Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies — 🍪🙌🏻🤎These soft batch cookies are made with a combination of butter and cream cheese, which makes them extra rich and delicious! I like to make mine using a combination of chocolate chips and chunks, and you can even use M&M’s in these!
Table of Contents
Soft Baked Chocolate Chip Cookies (with Cream Cheese!)
I’ve been wanting to bake cream cheese into cookies for ages. I finally did. And I’m in love with the results.
I adapted my favorite Chocolate Chip and Chunk Cookies recipe and replaced some of the butter with cream cheese and am in love with the results.
My favorite recipe calls for 3/4 cup of butter, and for these soft batch chocolate chip cookies I used a combination of 1/2 cup butter and 1/4 cup cream cheese. You wouldn’t think that just a simple quarter-cup swap of butter for cream cheese would effect results that much, but it did.
These chocolate chip cream cheese cookies are so soft, moist, and with a richness to the dough like no other cookies I’ve tried.
Ingredients for Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies
If you’ve never made chocolate chip cookies with cream cheese before, you’re in for a treat! You’ll need just a handful of pantry staples:
- Unsalted butter
- Cream cheese
- Light brown sugar
- Granulated sugar
- Egg
- Vanilla extract
- All-purpose flour
- Cornstarch
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How to Make Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies
The steps for this chocolate chip cookie recipe with cream cheese couldn’t be simpler!
- Cream together the cream cheese, butter, sugars, and vanilla extract. Whip the mixture on medium-high speed until it’s light and fluffy. Don’t just mix it all together, it must be light and fluffy before moving onto the next step!
- Add in the dry ingredients and scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure everything gets incorporated.
- Scoop the cookie dough into large balls and refrigerate for at least 2 hours before baking.
- Bake the cookies for no more than 10 minutes, then let cool for 5 minutes on the baking tray before transferring to a wire rack.
Cookie FAQs
It makes them super soft and moist! In this particular recipe, the dough seems more buttery — which is ironic since there’s actually less butter used, not more. The cream cheese cookies are super soft without being cakey, and remind me of soft batch cookies. The edges are slightly chewy, and the thick interiors are soft, tender, and moist.
I can’t taste the cream cheese, but it adds depth, density, and richness that my regular chocolate chip cookies don’t have.
Use full-fat cream cheese in a block. Do NOT use light, fat-free, or a whipped cream cheese because your dough will become runny. I tried the recipe with some light cream cheese I had on hand, and the cookies baked thinner and spread.
You can use a hand mixer and a bowl if that’s all you have, but I prefer using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment because you can prepare other parts of the recipe while it’s busy mixing. I use the Kitchenaid 7-quart tilt head mixer, which you can get on Amazon. They’re worth the investment in my opinion!
Technically, you can omit the cornstarch, but your cookies won’t turn out as soft. To make these cream cheese chocolate chip cookies soft batch-style, the cornstarch is needed.
I made these as classic chocolate chip cream cheese cookies, but I bet you could add extra mix-ins if desired. Chopped nuts, M&M’s, or your favorite chopped up candy bar would all be good additions. Just be sure to add no more than 2 1/4 cups mix-ins total. 
Yes, if you want to make soft batch chocolate chip cookies with cream cheese you MUST chill the dough first. Make sure to chill your dough for at least 2 hours before you bake to ensure your cookies bake thick and puffy. Warm, limp dough bakes into limpy and wimpy cookies. I want my cookies to be thick, with puffy centers that are overflowing with chocolate.
I used a 2-inch cookie scoop to make my cookies because I like them really big. If you don’t have a cookie scoop, use a large spoon and your hands. Just try to make your cookies all the same size so they bake evenly!
Recipe Video Tutorial
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Softbatch Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies
Equipment
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
- ¼ cup cream cheese, softened*
- ¾ cup light brown sugar, packed
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt, optional and to taste
- 2 ¼ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips or chunks**
Instructions
- To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter, cream cheese (measure it by smooshing it into a 1/4-cup measure), sugars, egg, vanilla, and beat on medium-high speed until well-creamed, light and fluffy, about 5 minutes (or use an electric hand mixer and beat for at least 7 minutes).
- Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, optional salt, and mix until just combined, about 1 minute.
- Add chocolate chips and chunks, and beat momentarily to incorporate, or fold in by hand.
- Using a medium 2-inch cookie scoop, form heaping mounds (I made 28). Place mounds on a large plate, flatten mounds slightly with your palm, cover with plasticwrap, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or up to 5 days, before baking. Do not bake with warm dough because cookies will spread and bake thinner and flatter.
- Preheat oven to 350F, line a baking sheet with a Silpat Non-Stick Baking Mat or spray with cooking spray and place mounds on baking sheet, spaced at least 2 inches apart (I bake 8 cookies per sheet).
- Bake for 8 to 9 minutes, or until edges have set and tops are just beginning to set, even if slightly undercooked, pale and glossy in the center. Do not bake longer than 10 minutes as cookies will firm up as they cool.
- Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing and transferring to a rack to finish cooling.***
- Cookies will keep airtight at room temperature for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 3 months. Alternatively, unbaked cookie dough can be stored airtight 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.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More Cookies Made with Cream Cheese:
ALL OF MY CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE RECIPES!
Cream Cheese Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Cookies — Cream cheese keeps them super soft! Say hello to your new fave chocolate cookie!!
Black and White Cream Cheese Cookies — These cookies combine two favorites in one! Soft, moist, buttery, creamy Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies are paired with fudgy, intensely chocolaty, and not overly sweet Dark Chocolate Dark Brown Sugar Cookies.
Cream Cheese White Chocolate Chip Cookies — These soft and chewy white chocolate chip cookies use two special ingredients to achieve their pillowy texture: instant pudding mix and cream cheese!
