookie moist, soft, and chewy. Be sure to press the sugar tightly into the cup when measuring
- Eggs – room temperature eggs mix more evenly to bind the dough
- Vanilla extract – store-bought or homemade vanilla extract gives that classic chocolate chip cookie flavor
- All-purpose flour – be sure to measure correctly to get the right amount: fluff with a spoon and then scoop the flour into the measuring cup. Finally, scrape off the top. Be sure not to pat the flour down
- Baking soda – sift to eliminate clumps
- Salt – balances the sweetness of the sugars
- Chocolate chips – we prefer semi-sweet chocolate chips, but you can use milk chocolate or bittersweet chips for a slightly different taste. See our buying guide below – be sure to use the full amount because they add moisture and give good form to the cookies
Pro Tip:
If you don’t have time to let the butter come to room temperature, try this trick to soften the butter quickly, because it makes a big difference.
How to Buy Chocolate Chips
Chocolate chips come in different varieties. Here’s what to look for:
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips (46%-60% cocoa): the traditional chip for chocolate chip cookies. You can use full-size or mini chips, chunks, or even chopped chocolate. Nestle, Tollhouse, Ghirardelli, Guittard, Kirkland, Hershey’s….they all work!
- Milk chocolate chips (10% cocoa): these make very sweet cookies, so have your glass of milk ready. Try mixing with semi-sweet.
- Bittersweet chocolate chips (70% cocoa): less sweet and intensely chocolatey. These produce a more “adult” cookie.
Substitutions
It’s easy to make these cookies your own. You’ll need 2 cups of mix-ins, so if you’re feeling adventurous, try some of these fun alternatives to chocolate chips:
- Peanut butter chips
- Sprinkles
- Butterscotch chips
- M&M candies
- Macadamia nuts
- Chopped unsalted peanuts
- White vanilla baking chips
- Shredded coconut
- Pretzel pieces – the options are endless!
How to Make Chocolate Chip Cookies
It’s so simple to mix up this easy chocolate chip cookie recipe with pantry staples and no refrigeration is needed.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and cover 3 cookie sheets with parchment paper or Silpat mats. Cream the butter and sugars together for 5 minutes until light and fluffy—this is the most important step to get a chewy cookie. Be sure to beat for the full amount of time!
- Beat eggs into the butter mixture one at a time followed by the vanilla extract.
- Combine the dry ingredients (flour, salt, and sifted baking soda) in a separate bowl, and then add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in thirds. Finally, fold the chocolate chips into the dough. Be sure not to over-mix (this can cause the dough to become tough).
- Roll balls of dough or use a trigger release scoop to scoop 3 Tbsp balls onto the prepared cookie sheets.
- Bake one cookie sheet at a time for 12-15 minutes. The tops should still look a bit wet and not browned. We usually bake 1/3 of the cookies at a time and refrigerate or freeze the rest for later, so see our tips below.
- Rest the cookies on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack. Store cookies in an airtight container on the counter for 5 days. To warm the cookies, try toasting in a toaster oven or baking at 350 for 2-3 minutes.
Pro Tip:
For a prettier cookie, press a few extra chocolate chips into the top of each cookie dough ball just before baking.
Common Questions
Room temperature butter and eggs, beating the butter and sugars thoroughly, and not over-mixing create the best cookies! No need for fancy techniques, because the best chocolate chip cookies are easy to make!
These homemade chocolate chip cookies spread perfectly without flattening.
Over-baking is the #1 cause of hard cookies, so remove them before they brown, when the edges are just turning golden. The top should still look a bit raw.
Once baked, store the cookies in an airtight container to keep them soft. You can even place a piece of bread in the container to maintain moisture.
Usually, cookies go flat when a recipe doesn’t include enough flour. Be sure to measure the ingredients correctly. Also, check to be sure your baking soda is still fresh by placing 1 tsp baking soda into a cup with a splash of vinegar. It should fizz, but if it doesn’t, replace your baking soda.
This usually means you use too much flour. Be sure to fluff and spoon your flour into a dry ingredient measuring cup, and don’t pat it down. Also, be sure not to make the cookie dough balls too large, or they may take longer than the cooking time to spread in the oven.
