Chocolate Chunk Cookies — These chocolate chunk cookies are made with both chocolate chunks AND chips. These are hands down the BEST chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever made!
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Best Ever Cookies … with Chocolate Chunks!
I’ve been on the quest to find the perfect end-all be-all chocolate chip cookie recipe. And this recipe is as close as I’ve come.
These chunky chocolate chip cookies are so soft, similar to Keebler Soft-Batch Cookies, minus the store-bought taste. And they bake up with the perfect height; not too thick or overly domed and not too thin like flat pancakes.
I stuffed these cookies to the max with both chocolate chips and chocolate chunks. As the cookies bake, the chips retain their shape more than the chunks, which turn into oozing luxurious puddles.
What Makes These Chocolate Chunk Cookies “The Best?”
If you’re looking for an easy, straightforward, chocolate chunk cookie recipe that yields fantastic results, I encourage you to give this one a try. These cookies are as close to my definition of The Perfect Cookie as I’ve come and here are the highlights why I love the recipe:
- No two-day waiting period between making the dough and baking the cookies — and dough chilling is optional.
- No egg plus yolk situation to contend with so nothing is wasted.
- The overall batch size is manageable, about two dozen.
- Each cookie is decent-sized, but not ginormous.
- The cookies get softer, not harder or drier, the next day and continue to stay soft for up to a week.
- The holy grail of cookie qualities are present — thick, puffy, soft, and chewy.
And let’s not forget, there are two kinds of chocolate in every bite! The more the merrier.
Ingredients in Chocolate Chunk Cookies
To make this chocolate chunk cookie recipe, you’ll need:
- Unsalted butter
- Brown sugar
- Granulated sugar
- Egg
- Vanilla extract
- All-purpose flour
- Bread flour
- Cornstarch
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips
- Bittersweet chocolate
How to Make Chocolate Chunk Cookies
The double chocolate chunk cookies come together quickly, although you do have to chill the dough before baking it (no way around it, sorry!). Let’s review how the cookies loaded with chocolate chunks are prepared:
- Cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy.
- Add in the egg and vanilla, then stir in the dry ingredients.
- Add the chocolate chunks and chips last, then scoop the dough into balls.
- Refrigerate the cookie dough balls for about 2 hours before baking them.
- Bake until barely golden brown around the edges, even if slightly undercooked in the center.
- Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing and transferring to a rack to finish cooling.
How Long Should You Bake Chocolate Chip Cookies?
I recommend baking 8 to 9 minutes, and not more than 10 minutes, period. I found given the size of my dough mounds, my oven, and my taste preferences, 9 minutes is the magic number for me. Even though the centers will seem underdone at 8 or 9 minutes, as the cookies cool out of the oven, they firm up.
If you wait to pull the cookies until they look done, as they cool they will set up far too firm and crumbly and won’t stay soft and chewy. Don’t overbake.
Cookie Baking FAQs
I used two types of flour in these chocolate chunk cookies, both bread and all-purpose flour. The original recipe just calls for all-purpose but because bread flour adds extra chewiness and since my dream cookie is one with a high degree of chewiness, I utilized a combination of bread flour and all-purpose.
If you don’t have bread flour, solely using all-purpose is fine. Your cookies may not be quite as chewy nor as thick, since bread flour also lends increased structure to baked goods, but they’ll still be plenty good.
Unbaked cookie dough may be refrigerated for up to 5 days prior to baking it, or frozen for up to 3 months
The chewiness comes from the bread flour in this particular recipe (see above for my answer to that FAQ).
To create a soft cookie, you need to use larger amounts of dough. I used about 2.25 ounces dough per cookie. I weighed each mound of dough, but if you don’t have a scale or don’t want to be bothered, that translates to two heaping tablespoons of dough, and with the chocolate pieces dangling off, possibly 3 tablespoons.
I learned when I made those cookies that a larger mass of dough allows the cookie center to remain soft and tender since it never gets the chance to dry out or overbake while the edges crisp up.
I chilled the cookie dough before baking it and always advocate doing so because as dough chills, the flavors marry and cold dough spreads less during baking, resulting in puffier and thicker cookies.
