Seriously, the easiest chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever made. Melted butter, one bowl, no mixer, no chilling. Soft and chewy homemade cookies, every time.
I’ve had a go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe for a long time. Like, since I was 12. This is not that.
This is better.
The thing about homemade chocolate chip cookies is that everyone loves them, but no one can agree on the correct recipe.
For some people, that may not even be a question that’s relevant — i.e., why would you bother arguing about it when we could have scooped pre-made dough out of a Toll House tub and baked it by now — but since you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’re not one of those people.
So let’s talk about it.
What makes a great chocolate chip cookie recipe
I’ve done a fair amount of reading about chocolate chip cookies. They’re deceptively simple, yet they require the building of complex flavor and can be extremely finicky.
Recipe authors have suggested using bread flour because of its higher protein content (and thus better chewiness), adding an extra egg yolk for richer flavor, browning the butter (because ok, brown butter is delicious), chilling the dough for 2 days to build more flavor, using a mixture of super expensive chopped dark chocolate instead of chocolate chips so it melts throughout, adding cornstarch to keep cookies thick, various ratios of brown sugar to white sugar for optimal flavor and softness…I could go on, but doesn’t it seem like a cookie this simple, this classic, should not be so complicated???
The problems don’t stop there, though.
Once you’ve decided on a certain recipe, there is the method, and it must be done correctly or else your cookies may suck.
Creaming soft (but not too soft) butter and sugar. At a certain speed, for a certain time. Adding 1 (or 2??) eggs, which are at room temperature of course (because everyone thinks that far ahead).
Adding just enough flour and not mixing it too much, otherwise you’ll overdevelop the gluten and your cookies will be too dense. Chilling the dough for an hour, or two hours, or two days, depending on your recipe. Scooping and rolling precise little mounds.
Bah!
My other major gripe about most chocolate chip cookie recipes is how MANY cookies they make. I don’t know about you, but I don’t need 3-4 dozen cookies from one recipe, and I resent the fact that I have to keep pulling sheets in and out of the oven for 45 minutes.
When you live in a small apartment, there’s only so many places to put cooling cookies. I admit that it’s not a terrible problem to have, but still.
All of this is to say, that one night I was really, really craving cookies (as one does) and really didn’t want to go through the aforementioned rigamarole. I just wanted soft, melty, chewy cookies, NOW.
So I cut my normal recipe in half, threw caution to the wind and melted the butter, stirred everything together with a fork in one bowl, and hoped for the best. And honestly….they weren’t the best I’d ever had, but they weren’t bad. They spread more than I’d have liked, but certainly didn’t suffer in the way I’d assumed they would.
So I started tinkering.
Like the annoying recipe authors I mentioned before, I tinkered with the brown/white sugar ratio, and added flour to make up for the moisture of the melted butter. I increased the salt because it sets off the chocolate sweetness so well.
And after a couple rounds of testing (poor us), I came up with what I consider to be the easiest homemade chocolate chip cookie recipe there is.
Here’s why these are the easiest chocolate chip cookies:
- You use melted butter – no waiting around for butter to soften.
- You stir everything together in one bowl – no mixer necessary.
- Because you’re stirring by hand, you’re very unlikely to over-mix the dough (a common cookie problem).
- NO CHILLING REQUIRED! Hallelujah.
- The recipe makes only 20 cookies! No waiting around for an hour for all your cookies to be done.
I’ve now made it at least 5 times, in a number of temperature and time circumstances, and it hasn’t failed me yet. That’s more than I can say for most cookie recipes I’ve tried, to be honest.
I gave my friend Colleen a plate of them for her birthday, and her text the next day says it all: “These are the BEST DAMN COOKIES I’VE EVER HAD!!!”
I couldn’t agree more.
Common Questions:
This has everything to do with how you measure your flour, and how little or how much of it there is. I strongly recommend weighing your flour using a kitchen scale, as that will yield the most consistent results. If you don’t want to, however, you can also use the “spoon and level” method to accurately measure flour. Use a spoon to gently place flour into your cup until you reach the top, then level it off with a knife. Don’t pack it in, don’t shake the cup to settle it, don’t scoop the flour directly from the bag with your cup – this will be too much flour and your cookies will not spread correctly!
First, make sure you added the full 1 and 1/2 cups of flour! The dough should be just a touch softer than standard cookie dough. If you think your dough is much more liquid than that, stir in another 2 or 3 tablespoons of flour, then refrigerate the dough for half an hour before scooping and baking. This should fix the problem! Try not to add too much flour, as you don’t want the cookies to be dry.
