Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe! This chocolate chip cookie recipe is made with only brown sugar and makes cookies that are the perfect blend of soft and chewy!
These Chewy Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies are easy to make!
They’re great spur-of-the-moment cookies because there is no need to soften the butter ahead of time. The dough comes together in a matter of minutes, and no chilling is required.
If you like a thicker cookie, you can refrigerate it for 30 minutes or so before baking, but no need to chill it if you don’t want to.
And the use of all brown sugar gives these cookies a deeper, richer flavor and makes for chewy cookies. So, the next time a cookie craving strikes, bake up a batch of these cookies!
What makes these cookies chewy?
- Melted butter: Using melted butter helps the cookies to come together quickly, and it also increases the chewiness.
- Brown sugar: Using only brown sugar helps to make them chewier.
- Extra egg yolk: The fat in the yolk helps to increase chewiness.
Ingredient notes and substitutions
- Butter: I use salted butter in this recipe. If you’re using unsalted butter, increase the salt by 1/4 teaspoon.
- If you want to brown the butter, you will need to use more butter because browning butter causes it to cook down. Otherwise, you will be left with a drier dough. You could also try my brown butter chocolate chip cookie recipe.
- Brown sugar: Light brown sugar or dark brown sugar will work. Dark brown sugar will give you richer, more toffee-like flavor.
- This recipe uses only brown sugar, no white sugar, in order to make the cookies chewier.
- Flour: Correctly measuring the ingredients is key! I suggest weighing the ingredients. If you aren’t going to weigh the flour, then you need to aerate it (sifting or fluffing) and then lightly spoon into the measuring cup and leveling. If you don’t want to sift or weigh the flour, please use less flour. Packing in too much flour will cause the cookies not to spread.
- Chocolate: You can substitute 4 ounces finely chopped semisweet baking chocolate for chocolate chips. This will give you a flatter cookie that spreads more.
- Feel free to use a different type of chocolate chip – semisweet chocolate chips, milk chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips, or even white chocolate chips will work. Chocolate chunks can also be used.
How to make chewy chocolate chip cookies
Here you’ll find step-by-step photos showing how to make this recipe. The full recipe is given below.
Step 1: Melt butter in a heavy saucepan. or in a microwave-safe bowl. The butter should be just melted. If you want to brown the butter, please see the note above in “Ingredient notes and substitutions”.
Step 2: Add brown sugar to a large bowl.
Step 3: Stir to combine butter and sugar. Let stand 5 minutes.
Step 4: Add egg and egg yolk; stir to combine. Stir in vanilla extract.
Step 5: Add flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir in dry ingredients until just combined. Please see the comments about flour in the “Ingredient notes and substitutions” section.
Step 6: Stir in chocolate chips or chunks.
Step 7: Using a medium cookie scoop (1.5 tablespoon), drop scoops of dough 2 inches apart on prepared cookie sheet.
Step 8: Bake for about 7-10 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies are golden brown. The centers should still look soft and slightly underbaked. That will help to keep the cookies soft.
Step 9: Let cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes. Remove to wire rack to finish cooling.
Recipe Tips!
- Mixing: I suggest stirring this recipe together by hand rather than using a hand or stand mixer.
- Baking: It’s important to slightly underbake the cookies. This will give you a softer, chewier cookie.
- Oven temperature: If you’d like the cookies to spread more or brown less, decrease the oven temperature by 25F to 350F.
- Flat cookies: If your cookies are coming out too flat, cover and chill the dough for 30-60 minutes. Also, some people have had better luck using 3 cups of flour (360g).
- Topping: The cookies are great as-is, but if you like more salty/sweet flavor, sprinkle the cookies with a bit of sea salt or finishing salt.
Recipe FAQs
Yes! I recommend flash freezing the dough in scoops by placing scoops of the dough onto a baking sheet. Once the dough is frozen through, transfer the frozen balls of cookie dough to a freezer-safe container, and store in the freezer.
You can! Bake the cookies as-directed. Let the cookies cool to room temperature on a wire cooling rack. Place the cookies in a freezer-safe container, and freeze.
Storage
The cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature. They will keep for up to 4 days when properly stored.