Brown sugar helps cookies stay softer and gives them a richer flavor profile since brown sugar has more depth of flavor than granulated sugar does. Ironically, cookies made with more brown than granulated sugar become softer over time as they absorb atmospheric moisture, rather than drying out.
Where this chocolate chunk cookie recipe veers way off the path compared to any other cookie recipe I’ve ever tried is that it uses cornstarch, and just two mere teaspoons, but enough to work its softening magic. Cornstarch is not only a softening agent, but it’s also a thickening agent. Just as it thickens gravy or soup, it helps to create thick and puffy cookies.
Nope! You may use one or the other, if desired. I was going to make the cookies exclusively using semi-sweet chocolate chips, but I enjoy having a variety of textures and flavors in my cookies, especially when those textures and flavors are of the chocolate variety. I opted to use both semi-sweet chocolate chips and bittersweet chocolate chunks, courtesy of a Trader Joe’s 72% Pound Plus bar.
Recipe Variations to Try
It’s easy to customize this recipe for chocolate chip chunk cookies! You may add up to 12 ounces (roughly 2 cups, but no more) of mix-ins, such as:
- Chopped nuts
- White chocolate chips
- Butterscotch chips
- Diced candy bar pieces
- Dried fruit
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Chocolate Chip and Chunk Cookies
Ingredients
- ¾ cup unsalted butter, softened
- ¾ cup brown sugar, packed (I use light)
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup bread flour or all-purpose flour*, See Notes
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt, optional and to taste
- 6 ounces 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 6 ounces bittersweet or dark baking chocolate, chopped into bite-sized chunks (I use Trader Joe’s 72% Pound Plus bar)
Instructions
- To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on low speed until smooth, 1 to 2 minutes.
- Add the sugars and beat on medium-high speed until creamed and well combined, about 3 minutes.
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the egg, vanilla, and beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the flours, corn starch, baking soda, salt, and mix until just combined, about 1 minute.
- Add the chocolate chips and chunks, and either fold in by hand or beat for a few seconds on low speed.
- Using a 2-ounce cookie scoop, form heaping mounds weighing 2 1/4-ounces each (weighed on a scale, which is approximately a scant 1/4-cup measure. Dough mounds will look large for their weight because there’s lots of chocolate pieces adding bulk).
- Place mounds on a large plate or tray, cover with plasticwrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, up to 5 days.
- Preheat oven to 350F, line a baking sheet with a Silpat Non-Stick Baking Mat, parchment, or spray with cooking spray. Place dough mounds on the baking sheet, spaced at least 2 inches apart; I bake 8 cookies per sheet.
- Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until barely golden brown around the edges, even if slightly undercooked in the center, noting the tops will not be browned and will be pale. Do not cook longer than ten minutes as cookies will darken and firm up as they cool (The cookies shown in the photos were baked for 8 minutes, rotated once midway through baking, and have chewy edges with soft pillowy centers).
- Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing and transferring to a rack to finish cooling.
Notes
- *Edited to add May 2013 – I prefer these cookies using exclusively all-purpose flour and have stopped baking them with a combination of all-purpose and bread flour. I am leaving the recipe up as I wrote it back in 2012, but note that I prefer all-purpose because the cookies are softer, more tender, and more moist.
- Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
- Alternatively, unbaked cookie dough can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, so consider baking only as many cookies as desired and save the remaining dough to be baked in the future when desired.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes:
You can check out all of my chocolate chip cookie recipes HERE.
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Could I double the recipe?
yes
Hi. I want to know if I could add cocoa powder to make it a double chocolate chip cookie. ? Would that mess with the recipe. If not. How much would you recommend adding. Thanks. I making these for a party.
I would just make these https://www.averiecooks.com/quadruple-chocolate-soft-fudgy-pudding-cookies/ or https://www.averiecooks.com/softbatch-cream-cheese-chocolate-chocolate-chip-cookies/
Hi!!!
If I decided to fridge the cookie dough balls over night do I need to leave them at room temp a bit before going in the oven?!!!
Very excited to try :)
No, straight to oven after the fridge.
These are the best! Our new go-to cookie recipe 🤗. I am curious how well the dough can be used to make a cookie cake. Any suggestions on adaptations in order to achieve even baking?
