Chocolate Chip Cookies

Article by Emily Saladino

These chocolate chip cookies are one of Food Network Kitchen’s top cookie recipes for good reason: they’re easy to whip up, keep well and have the perfect balance of sweet chips and caramelly dough. Despite their ubiquity, chocolate chippers can be bland, spread too much when they bake or otherwise disappoint. Here are our recipe developers’ expert tips for perfect homemade chocolate chip cookies.

How to Make Chocolate Chip Cookies Like A Pro

Are your cookies flat instead of fluffy? Sticking stubbornly to the baking sheet? Our recipe developers have the answers.

Line baking sheets with parchment. Not only does parchment paper prevent your cookies from sticking and make cleanup easier, but also it can also help distribute heat evenly, especially if your cookie sheets are slightly warped or your oven has hot spots.

Two types of sugar are key. Granulated white sugar provides crispness, while light brown sugar makes this chocolate chip cookie recipe soft and chewy.

Use room-temperature butter. Cold butter doesn’t cream evenly into the sugars or absorb as much air. Bringing your butter to room temperature leads to fluffier, more tender chocolate chip cookies.

Don’t let the butter get too soft. When butter is perfectly room temperature—usually after sitting on the counter for 30 minutes to an hour—it’s pliable that you can poke it with a finger and leave a clean, discernible indentation. Too-warm butter has almost blurry edges and will melt immediately in the oven, which causes cookies to spread and bake unevenly.

Cool baking sheets between batches. A hot baking sheet melts the butter in the dough too quickly, so chocolate chip cookies flatten instead of baking up tall and fluffy. To quickly cool a hot sheet, set it aside until it’s safe to touch bare-handed, then run it under cool water and dry it completely before baking your next batch.

Don’t overmix. For perfectly chewy chocolate chip cookies, combine all the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then add it slowly to the butter mixture with the electric mixer on medium speed. Stop as soon as you no longer see any patches of unincorporated flour, then stir in the chips by hand.

Chocolate Chip Cookies Ingredients and Substitutions

Chocolate. Our recipe developers like the way the flavor and texture of semisweet chocolate complements this cookie dough, but you can also swap in chopped walnuts or pecans for some or all the chips, or experiment with dark, milk, or even white chocolate chunks or chips.

Salt. The teaspoon of salt in this recipe keeps the dough tender and amplifies its flavors. If you love the sweet-salty contrast, you can also sprinkle flaky sea salt on top of each cookie right after you take them out of the oven.

Brown butter. Brown butter amplifies the nutty flavors of chocolate chip cookies but, because melted butter doesn’t incorporate the same way as room-temperature butter, our recipe developers don’t recommend making an even swap. Instead, try our brown butter chocolate chip cookies recipe.

Make it vegan. Avoiding dairy or other nonvegan ingredients? Food Network Kitchen’s vegan chocolate chip cookies have you covered.

Can You Freeze Chocolate Chip Cookies?

Chocolate chip cookies can be frozen before or after you bake them.

To freeze chocolate chip cookie dough, roll it into balls and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Put the sheet in the freezer until the cookies are completely solid (4 hours or overnight), then pop them off the sheet, wrap them tightly in plastic and store in a zippered bag in the freezer for up to 4 months. Don’t thaw chocolate chip cookies before baking them. Instead, preheat oven to 350 degrees F and bake as directed, allowing for a few additional minutes if necessary.

To freeze baked cookies, let them cool completely, then wrap tightly in plastic wrap and store them in a zippered bag in the freezer for up to 6 months. Thaw at room temperature.