More easy cookie recipes!
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Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter
- 1 ½ cups brown sugar packed
- 1 large egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour Please see the note below about measuring the flour.
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt or scant 1/2 teaspoon table salt
- 10 ounce package chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mat.
- Melt the butter in a large microwave-safe bowl. The butter should be just melted. If you want to brown the butter, please see the note below.
- Add brown sugar, and mix in.
- Let stand 5 minutes.
- Add egg and egg yolk; stir to combine.
- Stir in vanilla extract.
- Add flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir until just combined. Please see the comments about flour in the recipe notes.
- Stir in chocolate chips.
- Using a medium cookie scoop (1.5 tablespoon), drop scoops of dough 2 inches apart on prepared cookie sheet.
- Bake for about 7-10 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies are golden brown. The centers should still look soft and slightly underbaked. That will help to keep the cookies soft.
- Let cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes. Remove to wire rack to finish cooling.
Notes
- Recipe change note: I recently decreased the amount of flour called for in the recipe due to product changes. The previous amount of flour called for was 3 cups or 360 grams.
- Butter: If you want to brown the butter, you will need to use more butter because browning butter causes it to cook down. Otherwise, you will be left with a drier dough.
- Flour: Correctly measuring the ingredients is key! I highly suggest weighing the ingredients. If you don’t weigh the flour, you’ll need to aerate the flour (sifting or fluffing) and then lightly spoon it into the measuring cup and level. If you don’t want to sift or weigh the flour, please use less flour. Packing in too much flour will cause the cookies not to spread.
- Can substitute 4 ounces finely chopped semisweet baking chocolate for chocolate chips.
- I suggest stirring this recipe together by hand rather than using a hand or stand mixer.
- Nutrition values are estimates.
- Love chocolate? Try the chocolate chocolate chip version of this cookie!
Nutrition
Did You Make This Recipe?
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Originally published 1/26/16.
Reader Interactions
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Comments & Reviews
Ruby says
Kate, you genius! Nothing beats this recipe. It’s reliable, as long as you’re measuring the ingredients, and so delicious everytime. Even when I don’t have the right type of brown sugar, the cookies turn out incredible.
I was wondering if you could create nutritional info for the recipe. It would be a great help for my family and I. Thank you so much for this amazing recipe!
Kate says
Thank you so much! Immediately below the instruction portion of the recipe is the recipe notes section and immediately below that is the nutrition information. Just let me know if you don’t see it!
Ruby says
Thank you!!!
Ruby says
Thank you!!!
Would it be possible to know how many grams are in 1 cookie?
Ivanna says
These turned out great except I used mini chocolate chips and for some reason they melted and created a gooey mess at the bottom of the cookie. I added 4 minutes to the baking time and smacked them flat so they would bake better. Next time I will use chocolate chunks and probably 360g of flour instead of 300. Thank you for the recipe.
Kate says
Thank you! I’m glad that you liked them! Just a note – I’ve used chopped chocolate in the cookies, and that caused the cookies to spread even more.
Cari says
It says to use 2.5 cups flour but to weigh it. What should the weight be?
Kate says
Hi! If you click on “metric” immediately above the ingredients and below the “ingredient” heading, it will give you the weights for the ingredients.
Alexandra says
Wonderful! So soft and moist without tasking over the top sweet. My family and I loved these.
Kate says
Yay! I’m so glad to hear that!
Abby says
These ate that best chocolate cookies I’ve ever made and amongst the best I’ve ever eaten. They’re super soft and chewy. Splurge and use good quality chocolate. Be careful not to over bake as it’ll put a damper on what could otherwise be your new fav recipe.
Kate says
Thank you! I’m so glad that you liked them!
Susan says
Excellent cookies even with gluten free flour.
Kate says
Thank you!
Lisa says
How many cookies is the yield using 1.5 tbsp cookie scoop?
Kate says
Hi! This recipe makes 36 cookies. As an FYI, you can find the yield for my recipes just above the “Ingredients” label and next to the “Print” “Pin” and “Rate” buttons.