Thanks for the 5 star review and glad this is your new go to! For cookie cakes, google ‘averie cooks cookie pie’ and lots of options will pop up.
These are my holy grail, go-to cookie! I’ve made them many times for friends and coworkers, and always get complements. Just a couple very minor tweaks:
I’ve never been able to get them to fully bake in the recommended time, in fact I usually double it – today’s batch took 20 minutes, but are perhaps a bit overcooked. I have a light-coloured cookie pan, which I think makes the difference.
I also took the interior salt down to just a pinch, and top with finishing sea salt when they’re fresh from the oven. This step isn’t necessary, they are still rockin’ without.
Perfect!!!
Thanks for the 5 star review and glad these are your holy grail go-to cookies! I love sea salt on top of cookies too. Makes them taste even better!
I have also been on a search for the perfect cookie recipe, but my very favorite uses equal parts butter and oil. I use it as the base for most of the cookies I make. The combo of butter and oil makes them crunchy on the outside but soft in the middle, in case you’d like to try it. But I am interested in trying my recipe with the addition of cornstarch. I have never heard of cornstarch in a chocolate chip cookie, What does the cornstarch do and how does it improve the cookie?
Makes them softer and they stay soft for days.
I made these cookies today and they came out great.
I used all purpose flour. I used 1/2 semi sweet chocolate chips and 1/2 milk chocolate chips. I used a number 40. Scoop and refrigerated the scoops for two hours. The cookies baked approximately 11 minutes. I was very pleased with this recipe.
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you!
My cookies came out very flat. They were delicious, but they did not retain the thick and puffy. I followed the recipe exactly. The only thing I may have done is beat the butter&sugars longer than 3 minutes. Would that matter and make the dough a problem. When the dough was done, it was silky soft, and was not really too dough-like. Where did I go wrong ?
I would say if the dough was silky soft and not really dough-like that you needed more flour. Maybe another 2-4 tbsp would have done the trick and that would tighten up the dough and they would have spread less. I also recommend King Arthur brand flour for baking because it has more gluten than other brands, which helps cookies stay thicker.
Honestly the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever made. Everyone loves them and they are perfect every time.
I’m glad that you think that they’re best and that everyone loves them!
Hey! Thank you for the wonderful recipe! We have to eat gluten free, dairy free, coconut free and soy free, so needless to say I make a few substitutions, but in the end they taste far better than most allergy friendly recipes. I’m so thrilled to have found such a great well thought out detailed recipe. Thank you again!
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you -despite the substitutions!
The only walnuts available near me are raw walnuts. Should raw walnuts be roasted before they’re added to cookies?
Will try the cream cheese choco chip cookies and fudgy chocolate pudding cookies next! I’m so glad I came across your website. I tried making the NYT cookies before, and yours are far more delicious and easier to make. Thanks so much for sharing these recipes! :)
You can toast if you want, or not. Whatever you think you’ll enjoy more.
Thanks so much for this recipe! I’ve made these cookies twice, and they turned out great both times. Everyone who tried the cookies told me I should sell them! I just have a couple of questions about adding nuts. Would 1/2 cup of walnuts be enough? Do I have to peel the walnuts, and do I have to roast them before adding them?
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it’s a favorite! I think 1/2 cup, maybe a bit more, would be fine and I have never peeled walnuts, not the kind I buy at least. They just come diced up in a pouch.
I just finished making these cookies and OMG are they delicious!! I actually decided to use the bread flour n they still turned out super soft on the inside. Each one was about 2T. but I cooked them for 14 minutes. I like mine crispy from the outside. I think this is the best chocolate chip cookie I’ve made!! Thanks for this great recipe!!
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you! Glad it’s the best CCC you’ve made!
My son and I made these last night and they are the perfect chocolate chip cookie! We had to substitute a 1/4 c of butter with coconut oil and I’m glad, it just gives them a little something I just can’t put my finger on, but it’s good. Thanks for sharing this recipe!
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you!
I also have all coconut oil cookies, no butter https://www.averiecooks.com/2014/03/the-best-soft-and-chewy-coconut-oil-chocolate-chip-cookies.html And there are links in that post to a few other coconut oil cookies or just google ‘coconut oil cookies averie cooks’ and a bunch will pop up!