I mostly use Bob’s Red Mill’s all-purpose flour, but I also like King Arthur Flour. Note that if you use White Lily or a similar soft, lower protein wheat flour, you will need to add more flour a tablespoon at a time (up to 1/4 cup or 30 grams more) until your dough gets to a cookie dough consistency. This is because lower protein wheat flours (designed for light and fluffy biscuits and cakes) absorb less moisture than higher protein, hard wheat flours. Your cookies will still be delicious but just require a little adjustment!
Yes, but I recommend making two separate batches, rather than doubling the ingredients in one bowl. The reason for this is that if you double the ingredients in one bowl, you’re doubling the volume but not the surface area, which means more heat will be retained by the batter and you’ll have flat, spread-out cookies. For this reason, I recommend making two separate batches, but if you must double everything in one bowl, I would recommend chilling the dough for at least an hour before scooping.
The Easiest Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter (113g; 1 stick)
- ½ cup brown sugar, packed (100g)
- ¼ cup granulated (white) sugar (50g)
- 1 large egg (cold or room temperature, both are fine)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour (188g – see notes below on how to measure flour correctly without a scale)
- ½ cup chocolate chips (85g; more if desired)
- Coarse sea salt, for sprinkling (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- In a large microwave-safe bowl (or a small saucepan on the stove), heat the butter until just melted. Whisk in the two sugars until thoroughly combined (I like to use a fork as my whisk). Let the mixture cool for a minute, then whisk in the egg and vanilla extract until smooth.
- Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over top of the mixture and stir in, then add the flour and stir it in until fully combined and a smooth dough is formed. Fold in the chocolate chips.
- Drop the dough by rounded tablespoons (if you have it, a #40 tablespoon cookie scoop is perfect for this) onto cookie sheets, about 2 inches apart. The dough should make approximately 20 cookies worth.
- If desired, sprinkle additional coarse sea salt over top of the cookies (you can also do this after they’re baked). Bake for 9-10 minutes. NOTE: the cookies will look underdone, but they’ll firm up as they sit.
- Let cookies cool on sheet for at least 5 minutes, then cool completely on a rack. Store, tightly covered, at room temperature for up to 5 days.
Notes
Like this recipe? Please rate it and leave a comment or tag me on Instagram @katiebirdbakes, and sign up for my email list to receive my recipes straight to your inbox every time I post!
Katie – this recipe is always such a hit with my family. It never fails! Thanks for sharing this great recipe – I really appreciate how easy this is!
-Chrisjen
Thank you so much, Chrisjen! So glad you enjoy this recipe!
I too am on the important quest to find the perfect chocolate chip recipe for me and this seems like a winner. The only problem is that I live in South Africa and we don’t really have all purpose flour here, only cake wheat. Is this the same thing? Also our brown sugar looks a lot different to your American ones. So I’m always trying to figure these complexities out
Hi there – cake wheat will work here. You’re looking for generic wheat flour – that’s what is referred to as “all-purpose” in the US. Don’t use “whole wheat” or “wholemeal” flour as it will absorb too much moisture! Hope you love the recipe.
Thank you so much for this recipe! This was the first baking project I tried that actually turned out well. It was very easy and the cookies were delicious. Also, thanks for helping me finally understand how to properly measure ingredients!
Thank you so much for the great review, Celesse! Measuring correctly is so important.
These are amazingly easy! I measured everything using a kitchen scale because you provided the grams measurements in the bowl. It was so quick and made doing the dishes after a snap. I baked them for exactly 10 minutes and left them resting for 5 per instructions and they came out perfectly soft and chewy. This will be my go-to recipe from now on! Not having to cream butter makes this so quick and fun to make with my four year old.
Yay! So glad the gram measurements were helpful – I’m working on adding them for more of my recipes because it is just so much easier! Thank you!
OMG ! My quest for the perfect chewy chocolate chip recipe is over.
These are ridiculously simple and so so chewy and yum ! Thank you for sharing this .
Yay! So glad you enjoyed these, Meenu! Thanks for the review.
Oh my goodness! I forgot to leave it a 5 star review 😮
Thank you so much, Jamie! The round shape often happens when there is just a little too much flour. Make sure you either weigh it or use the spoon and level method so your cup of flour isn’t too heavy!