Nate says
Hey, when it says 1 egg and 1 egg yolk, does that mean I will need 2 eggs?
thank you
Kate says
Yes, you will need two eggs total. You will only use the yolk from the second egg.
Nate says
wonder what would happen if we used the entire second egg instead of just the yolk??
Hiba says
I always mess up my cookies somehow when I try to make em but this recipe was a huge success 🥹 It was sooo good and I loved loved loooved how chewy they were 😭 I was wondering if its possible to halve this recipe?
Kate says
Yay! It’s tricky to halve a recipe when it calls for 1 egg and/or 1 egg yolk.
If you don’t want to make a full batch, you may want to make the full recipe and then freeze half of the scoops of dough for later.
Amy Cannon says
These are insanely amazing. I’ve been trying out different things to perfect my chocolate chip cookie and landed on this recipe which included what I had been doing but also added smart tips like sifting the flour and not packing it in. I use a mix of dark brown sugar and light brown sugar, and sprinkle a little sea salt on them in the middle of baking. Anyone that has tried them said they’re the best they’ve ever had. Thanks so much for this recipe!
Kate says
Thank you so much!
L.A. says
Definitely the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever! I found this great website about two years ago, and started making these cookies. They are just so delicious and soft…..I love how the brown sugar makes them soft and gooey.
Kate says
I’m so glad that you’ve been enjoying the recipe!
SuzeBeth says
Holy smokes! This by far is my favorite chocolate chip cookie, ever! I make chocolate chip cookies several times a year and try different recipes and have a “few taste-testers” within an arm’s length to sample them once they have cooled just enough to try and these are it! They have raved about these and thank goodness I made a double batch! I followed the recipe to the letter and sifted my flour, the only differences that I made were that I cook on stones and did not use parchment and no sticking occurred and used a smaller scoop size and the cookies were absolutely divine! I left some in for a little longer to ad a little extra crisp, but still amazingly chewy and the flavors are just scrumptious! Thanks so much for sharing! Go ahead and make these, you will not be sorry, or maybe you will if you have no will power!
Kate says
Thank you so much!
Jen says
This is, by far, the BEST chocolate chip cookie recipe I’ve ever used!
Kate says
Thank you so much!!
Chelsea says
I swear to god this is the best cookie recipe I’ve ever tried – perfectly squishy, not overpoweringly vanilla-y, just amazing.
Kate says
Yay!! Thank you so much!!
Matt says
My 3 year old son and I have made these twice now, and both times they tasted great. We did have to add 1 min to the baking time though.
Kate says
Thanks! I’m glad that you enjoyed them.
Dee says
The recipe tastes good, but not enough flour! I modified it and it came back delicious, also added chopped walnut and rolled in nuts very finely chopped.
Kate says
I’m glad that you made it work!
Jen says
So it won’t let me rate five stars for some reason but… wow! I made these, as the first cookies I’ve ever made, and I was told numerous times they were the best cookies anybody who I gave them to ever had!! It was so good, I made them a second time, but I forgot to read the notes and used far too much flour, leaving me with more of a bread than a cookie. I’m making them again right now, and I’m once again impressed with this recipe :)))
Kate says
Thank you so much! I’m so glad that you liked the cookies!
Jleigh says
I just finished mixing in the flour, and it is still pretty wet looking. Is this how they should look before I put in oven? Help! : )
P.S – I followed directions to a T! Thanks!
Kate says
Hi! It’s difficult to say without seeing it. However, if you find that your cookies are spreading too much when you bake them, just chill the dough for 15-30 minutes, and that should help!
Jeanette SY says
Great recipe!!! The later about 5 mins. Thanks for sharing
Kate says
Thank you!
J says
I’ve made these cookies a dozen times and they are incredible! I’m worried about the change in flour because I actually use Gluten Free AP flour. I also always use Kerrygold Unsalted Butter. Not sure if I should use 2.5 or 3 cups of flour? What should the raw dough look like before baking so I know what texture to look for?
Kate says
There are pictures above the recipe that show the cookie dough and a scoop of cookie dough. I hope that those help! If you’ve had good luck with using 3 cups of gf flour and certain butter, then I would guess that those should still work. Kerrygold is great butter to use in this recipe because it has high butterfat.