The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

This recipe for The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies has been my go-to favorite for years. It’s made extra special with the use of chopped chocolate, three types of sugar, and a sprinkle of flaky sea salt.

Let’s talk about chocolate chip cookies. Everyone and their mom has their own chocolate chip cookie recipe, but as we all know, some chocolate chip cookies are just plain better than others. Whether you’re a warn-and-gooey person, a chewy person, or a hard-and-crunchy person, everyone’s got their favorite. Personally, I’m a crunchy-on-the-outside-but-barely-cooked-on-the-inside person. I love that chewy ooey gooeyness of a chocolate chip cookie.

Finding the perfect recipe though, was quite the challenge. I’ve made well over a thousand chocolate chip cookies in my lifetime, searching for that perfect chocolate chip cookie (or CCC, as I’ve so affectionately named it). My favorite CCC is from the amazing blog Not Without Salt. As the blog name indicates, these cookies have a sprinkling of sea salt, but they are also chewy, crunchy, gooey, oozey, and most importantly, chocolately.

What I think puts them over the top is the chocolate. In this recipe, do yourself a favor and buy some high quality chocolate and chop it up. NO CHOCOLATE CHIPS. Yes, I promise, it’s worth the extra effort. Soooo worth it.

Now, here’s my step-by-step method for how I make these cookies. Pictures and all! I want you to be able to replicate these babies to be able to taste how absolutely sinful they are. Okay? No shortcuts here. Let’s get started.

Start off by getting your softened butter and your sugars (this recipe uses brown, white, and Turbinado) into the bowl of your stand mixer or a sturdy bowl if your using a hand-held mixer. Let’s talk about softened butter. I usually have a pack of butter on my counter all the time for whenever I need softened butter, but when I’m in a pinch, I put the butter into the microwave (still in the wrappers) in five-second increments, turning the butter on a different face every ten seconds, feeling to see when it’s suitable softened. You should be able to lightly press your finger in the butter and get a dent, but it shouldn’t collapse on you. Got it? Softened butter is a big deal around here. Your cookies won’t turn out right if it’s not softened enough.

Now beat it! I like using my Beater Blade, which scrapes down the sides of the bowl for me, so I can go do other things while the butter and sugar beat. If you don’t have one, do the prep in advance and scrape down often. Get them to be well incorporated, so that the sugar has completely integrated with the butter.

Now, mix in your eggs one at a time and add in the vanilla. Mix together thoroughly between each egg.

Now, here’s the important part: dry ingredients. These need to be whisked together before they are added to the dough, because they need to be evenly distributed throughout the dough without overmixing. Add it all at once and gently combine…

…But don’t overcombine! Doing so will be the downfall of your cookies. Resist the temptation, please.

Next, mix in your whopping one-pound of delicious, melty chocolate chunks. Again, please don’t overmix, for the sake of your delicious cookies.

Now, scoop scoop scoop! Fill your pans with cookie dough balls, get out your fanciest salt (I use the above fleur de sel, which is worth every penny in my opinion, but I’ve used plain old sea salt or even kosher salt and the cookies still taste fabulous) and give the cookies a tiny sprinkle.

Beautiful! Look what you’ve created. Now get these babies in the oven and don’t hesitate to grab one hot off the pan to taste your handiwork. Enjoy!

The photo for this recipe were updated in April 2015. Despite the chocolate chips on top of the cookies, I wholeheartedly recommend using chopped chocolate in these. The cookies above used chopped chocolate and only chocolate chips to garnish. Sorry for the seeming hypocrisy!

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