Love it! Best recipe ever, if you add some walnuts and crush up some dark chocolate, it taste wonderful even without adding walnuts. One question, when I baked the “cookies” and let them cool down/chill for at least 10 minutes, they were still very round and circular. Not quite like a cookie shape, not saying it is a bad thing! Just wasn’t expecting it. ❤
Quick and easy recipe. I love not having to cream the butter and sugar. I added m&m’s instead of choc chips because thats what I had on hand. Delicious. Thanks, this ones going in my favourite recipes folder.
Thank you Audrey! So glad you enjoyed these!
Love this recipe! It’s now a family favourite and we have made it more times than I can count. My daughter even asked for them instead of a birthday cake this year, but she wants them to be big. Do you think it will work if I use this recipe to make large cookies?
Hi Christine! So glad you love this recipe, thank you! For bigger cookies, you can use a 1/4 cup measure for each cookie but make sure you space them out – I’d do no more than 6 per cookie sheet – and bake for longer, probably 15-18 minutes! Let me know how they turn out!
The cookies were so delicious especially when you add walnuts and some chopped up dark chocolate, one of the best recipes ever! I am new to baking so I don’t know much yet, one problem that did accrue though, after I baked them and let them sit for almost 10 minutes, they were still very round and circular, like a biscuit and now quite like a cookie. Not saying it was a bad thing, just wasn’t expecting it. Love it though! ❤
I’m new to baking, and this is one of the first ones I’ve tried, and they came out perfect! My family loves this so much, that I’ve made this four times in the last month. Lol. Do you have a diabetic-friendly version of this? My dad is diabetic, and I would love for him to get more than one cookie when I bring some over. Thanks!
Hi Angela – so glad that this recipe worked for you and that your family loves them too! For diabetic-friendly, I would recommend trying a granulated sugar substitute like the Lakanto monk fruit sweetener brand. You want to get one that you can sub 1:1 for granulated sugar. Once people start playing around with stevia I don’t know how to guide them because I don’t have experience with it and it changes the chemical composition of the product! Let me know if you have any other questions!
Hi Katie! Thank you so much for this recipe. I’ve made it 1/2 dozen times at least with very delicious and reliable results!
Do you think it would work if I used a sugar substitute (Like stevia)? I would like to make these for my neighbors, but they have diabetes so I always do a sugar-swap for them…
Hi Nicole – so glad you enjoyed this recipe!! For a sugar substitute, I would recommend trying a granulated sweetener that is intended to substitute 1:1 for regular sugar. The Lakanto brand has a good one that is monk fruit based! Let me know if you try it!
I made the cookies using grams instead of cups for measurements and everything was measured accurately. However, the mixture didn’t form into a dough so I had to add more flour but as I am an inexperienced baker, I was unsure how much to add. After baking, the cookies were rock solid and pretty inedible, probably because I added too much flour. I think the grams given on this recipe may not be correct. But apart from that, the recipe is very simple to follow which I quite like.
Sorry these didn’t work out for you – I’ve tested these a number of times with the gram measurements, so I’m not sure what could’ve gone wrong. Generally if you feel you need to add flour, you should start with a tablespoon at a time. Hope you find another recipe you like!
These have a texture closer to a biscuit than a chocolate chip cookie, they aren’t bad at all. But if you’re looking for a moist chewy cookie (yes I measured the flour correctly) I’d probably skip this recipe.
Thanks for the honest feedback April!
I can see why this post has gotten so much attention. As the retired owner of a little diner, I was greatly amused by your take on recipe authors, and I couldn’t agree more. When it comes to classic recipes, overthinking is very much a thing these days. However, I’ve never been much of a baker until a year ago, and I can’t tell you when I last even made a cake or cookies – and I wasn’t good at it. My restaurant sweets came from a small bakery. I do make my own breads and rolls at home fairly often now, and I understand how to weigh and measure properly. These cookies came out perfect. I mean “first time, why in the world didn’t I know how to do this sooner, I can’t believe I actually made cookies this good” perfect. I did have a #40 scoop from my restaurant. Used to make hush puppies with it! This recipe belongs in any cookbook with “baking” in the title. Thanks for sharing it!
Wow – Joseph, thank you so much for one of the best reviews I’ve ever received! I am honored that you tried and enjoyed my recipe! Thank you.
Amazing recipe!! I replaced the egg for a flax egg, used vegan chocolate chips and vegan butter and the recipe still came out beautifully!! You would never even guess they were vegan and I will be using this recipe from now on as my go to chocolate chip cookie!! I wanted to let readers know that this recipe can still work with vegan substitutes!!
Amazing!! Thank you so much for that feedback, Victoria – I’ll have to try it with a flax egg sometime.
Should the flour be sifted?
Nope, no need.