The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies (2024)

The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Your search for the best chocolate chip cookies ends here. This chewy chocolate chip cookie recipe is made with browned butter and huge chunks of chocolate for the perfect, crunchy on the outside, gooey in the middle cookie of your dreams. Pair one of these bad boys with a glass of cold milk for the best cookies and milk of your life!

Looking for more chocolate chip cookies? Check out my s’mores cookies or my espresso chocolate chip cookies for a little pick me up!

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

Alright. Take a deep breath. We’re about to get into what I would equate to my life’s thesis: the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever. This recipe is literally 10 years in the making. They’re soft, chewy, crunchy on the edges, perfectly salty-sweet, loaded with juuuust the right amount of chocolate. And when you create something that perfect, it would be a true crime to not share it with the world.

So without further adieu, I present the best chocolate chip cookie recipe you’ll ever make.

Ingredients for perfect chocolate chip cookies.

You’re only as good as your ingredients. We recommend you splurge for all of the ingredients below to ensure you get a gourmet chocolate chip cookie.

• Unsalted Butter:Using unsalted butter means that you can fully control the amount of salt going into your cookies and also ensures that it browns evenly. You’ll brown the butter for a nutty, toasty deep flavor as the base for your cookies!
• Light Brown Sugar: I like to make chocolate chip cookies with a combination of light brown sugar and granulated sugar. The light brown sugar will keep your cookies soft and chewy and give them that delicious brown sugar-y taste.
• Granulated Sugar:A little granulated sugar will give your cookie the perfect amount of crunch on the edges. You get the best of both worlds.
• Eggs:Eggs will bind your cookies together. A single egg and one egg yolk will gives these cookies their soft, chewy, not too cakey texture.
• Vanilla Extract: Vanilla is so essential to chocolate chip cookies. I know it might seem unimportant because you use a small amount of it, but it will take your cookies to the next level. I highly recommend using a 100% pure vanilla extract if your budget allows. ALDI has a super affordable one, or if you’re down to splurge I love Rodelle!
• Flour:All purpose flour is our flour of choice for these chewy cookies. It creates a tender but hearty crumb. Make sure when you are measuring your flour you measure it carefully using a spoon to aerate the flour. We recommend adding the first cup in and then adding the remaining 3/4 cup a little at a time to make sure you’re not adding too much flour! Browned butter evaporates as it browns, meaning that the amount of butter can vary depending on how long you browned it for which can lead to less liquid in your cookie dough. See the directions for more guidance on this!
• Baking Soda:A little baking soda will give your cookies the perfect rise and crackle on top. Be sure you’re using baking soda (not baking powder)! I’m lazy so I don’t stir the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl, but I like to add the flour and then the salt and baking soda on top before folding so that the baking soda and salt get incorporated properly!
• Chocolate: When it comes to chocolate chip cookies, your chocolate can make or break your cookie. Splurge on a high quality semi sweet or dark chocolate. Milk chocolate is child’s play. So are the store brand chocolate chips. Go for a good bar, chocolate disks, or high quality chocolate chunks. Whatever you choose, use 1 1/2 to 2 cups of it (depending on how chocolatey you like your cookies) and load up your cookie dough for big, melty pools of chocolate throughout your cookie.
• Salt:Baked goods NEED salt. Without it they’re just cloyingly sweet. Salt adds that perfectly nuanced salty-sweet flavor that pushes a baked good from good to great.

How to make brown butter:

If you haven’t had brown butter yet, you MUST try it. Browning your butter gives it an amazing complexity that enhances so many recipes.

1. Start by melting your butter over medium heat in a small sauce pan.
2. Whisk the butter constantly as it melts to ensure it’s evenly heated. As it melts the butter will start to foam. This is the sweet point between boiling the butter (NOT what you want) and not hot enough.
3. Keep a close eye on the butter. I mean it–DO NOT WALK AWAY. As it transitions from its usual yellow color to a deeper golden hue and at last to a beautiful light golden brown. You’ll know it’s done by the smell: a toasted, nutty, intoxicating scent. It can veryquickly go from this light brown to burnt, so make sure you take it off the heat as soon as it makes the turn.
4. Take it off the heat and transfer to a bowl to allow it to cool before using in your recipe.