Make-Ahead
Our homemade chocolate chip cookie dough is refrigerator and freezer-friendly, so you can always have dough on hand. To make a few days ahead, mix the dough as directed and store:
- To Refrigerate: put dough into an airtight container, or cover rolled dough balls on a cookie sheet in the refrigerator for up to 3 days, and then bake as usual. It may take 1-2 minutes longer if starting with chilled dough.
- To Freeze: Scoop the dough onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet and freeze for 1 hour. Then, once the dough balls are frozen, store them in a freezer zip-top bag until ready to bake.
- To Bake: thaw in the refrigerator and bake as directed. You can bake from frozen, but the cookies will take a few more minutes to bake.
You will love these homemade chocolate chips with melty chocolate, a chewy cookie center, and an irresistible aroma. Our easy recipe uses pantry staples without unnecessary techniques! Grab a glass of milk because this will soon become your go-to recipe!
More Cookie Recipes
If you love this chocolate chip cookie recipe, then you won’t want to miss these other delicious cookie recipes.
- Peanut Butter Cookies
- Snowball Cookies
- Russian Tea Cakes
- Shell Cookies
- Cranberry Cookies
- Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
- Thumbprint Cookies
Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter, (16 Tbsp), softened
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup light brown sugar, tightly packed
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 cups all-purpose flour, measured correctly*
- 1 tsp baking soda, sifted
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips, (12 oz), divided reserving 1/4 cup for the top
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350˚ F. Line a baking sheet with parchment or Silpat liner. In the bowl of a stand mixer with paddle attachment, combine 2 sticks of butter, 1 cup of packed brown sugar and 1/2 cup of white sugar. Beat 5 minutes on medium/high speed until creamy and light, scraping down the bowl as needed.
- Add 2 eggs, one at a time, beating well with each addition, scraping down the bowl as needed, then beat in 2 tsp of vanilla.
- In a separate bowl, combine 3 cups of flour, 1 tsp salt, and 1 tsp of baking soda (sifted to eliminate lumps). Add the flour mixture to the creamed butter in thirds, mixing to incorporate with each addition. Fold in 2 cups of chocolate chips.
- Use an ice cream scoop to get even balls of dough (3 Tbsp each). Place scoops of dough onto lined baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Mine fit onto 3 cookie sheets and made 26 cookies. Roll balls lightly with your hands then stud tops of cookie balls with reserved chocolate chips. Bake right away or cover and refrigerate until ready to bake.
- Bake one cookie sheet at a time for 12-15 min at 350˚F (we bake 12 minutes), until edges are just turning golden. The tops should still look under-baked. Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet 5 min then transfer to a rack to cool.
Notes
Nutrition Per Serving
Filed Under
Hi! I made these cookies and I really liked them, love their texture.
I was thinking about making them to bring with me to share with coworkers on my last day at work. Would they still be good the day after having baked them?
Also, I did find them a bit too sweet, could I do less sugar or would that mess up the texture?
Hi Marta! I’m so happy you enjoyed this recipe! That should work. You can refrigerate these for about a week – I wouldn’t go longer than that or they might start getting a little dry, and be sure to cover them to keep the air out.
typically love your recipes…made the shchavel borscht last night…i bake hundreds of cookies…my most recent quest was to find the best choc chip cookie recipe…this is not it…they are so pale looking…not much taste except for the chips…baked one batch and the rest is getting tossed…experimenting with browned butter recipes…their taste is incredible..
Hi Victoria, I’m so glad you like the Shchavel borscht! To achieve a truly soft chocolate chip cookie (without over-baking), the color will be lighter. If you are looking for a darker cookie, you might try a dark brown sugar for richer color. Brown butter does sound tasty! If you come up with something great using browned butter, let me know!
Hi Natasha! It’s me again. The one who enquire a lot about your eclairs which I will be making this Friday for Sunday’s charity drive.
I chanced upon this recipe and thought I’ll make it for the charity too. I made a test run this afternoon. I got 19 ice cream scoops. I baked 5.
