No Chill Chocolate Chip Cookies
This is my go-to Chocolate Chip Cookie, with a soft and gooey middle, crisp edges, and a generous helping of chocolate chips. No chilling or wait time required.
Having tried a zillion chocolate chip cookie recipes over the past 10 years, this one has solidified its place as the most satisfying for what I want in a cookie.
I know this is quite subjective.
Frankly, there are many different styles, sizes, and textures for chocolate chip cookies and I enjoy many of them.
But there are a few qualities that are most important to me, which I’ll share below.
For me, these conveniently fast no chill chocolate chip cookies also happen to be the very best chocolate chip cookies!
Demand #1: I don’t want to wait for chilled dough – I want cookies NOW
I’ve played around with “aging” chocolate chip cookie dough after reading articles about how much better it makes the cookies.
Is it better?
Maybe a little, but truthfully, I care most about how fast a recipe is. I hate waiting for doughs to chill. I am impatient. Me want cookie NOW.
So this recipe is quick. There’s zero chill time whatsoever, and you don’t even have to set out butter ahead of time to soften, as this recipe uses melted butter.
And the flavor is still plenty delicious without “aging.”
Demand #2: I want multiple textures in one cookie, not just soft, or just crispy
Sure, every once in a while I’ll crave those crispy Tate’s-style cookies that are completely crunchy the whole way through, but my ideal cookie has crispness, softness, and gooeyness.
I want it all.
These cookies have a crunchy edge, with a soft, melty, gooey interior.
You can also bake a little less or a little more to get it even closer to your preference, if you like it one way over the other.
Demand #3. No weird ingredients or equipment, please
I’ve seen various “secret ingredients” and little tricks claiming to make chocolate chip cookies different, but none that I’ve tried have proved to be worthwhile.
This cookie has only the classic ingredients: unsalted butter, sugar, all purpose flour, egg, vanilla extract, baking soda, salt, and chocolate chips.
No cornstarch, no cream cheese, no boiling water, no cinnamon (?!), no cream of tartar, no lemon (why?!?!), and so on.
For equipment, you really just need the simple things, like bowls, a whisk, and a spatula.
I whip the cookies up with a hand mixer, but you can totally do this by hand too. No stand mixer required. although if you want to use one, use the paddle attachment for mixing.
This is a recipe I’ve been playing with since 2010, and it has been tweaked bit by bit from where it started, which was probably something close to the 1930s Tollhouse recipe. Here are the noteworthy features:
- Melted butter instead of softened makes these slightly chewy chocolate chip cookies, with crisp edges. It’s my favorite texture.
- A 2:1 ratio of brown sugar to granulated sugar also gives it a chewier, softer texture. Don’t worry, these aren’t crazy chewy like Molasses Cookies, it’s subtle. Feel free to use either light brown sugar or dark brown sugar.
- Scooped mounds of cookie dough gives the cookies ridges, an awesome texture, and somehow, a more even bake. Don’t roll the cookies.
- After testing these cookies on multiple cooking surfaces, I find that they brown best and spread the least on a Silpat. You may use parchment paper or bake directly on the pan though, if you’d like, but there will be slight variations with each surface.
Step by Step Overview:
Combine melted butter, brown sugar, and granulated white sugar in a large bowl:
Mix that together just enough so that the three ingredients are smooth and combined, then add a room temperature egg and vanilla extract:
I quickly warm the egg by putting it in warm water for a few minutes. Otherwise, a cold egg straight from the fridge will solidify the melted butter and make it uneven.
Mix together until smooth, then add the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, and salt):
When the flour mixture has *almost* disappeared into the dough, add some semisweet chocolate chips:
Mix a little more, until the streaks of flour have been absorbed:
And that’s it for the dough! Required chilling time is…zero minutes. Let’s scoop!
Use a medium cookie scoop (#40/1.5 tbsp) (affiliate) to scoop mounds of cookie dough onto a Silpat lined baking sheet:
Don’t have a silicone mat?
You can use parchment paper instead for your prepared baking sheet.
If you don’t have that either, you can put the dough directly on the baking sheet, but your baked cookies may be a lot more brown on the bottom. Start checking for doneness a few minutes early.
By the way, I tested rolling the scoops into smooth cookie dough balls in the palms of my hands, and it is MUCH better scooped.
The little ridges and unevenness here somehow gives it a more even, desirable bake in the oven.