The Three Don’ts of Chocolate Chip Cookie Baking

These chocolate chip cookies have been tested thousands of times (I wish this were an exaggeration), so you can trust that I have all the tricks for you. Start taking notes!

• Don’t you dare forget the salt and the vanilla: These two ingredients make or break a cookie. Get the good vanilla and the flaky sea salt. I promise it will be worth it.
• Don’t over mix: Repeat after me, “overmixing ruins everything.” I know it can be fun to whisk away and overwork your dough as an excuse to eat more cookie dough, but do not do it. You will get dry, tough, sad cookies if you overwork the dough, so once you stir in the flour only mix until no streaks of flour remain!
• Don’t over bake: In fact, when in doubt UNDER bake. The cookies will continue to bake as they cool. Plus, no one ever complained about a gooey center 🙂

Do you need to chill your chocolate chip cookie dough balls before baking?

Yes. But also no. Okay, let me explain.We highly recommend chilling your dough for at least 30 minutes.Giving the dough time to rest will allow the flour to absorb and the flavors to really settle in. This will create a super soft gooey center, while still preserving those crackly edges. If you bake your cookies off right away you’ll get a less complex flavor, the cookies will spread a more, and the tops will be a little more craggy. They will still be delicious, but I promise they will be so much tastier if you give them a few hours in the fridge. My preferred sweet chill is at least 2 hours, but I often chill these overnight and bake off the batch the next day!

To make scooping the cookies easier, I like to chill the dough for 30 minutes to let it firm up a little and then use a cookie scoop (or tablespoon if you don’t have one!) to scoop the dough out into balls. You can then place the balls in an airtight container or covered tightly on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper until ready to bake.

Can you freeze these cookies?

Heck yeah you can! You can either freeze your cooked cookies or the cookie dough balls (my personal fav). Here’s how to do it:

1. Freeze the cookie dough. This is my favorite way to freeze these cookies, because then you can get ooey gooey, warm cookies whenever you want. Prepare the recipe as directed and then place the cookie dough balls in the freezer in a freezer safe plastic bag. When you’re ready to bake your cookies (or single cookie!), remove the ball from the freezer and allow it to come to room temperature (about 30ish minutes). Then bake according to directions!
2. Freeze the baked cookies.This is also an excellent way to prep ahead of time! Bake your cookies as directed and then allow them to cool COMPLETELY (this is so important, otherwise you’ll get funky ice crystals on your frozen cookies). Place the cookies in a freezer safe plastic bag in a single layer and freeze for up to 3 months. When you’re freezing the made cookies it’s also important to under bake them so they stay nice and soft!

I mean, c’mon. LOOK AT THAT GOOEY, MELTY COOKIE. Have you ever seen a more beautiful sight? I think not.

How to Store Chocolate Chip Cookies

Can you make chocolate chip cookies ahead? How to freeze these best chocolate chip cookies? All your questions answered below!

These chewy chocolate chip cookies are best freshly baked. These arenotthe cookies I would recommend sending in the mail to a friend, or baking a few days before the party you’re bringing them to. They will last in a sealed container for 3 days, but definitely start tasting a little stale after day 2.

Our advice? If you want to prep ahead, make the dough in advance and scoop out balls of cookie dough. Place the cookie dough in a freezer plastic bag and freeze the cookie dough for up to 3 months for whenever you want fresh baked cookies!

You can also freeze the baked cookies in a freezer bag for up to 3 months so you can whip out a bag of homemade cookies any time without having to light the oven! If freezing, bake the cookies as directed and let them cool completely on your cooling rack before freezing!

Make sure you incorporate a cookies and milk break into your day today with these chewy chocolate chip cookies!

XX

Sofi

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