My questions are :
1. Both my husband and daughter thought it was a bit too gooey. I baked it for 13 mins, where the edges are slightly browned. According to them, lovers of soft chewy cookie, it needs to hold its shape more. For the cookies break apart way too easily before it reaches the mouth. It’ll be too soft after dunked in milk. What do you suggest I do? Bake it a little longer?
2. The leftovers 14 scoops are happily basking in the fridge. I intend to freeze some. For I want to see if it turns out as good if I freeze them. For the fridged ones, how long can I keep them in there for? 1 week in fridge – too long?
3. As for the baked cookies. How can I store them? Here in Singapore it gets hot and humid. It was 89 Fahrenheit and 75% humidity today!!! I plan to pack the cookies individually with a twist tie.
Looking forward to your gold advise.
Just so you know, I can’t wait to present these 2 beauties, your chocolate chip cookies and eclairs, on the charity day!!! 😀
Hi Aisah, double check the measurements and be sure to measure the dry ingredients correctly. I haven’t had that experience where they are too gooey. They are very very soft as soon as they come out of the oven but once they reach room temperature, they do hold together well and are dunk-able in milk texture. You can refrigerate for about a week – I wouldn’t go longer than that or they might start getting a little dry, and be sure to cover them to keep the air out. We have the opposite problem where it is very dry in Idaho so that might be a judgement call. I imagine they would be fine at room temperature for a day.
Hi Natasha, thank you for your response. What I did was I followed the metric measurements as I’ve used cups before and the cookie was so high up like a mountain. Not your recipe though. So I might try.
Will it help you think if I bake for a little longer? Will it hardened the cookie more you think?
Hi Aisah, baking longer does harden the cookie so if you prefer a firm cookie, you can bake an extra 1-3 minutes.
Thank you very much Natasha! I’ll do that for the ones in the fridge. I have no time to do a trial run again as I’ll be doing a trial run for eclairs today! Now that I have the right nozzles!!!
You’re so welcome!
Tried this recipe today and loved it!!
I have had so many problems with other chocolate chip cookie recipes not turning out, but your cookies have great flavor, perfect texture, and no waiting for chilled dough. Thank you!
You’re welcome! I’m so happy you enjoyed it Debbie!
Hi Natasha, so I’ve been having issues with chocolate chip cookies from day one! My cookies never seem to spread out in the oven, they always come out pretty much in the shape that I put them in (although baked through). Unfortunately, your recipe was no exception for that occurence. Any idea as to why it turns out so? By the way, these cookies taste great! And everything besides the fact that they don’t spread is great! Thank you for sharing this recipe!
Hi Liana, the most likely culprit is too much flour. When measuring flour, be sure to use dry ingredient measuring cups (that can be leveled at the top) and spoon the flour into the measuring cup and scrape off the top. If you scoop the measuring cup into the flour bin, you can get up to 25% too much flour which would affect how the cookies spread. Here’s our post on measuring that will help with that.
Hi Natasha! I just tweeted you a photo of my cookies that I made on Sunday, 4/28/19, and I just had one today, 4/30/19 here at work and they are still soft! They turned out almost perfect. I think next time I need to take them out of the oven about 45 seconds to a minute sooner. Thanks for this awesome recipe. I cut it in half as I am single and it still turned out great. (I double checked my halves from your video several times, LOL)!
That’s so great! I’m so happy you enjoyed that Melanie!
I love this recipes but my cookies do not flatten out when baked. Why?
Hi Ava, I am always happy to help troubleshoot. The section above titled “Why did my Cookies not Flatten?” should help.
The updated recipe is good but the previous one was better. This one is harder and cake-ier than the previous, and I followed the recipe to a T, even measured flour correctly. I’m glad I saved the previous one! Thanks for sharing your amazing recipes with us!
Hi Natasha! Not leaving a review since I haven’t made them yet. What size measuring spoon do you use? It looks like a 1.5” on the video but I want to make sure. Thanks!
Hi Galya, they are actually 2 1/4″ cookie scoops technically. I have a link to the the size I used in the post. He that helps!
Hi Natasha – I am measuring the ingredients for these cookies and somehow I think the recipe has changed. If I recall when I made these before there was 2 1/4 cups of flour and the directions explicitly indicated to refrigerate the portioned cookies for at least one hour before baking. Has the recipe changed????