Cream Cheese Cookies — Big, soft, buttery cookies with sweet and tangy cream cheese in the middle!! Oh my….Best thumbprints ever!!!
Softbatch Glazed Lemon Cream Cheese Cookies — Big, bold lemon flavor packed into super soft cookies thanks to the cream cheese!! Tangy-sweet perfection! Lemon lovers are going to adore these easy cookies!!
can you freeze the unbaked dough?
Yes, if you read the directions, I touched on this and the duration, etc.
wow they look amaaaaazing <3
I have one question, what brand do you use for the choc chunks?
Thanks for posting this recipe,
Xoxo
I’ve used all brands but these photos were taken with the Enjoy Life brand. I really like Trader Joe’s, too.
You are killing me with these photos of luscious, super chocolatety sweetness when I’m hungry!! I’m pulling out my ingredients right now to make these! I gotta have some!!
Thanks for posting!!
JacqueO
i think I love you! Thank you for posting a cookie recipe with out pudding! I’m so going to make them. I just hope they come out as delisious as they sound!
I do have a lot of cookies with pudding, mostly circa 2012-13-ish (it was all the rage…haha!) but these don’t and I hope you love them as much as I do!
Hi! I can’t tell you how happy I am to have people like you in the world! I appreciate all the hard work you put into your recipes to share with people like me that have little time & limited resources to test out things in the kitchen! This cookie recipe is absolutely AMAZING!!! It’s a NO FAIL cookie for me to make with the kids, and it really doesn’t take too long to mix with my little & big helpers! I’ve searched throughout the years for “THE BEST” Chocolate Chip Cookie, and seriously I have found it through your website! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!! Can you tell I’m so excited about this? In fact, all of your recipes I have tried are really spot on and good! I can’t wait to pick up your cookbook, too! Keep up the great work & best of blessings to you!!
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you – and that all my recipes you’ve tried have been spot on and good! Thanks for this glowing comment and praise. Honestly it’s comments like these that I truly value and that keep me going when I’ve trialed a cake for like the fifth time and still can’t seem to get it quite the way I want it, because I know that not everyone can do that, wants to do that, has the time to do it, etc. and so thank you for being appreciative and for your support!!
If you try other recipes, keep me posted! :)
I have to start off by saying I’m not much of a baker and manage to make even premixed cakes, cookies, etc. taste awful. However, even in my hands these tasted amazing! Prep time for me was more around 1 hour, just because again, I’m a very novice baker, but these cookies were well worth it. I followed the recipe exactly, except for adding about a tsp of salt instead of 1/2 tsp and I froze the dough before putting it in the oven. This may have contributed to my cook time being around 12-13 minutes in a convection oven. It’s so surprising that a little bit of cream cheese makes such a difference :-) Thanks for sharing, Averie. I will for sure be making these again
Also, for reference, these made about 36 cookies for me, using a 2 3/4 inch cookie dough scooper.
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you even though you say you’re not a baker! You are now :)
Gosh these look and sound amazing! How would you suggest baking it differently or altering some ingredients so that I can get the outside to be crispy yet the inside remaining chewy?
They really aren’t a crispy cookie at all so I don’t know if that’s possible to achieve with this recipe. You could try raising the oven temp to 375F. Sometimes a bit hotter oven than 350 can brown things up more so the outside is more browned/done. I don’t know if that will translate to ‘crispy’ per se, and you could just end with overly browned exteriors, but that would be my only suggestion.
I did not refrigerate these at all. They came out perfect and I’m baking in the mountains and made no adjustments.
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you even without chilling the dough!
These cookies are great! Great texture! We love the reduced fat and sugar in this recipe. And they are not too sweet which lends them to all kinds of mix-ins. Thanks a bunch!
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you!
Is it possible to use a whisk to mix the ingredients in the first step or do I need to use an electric mixer?
I haven’t tried making this literally by hand so cannot say for sure. I’d probably use a wooden spoon rather than a whisk if that was my situation.
I ended up baking two of each cookie. The White Chocolate with coconut pudding are very good even though I overcooked them. The chocolate chocolate chip cookie was good but not as good as the first two times that I made it when I DID remember to put in the granulated sugar. I was very careful to go light with the flour and the white chocolate spread nicely but the chocolate chocolate are more formed. Still taste great!
s o sorry but i cannot find the answer to my question
You asked it on the white chocolate cookie post. Not this one.
I asked a question earlier and did not get a reply. I forgot to put the granulated sugar in the Soft batch chocolate chip cookies. How will that affect them? Also am making the White Chocolate chip cookies but could not find the cheesecake pudding so am using Coconut Cream. Anxious to see how that comes out.
Forgive me that it took me a few hours (rather than minutes) to answer you but I answered your question on the post you wrote it on.
So sorry to be spamming your page with all of my own comments, but I just baked eight of them and my husband and I both love them! Thank you for sharing your recipe.
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you!
I don’t see an edit option, so I guess I’ll make another comment. I read through some previous comments and noticed you said your cookies are formed using 1-2 tablespoons of dough. Mine were definitely too big, so I took them out of the fridge for a minute, split them all in half, rolled them into balls easily thanks to how cold they were, and flattened them back again. Now I have 30 cookies. Still hopeful that they’ll turn out delicious!
My cookies are currently chilling in the fridge. I’m greatly looking forward to baking them, but I’m typing up this comment with one concern; your recipe said you managed to form 28 cookies. I followed the directions exactly and have 15 cookies. I didn’t have a stand mixer so I used a hand mixer on medium-high speed for seven minutes. Do you think the mixture didn’t get fluffy enough? Perhaps I was not supposed to fill the 2-inch cookie scoop? They do appear a bit bigger than the ones in your picture. Honestly I was hoping that maybe you doubled your recipe and just didn’t mention it. :P