Finally, this is optional, but for best results, I prefer to sprinkle the top of each cookie with fleur de sel.
This gives you really stellar cookies. The salt is so lovely as a contrast to the sweetness.
Bake the cookies for about 11-12 minutes at an oven temperature of 350 degrees F.
You can see that the edges are golden brown, but they look pretty colorless on top:
Even though it may look too soon to pull from the oven, that is the perfect time to pull them.
The cookies will cook a little bit more outside the oven, and after a few minutes of resting on the cookie sheet, the domed shape will fall a little bit (no need to move the cookies to a cooling rack).
You can see here, if you look closely and compare it to the photo above, that they’ve flattened a little bit:
I think they are best when enjoyed warm, so dig in!
Note: I have also tested these as larger cookies, scooped using a large #60 3T scoop (affiliate). They need a few more minutes of bake time, but they are also delicious (but I like the #40 size better). The large cookie scoop cookies tend to brown more on the edges, if that’s your thing:
Peanut Butter Cookies, Monster Cookies, and Snickerdoodles are some of my other favorite cookies to bake, fresh out of the oven. Enjoy!
Tips and FAQ
You can keep these at room temperature, in an airtight container, for several days, and they’ll still be soft and delicious. They are best fresh out of the oven, but leftovers are easily devoured too.
Like other chocolate chip cookie recipes, dough scoops can be frozen and baked later, with a few more minutes of bake time added at the end. I find that they don’t spread as evenly as freshly baked though.
If you don’t have an oven thermometer, please get one. I’ve used a lot of different ovens over the years, and it’s incredible how inaccurate they can be. Often times overbaked cookies are just the result of an oven that is too hot. Also, do not add convection, which changes baking time pretty dramatically.
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No Chill Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup brown sugar (light or dark)
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 large egg at room temperature*
- 7.5 ounces all purpose flour, by weight (1.5 cups, if measuring)
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
- fleur de sel for sprinkling on top, optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with a silicone mat.**
- In a large heatproof bowl, melt the butter in the microwave until it’s just barely melted, watching closely that it doesn’t come to a boil or get too hot. If the butter becomes overheated, make sure you let it cool down before proceeding.
- Add the brown sugar and granulated sugar to the bowl, and mix to combine, either with a hand mixer or by hand with a whisk. Only mix it just enough so that it’s relatively smooth.
- Add the vanilla extract and egg, and mix again until just combined.
- In a separate bowl, whisk to combine the flour, baking soda, and salt, then add this to the wet ingredients. Stir until the flour has almost disappeared, then add the chocolate chips, and continue stirring until the dry ingredients have been absorbed.
- Use a medium scoop (#40/1.5T) to portion the cookie dough onto the prepared baking sheet. You should get around 18 cookies, so you can either bake two batches one after another (my preference) or add another baking tray.
- Sprinkle the tops of the cookies with fleur de sel, if using, then bake for 11-12 minutes, until the cookies look slightly golden on the edges, and soft in the middle, but with no visible glistening rawness in the center.
- Remove the cookies from the oven, and allow them to cool for a few minutes, during which time they’ll flatten a bit and cook a little more. Then enjoy while warm!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition is estimated using a food database and is only intended to be used as a guideline for informational purposes.
Post updated in March 2019. Originally published December 2010.
90 Comments on “No Chill Chocolate Chip Cookies”
I made these and the only change I made was to brown the butter because I love the flavour. My dough was crumbly. I used the cookie scoop but had to fix them by hand as they were just crumbly. Suggestions?
Keep the recipe ass is, add you more chocolate chips or pecans. But warm your egg up to the ingredients your using
Hi Kate, browning the butter is actually a pretty big change to the recipe. You cook off all the water that is in the butter, and butter is generally 15-20% water, so that will definitely affect results. I would recommend finding a recipe that specifically uses brown butter.
Great recipe! I tried it already twice and it turned out great, even though I cut in half the sugar to make it healthier. To our taste the cookies are still very sweet.
The second time I forgot the vanilla, and I mixed the sugar with the dry ingredients before adding the wet ingredients. I liked the flavor profile and a certain crunchiness from the sugar that did not dissolve completely.
The perfect cookie recipe! So much more quicker than other recipes I have tried! Thank you!
So very good. I used salted butter and a little less salt. And they still turned out delicious. Thank you for the recipe.