Hi Mary, we did change the recipe slightly for more consistent results and there is no more need to refrigerate the cookies before baking. We had quite a few people who weren’t wiling to wait and ended up with flat cookies. Quick tip: just be sure to measure the flour by spooning it into the measuring cup and scraping off the top 🙂
Will this recipe work with almond flour or coconut flour?
Hi Cindy, I honestly haven’t experimented with that so I can’t say for sure or what other substitutions (if any) would need to be made. If you experiment, please let me know how it goes!
Could you give weight measurements for the flour, please? I just think that would be a little easier to measure, and I love to use a scale to measure ingredients accurately!
Hi Alena, we do have the metric weight option available on the print out version. You can find it highlighted in red “US Customary – Metric” I hope that helps!
I’m clearly the odd man out here, but these cookies did not work for me. I’m a pretty good cook and these were not good. All I could taste was flour and they did not spread. For me, I’m going to give up on finding the “perfect” chocolate chip cookie recipe and just stick with the one on the back of the Ghirardelli bag.
Hi Anna, please see the section in the recipe post titled “Why did my Cookies not Flatten?” which should help.
ih my name is Anna a house baker
I bake alot of goodies for my family
and today I’m going to bakeing chocolate chip cookies !
Hi Anna, I hope you love this recipe!
the cookies didn’t spread for some reason I followed the recipe and measured like you recommended. I think its because of the baking powder. because usually cookies call for baking soda.
Hi Inna, I haven’t tested this recipe with baking soda and it most likely won’t work because there is nothing to activate baking soda. Hope this helps :).
I used half baking soda and half baking powder, it spread beautifully 🙂
Natasha I apologize I forgot to rate your chocolate chip cookie recipe.
Aww you’re so nice! Thank you for returning to rate Laurna!!
It is Sunday night and when I saw this chocolate chip cookie recipe I just had to make it. Wow 😮 I just eat my second cookie while looking in the stove waiting for the second batch to finish. I had to make the whole batch because I have plans for these cookies. I will be keeping some for myself and my husband, giving my neighbor some then taken them to our friends because we are invited to dinner. Thank you again Natasha for another fabulous recipe. And I want you to know once again your videos are so helpful and they make me laugh. 👍
I’m so glad you enjoyed it Laurna, Thank you for the wonderful review!
Hi Natasha, thank you thank you .. I just finished making your soft chocolate cookie (1/2 of the recipe) … its yum and I follow as you said about measuring the flour … I use to scoop it 🙂
Again thank for sharing the recipe and also, I make your overnight cinnamon rolls and all the Ladies from my church loves it and I told them its your recipe.
God Bless you,
Lily
Awww that’s the best! Thank you so much for sharing that with me :). I’m all smiles!
Hi, I’m new to baking and want to try this recipe so much. Should I bake the cookies with top or bottom heat? Thank you for your recipe. I can’t wait to try it.
Hi Petra, set the oven to regular bake mode (conventional oven) and not the convection setting. Our oven has heating elements from above and below that are working together.
I see! I’m trying this very soon. Thank you, Natasha. 🙂
Dear Natasha,
Thank you for sharing your recipe. The cookies are so delicious.
Your detailed instructions in all your recipes, are so helpful.
I have baked all the cookies, so how can I store them in the freezer? And for how many days they last?
Thank you for your support.
Hi Eliane, I’m so happy you are enjoying our blog and recipes! It’s definitely best to read through the recipe before beginning. The great thing about making a big batch of cookies is that you can freeze half of the cookie balls and bake them another day so you only have to bake one cookie sheet :). I’ve done this before and it’s awesome to have cookies when my son requests them without having to go through any kind of process 🙂 We store ours in an air tight container for a few days.
Sure you are right, but I was excited and did bake them all.
Thank you so much.
Should I do 2tsp of baking powder or should I do a mix of baking soda and baking powder? I’ve seen things for both options..
Hi Natasha! These cookies were delicious! If I wanted to make half a batch, do I just take half of all ingredients? Anything I should be aware before I do that? Thanks so much! 🙂
Hi Jessica! Yes, simple halve the recipe and it should turn out!