Everyone needs a solid chocolate chip cookie recipe, and this is mine: perfectly golden brown, with crisp edges, pools of chocolate throughout, and a chewy interior! Finish them off with a dash of flaky salt and a glass of cold milk (or even ice cream) for the ultimate treat!

The Secret to Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

Whether you look on social media, blog posts, or cookbooks, it seems like everyone has the best chocolate chip cookie recipe with their own secret ingredient. Now, I’ve had my fair share of baking—I’ve made tens of thousands of cookies in my life (I’m not kidding), and I even had my own cookie business in high school.

But in my experience, there really is no “secret ingredient” for a good chocolate chip cookie. If you want to upgrade your baking, the only thing you really need is to use good-quality ingredients. No secret ingredient can make a mediocre brand of butter or chocolate taste good.

What is Brown Butter?

When you bake chocolate chip cookies, you’ll often see the term “brown butter” being thrown around, but what is it? In a nutshell, brown butter is just toasted butter. When you cook butter past its melting point, the water content evaporates and the milk solids toast (these are the dark brown spots you see when it’s done cooking) to give it a nutty smell and flavor. It’s that simple!

Here are a few of my favorite tips when it comes to browning butter:

Use a light-colored pan. Butter can easily go from browned to burned—by using a light-colored pan, you can tell when your butter is done cooking.
Cook on medium-low heat. A steady and low heat will let your butter cook evenly and will prevent it from burning.
Have an extra bowl on hand. Once the butter is done, you’ll want to pour it into a bowl immediately—if you leave it in the pan, the residual heat will continue to cook it, and the butter will burn!

Ingredients You’ll Need

Most ingredients for these cookies are pantry staples, and you’ll probably already have them on hand. Here’s what you’ll need:

Good-quality butter. A European-style butter with high butterfat content is great—my personal favorite is Kerrigold!
Nonfat dry milk powder (optional). If you’ve ever made brown butter, you’ll see these toasted, brown bits at the bottom of the bowl—these are the toasted milk solids that give the butter it’s nutty flavor! Nonfat dry milk powder is just the milk solids that have been separated and dried. By adding this dried form of milk powder to butter, we can increase the amount of brown butter flavor in the cookies while not affecting the texture. However, I know it’s not a common household ingredient, so it’s completely optional!
Dark brown sugar. Dark brown sugar has a higher molasses content than light brown sugar, which increases the chewiness of your cookies and gives them a more intense flavor.
Granulated sugar. A mix of brown sugar and granulated sugar gives the cookies a chewy interior yet crisp edge.
Eggs. To bind the cookies together and give them moisture.
Egg yolk. Yolks have a higher fat content than egg whites, which contributes to a chewy cookie.
Vanilla extract. Don’t be shy—vanilla extract greatly enhances the cookies’ flavor and takes them to the next level. If you want to make your own vanilla extract (which is cheaper and often better quality), check out my blog post here!
All-purpose flour. A lot of cookie recipes I’ve come across call for a fancy combination of flours (saying bread flour makes the cookies chewy while pastry flour keeps them tender, etc.), but in my experience, it doesn’t make much of a difference. Bread flour is great for something like sourdough or focaccia that needs structure, protein, and gluten for a chewy texture. But if you think about it, you don’t mix cookie dough long enough to develop a gluten structure, and I didn’t notice very much of a difference when I tested this (if anything, the bread flour cookies spread more than those with just all-purpose).
Baking soda. Make sure it’s baking soda and not baking powder—these are two different products that will have entirely different results on your cookies.
Kosher salt. Enhances flavors and balances sweetness.
Espresso powder (optional). You won’t be able to taste the coffee—it’s just another flavor enhancer that will compliment the chocolate!
Chopped chocolate. The better-quality chocolate, the better—you can use whatever blend of milk, semisweet, or dark chocolate that you like.
Toasted walnuts or toffee. Both toasted walnuts and toffee perfectly compliment the nutty flavor of the brown butter.
Flaky salt. For me, a final sprinkle of flaky salt is nonnegotiable for desserts—not only does it balance the sweetness, it adds a nice textural and visual contrast!

Tips and Tricks for the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

Make sure the butter is not hot. If the butter is too hot when mixing with the sugar, you’ll get a cookie with a shiny, crackled top similar to a brownie—not exactly what we want in a chocolate chip cookie.
Use a chopped chocolate bar instead of chocolate chips. If you want those beautiful pools of chocolate throughout your cookies, use a chopped chocolate bar. While chocolate chips will also work, most low-quality brands have a coating on the outside to prevent them from melting and losing their shape.
Chill the cookie dough. When you chill cookie dough, you’re giving the flour a chance to fully hydrate and develop flavor. The longer you chill the cookie dough, the more flavor it will have—while I like to refrigerate it at least overnight, you could even leave it for as long as 5 days.
Scoop the dough before chilling. This tip will make your life easier—it’s so much easier to scoop room temperature cookie dough than one that’s rested in the fridge, lost moisture, and hardened.
Don’t overbake. The cookies should be golden brown on the edges but underdone when you take them out of the oven, as they will continue to cook while cooling on the baking sheet.

Chocolate Chip Cookie FAQ

Do I have to brown the butter? Technically, no. If you don’t like the taste of brown butter or don’t want to take the extra step, just use melted and cooled butter in its place.
Do I have to chill the cookie dough? You don’t have to, but chilling the dough really does a lot for this cookie. While they will still taste great, cookies baked immediately will probably spread out more and have a less pronounced flavor.
Can I add different mix-ins? Yes! You can add peanut butter chips, chopped candy or M&Ms, sprinkles—really anything you like.
Why did my cookies spread too much/not spread enough? The most-likely culprit is that you didn’t measure your flour correctly. If you undermeasure your flour or have too low of an oven temperature, your cookies are more likely to spread. The opposite is also true (if you overmeasure flour and have a high oven temp, they won’t spread as much).

Storage + Freezing Instructions

This is my ultimate baking hack—since I make cookies so often, it’s rare that I want to bake off a full batch. Whenever I have leftover cookie dough, I store it in the freezer and bake as necessary, that way you can have fresh-baked cookies on hand at any time! Here’s how to do it:

Scoop the dough as normal. Once the dough is made, portion them out with a cookie scoop and line them on a lined sheet pan (no need to space them apart—you won’t be baking them).
Freeze for one hour. Place the sheet of cookie dough in the freezer for at least one hour—this lets the dough set.
Store in plastic bags. Place the cookie dough balls in an airtight Ziploc bag and store them in the freezer for up to 6 months.
Bake as needed. When ready to bake, preheat your oven, take however many cookies you want to bake out of the Ziploc bag, and bake from frozen per recipe instructions. You might need a minute or two of extra cook time if the cookies don’t look done, but be careful not to overbake!

Hope you guys love this recipe—it’s one of my go-to’s! Happy cookie baking!

xoxo

still hungry? Check out these other cookie recipes!