Wow so yummy! I am using this recipe to surprise my parents (I am 14 years old) when they get back home from helping my homeless cousin and I can’t wait for their surprise! Thank you!
I tried this recipe last week and it was good. I decided to try it again, this time not overheating the butter as the recipe advised and it turned out to be my official favorite recipe for chocolate chip cookies. I used salted butter only because that’s what I had. Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful recipe!!
Wow!! So happy it has become your official favorite. Enjoy!!
Made this recipe this afternoon. I managed to add large chunks of dark cooking chocolate so I had large ones with the chocolate chunks and small plains one with no chocolate. It was my first time making proper biscuits which turned out great.
For gluten free, don’t know if it would work for biscuits but works for cakes but might be worth a try. Maybe add an extra egg or apple sauce or a bit of oil and vinegar or maybe a bit more butter or a mixture of these.
omg this recipe for the chocolate chip cookies came out sooooo easy and quick! love love it! i hope they bake ok.
Tried this recipe almost 3 weeks ago for my niece to sell at a garage sale so she could buy school shoes. They were a huge hit! This recipe is the best one I have found so far (this is my 8th cookie recipe I’ve tried). Even I loved them and I hate sweets. I will say I tried the method of leaving them on the baking sheet to flatten but they still were pretty round. So I flattened them before baking (just a tad as the dough was very sticky) and it worked like a charm. Even tried this recipe with white chocolate chips as well and oh my goodness talk about melt in your mouth, hands down the absolute best! Definitely adding this to my recipe book for my girls ♥️♥️♥️
Love this recipe. However, we have discovered gluten sensitivities and our family. Any suggestions for making this work as a great gluten-free cookie?
Thank you for your help. Please email me.
Unfortunately I am not knowledgeable in gluten-free baking as no one in my family has restrictions. I have experimented with a few of the pre-mixed gluten-free mixes with 1:1 substitutions out of curiosity and had decent success in general, but I’ve never tried it for cookies.
Joanne, this is a recipe I will definitely try. However, I have a question: I recently tried a recipe for chocolate chip cookies that required bread flour, it seemed to have the right amount of sugars in it but the recipe came out not sweet like a chocolate chip cookie would be. Do you think that this could’ve been due to the bread flour that was the only ingredient that I was not used to putting into chocolate chip cookies. Thank you
The bread flour wouldn’t affect the sweetness. I’ve seen recipes that use bread flour, and that’s more for gluten development. The recipe you used probably just had less sugar than the average cookie.
Just wondering if you recommend “aging” this cookie dough as you mentioned on another post.
I would say to make this recipe as is. it’s just a different experience from the other cookies, but both are good.
Hands down the best chocolate chip cookie recipe I have ever tried. My boyfriend and I have been experimenting with recipes for the past year, and when we tasted this one we immediately knew it was the best. We used a GF flour mixture and melted the butter (no mixer), and they were absolutely perfect. Thanks for this awesome recipe Joanne!!
That’s so great, Ellen. I’m glad you two enjoyed the cookies so much!
Ok so I’m totally lovin all of your recipes! I’ve used three of them this past week since being introduced to your site! So we got on a chocolate roll last night, first the peanut butter cups and then then these wonderful cookies. Chocolate chip cookies are my favorite (I know along with millions of other ppl) and I’ve searched FOREVER looking for that perfect homemade recipe, you know the one that comes out like the store bought box or refrigerated kind or the expensive mall shops. But we try to watch our sugar and “other” intake so I rarely indulge and plus we live overseas so some of those delights are not readily available. I’ve even tried the “clones” and the ones on the chocolate chip packages but still haven’t been satisfied. But anyway….again I love, love, love this recipe, the search is finally over! They came out perfect, a little crisp on the outside and soft inside. What more could you ask for?? If you are on the fence thinking just another chocolate chip cookie recipe, jump on over and join us, this is a good one!
Sooo good and easy to make! Thanks for the recipe
If I wanted to add peanut butter to this do you think I’d have to change any of the ingredient amounts??
Hey Jenn! Since baking is such a tricky thing to play around with, I would say it’s probably best not to tweak this recipe just because peanut butter could make the cookies dry or too thick. I found this recipe from allrecipes though and it has 760 reviews and 4.5/5 stars! I would say that’s a pretty safe one to try! http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/chewy-peanut-butter-chocolate-chip-cookies/detail.aspx