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These classic gluten free chocolate chip cookies have crisp brown edges, soft centers, and deep, rich flavor in every bite. The secrets to their ideal texture and all that flavor are in the mixing-wet-into-dry method and chilling the raw dough first, even just for 30 minutes.
I was known for these cookies long before I started baking gluten free in 2004, and there’s almost always a batch in my freezer, both baked and raw. With nearly 400 five-star reviews, this is the ultimate recipe.
“This is an awesome cookie. We have had a family recipe that we all loved till we had to go gluten free and this was the first recipe that is better than that! Thank you so much, Nicole ❣️”
Why this recipe works
These cookies are thick and chewy in the center with just enough crispness around the edges, and they're packed with chocolate chips. The ideal butter to flour proportions reliably keep the cookies from spreading too thin during baking, no matter what.
I recommend you chill the dough for at least a few hours before baking for the deepest caramel flavor and even browning in the oven. But unlike some other recipes, if you just can't wait, you can bake some cookies right away and they'll still hold their shape.
This recipe is forgiving enough for you to swap in chopped nuts, try different extracts, or even use vegan butter for cookies that still turn out great.
Ingredients explained
You only need a handful of classic ingredients to make these cookies, with a few key tips to get the texture and flavor just right:
- Gluten free flour blend: Any of my recommended gluten free flour mixes will work here, especially Better Batter's original blend or Nicole's Best. Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 (in the blue bag) also performs very well. If you're using Bob's and don't plan to chill the dough at all, add another 1/2 teaspoon of xanthan gum to help control the cookies' spread in the oven.
- Baking soda: Helps with browning in the oven without overbaking or burning.
- Salt: Balances the sweetness and sharpens the other flavors.
- Granulated sugar: Adds sweetness, tenderness and helps the cookies spread just enough, then brown and crisp.
- Light brown sugar: Provides extra moisture and a rich, caramel-like flavor. Without brown sugar, nothing tastes like a chocolate chip cookie!
- Butter: Adds flavor and helps create crisp edges and chewy centers. Make sure it’s at room temperature so it blends evenly but doesn't melt outside the oven. If you're starting with cold butter, chop it roughly and let it sit on the counter for about 20 minutes.
- Eggs: Help the cookies rise and add structure so the cookies hold their rise as they cool, in combination with a binder like xanthan gum, even without gluten.
- Vanilla extract: Adds a warm background note that boosts all the other flavors.
- Chocolate chips: Use your favorite gluten free chocolate variety, or a combination of flavors. I love Trader Joe’s 72% dark chocolate chips and Ghirardelli chips.
How to make gluten free chocolate chip cookies (step by step photos)
See the recipe card for ingredient amounts, and keep scrolling for a visual on how to make gluten free chocolate chip cookies in your own kitchen.
Mix the dry ingredients
In a medium bowl, whisk together your gluten free flour blend, xanthan gum (if needed), baking soda, salt, and granulated sugar for evenly distributed ingredients that bake into uniform cookies.
Add the brown sugar last and use a fork to break up any lumps that don't combine with the rest of the batter and melt separately in the oven.
Add the wet ingredients
Create a well in the center of the dry ingredients, then add the softened butter, beaten eggs, and vanilla right into the center. Mix the wet ingredients together toward the center, then incorporate the dry ingredients little by little for uniformly mixed cookie dough, still made in one bowl.
Mixing the wet ingredients in the dry instead of creaming the butter and sugars separately first ensures a dense, chewy cookie with a crackled top.
Stir in the chips
Fold in the chocolate chips until they’re evenly distributed throughout the dough. Adding them in last avoids getting the chips wet from the eggs, which can cause the chocolate to bleed into the rest of the cookie.
Portion the dough
Scoop the dough with a spring-loaded scoop into even portions so they'll bake at the same rate in the oven. I like to use a medium cookie scoop (a #20 scoop or a medium OXO scoop) and fill it full. For perfectly uniform cookies, each should weigh about 50 grams.
Shape into balls
Roll each portion into a ball between your two palms, pressing it together so there are no gaps in the center that would cause misshapen cookies. The dough will be thick but workable, and should easily hold its shape when rolled and pressed.
Flatten
Hold each ball of dough in the palm of one hand and use the fingers of the other to press each ball into a disk. This will ensure the exact right amount of spread in the oven, since these cookies have less butter than some others, so they don't spread as much.
Chill the dough
For thick, chewy cookies that have tons of flavor, cover the shaped dough so it doesn't dry out, and chill it for at least 30 minutes, or ideally overnight or longer. You can also bake a few cookies right away, and let the rest chill.
Bake
After about 12 minutes at 350°F, the edges should be golden and the centers mostly set. You don't want the center to glisten like it's still wet, but be careful not to overbake and dry them out. Let the cookies sit on the baking sheet for a few minutes or they'll fall apart. Once set, they're very stable.
Expert tips
Chill for deep flavor
Making something as simple as chocolate chip cookies, it seems particularly annoying for me to ask you to chill your dough at all, much less overnight. But chilling the dough over time creates thick, flavorful cookies in 2 ways:
Cold cookie dough bakes thicker and chewier since cold butter melts more slowly than warm or even room temperature butter.
The older the dough, the more flavorful it becomes as the sugars begin to lose some of their moisture both into the air and into the flour, intensifying the caramel flavor of the brown sugar.
Don't cream the butter and sugar
Unlike a lot of cookie recipes that begin by beating together the butter and sugar until creamy, here we mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Creaming the butter and sugar aerates the cookies to make them lighter and the cookie dough very smooth. Here, we want a dense and chewy cookie with the texture of a crackled, uneven top, so we mix wet-into-dry.
Add extra chips on top
For photo-worthy cookies, press a few extra chips into the tops before baking, or just make sure the shaped dough has some visible chips on top. You can also add a couple of extra chips to just-baked cookies before they've set.
Skip the mixer
If you can, mix by hand. Using a stand or handheld mixer flattens the texture and creates a more uniform cookie texture. If you must use a mixer, work in the chocolate chips by hand to avoid overmixing.
Ingredient substitutions
Unlike other recipes that require you to add almond flour, these are naturally nut-free, and easy to adapt for dairy-free or egg-free baking, too.
Dairy free
Swap the butter for Spectrum or Crisco vegetable shortening or block-style vegan butter (like Melt or Miyoko’s Creamery). Shortening makes crisp-edged cookies but doesn't brown much, and the dough hardens in the refrigerator, so be sure to shape it before chilling. If you're using vegan butter, chill the dough overnight to prevent spreading. And don’t forget to use dairy-free chocolate chips!
Egg free
Replace each egg with a “chia egg” (1 tablespoon ground white chia seeds + 1 tablespoon warm water, mixed and gelled). Or try 100 grams plain Greek-style yogurt at room temperature and add 1 more tablespoon gluten free flour. Either way, chill the dough overnight for the best structure and texture.
Easy mix-in ideas
Try swapping up to half of the chocolate chips, by weight, with:
- Flavored chips (like white chocolate or butterscotch—check for gluten!)
- Chopped nuts (like pecans or walnuts)
- Soft dried fruit (like cranberries or raisins)
Storage instructions
Room temperature: Baked cookies stay fresh in a sealed container at room temperature for up to 5 days.
Refrigerator: You can store shaped, unbaked cookie dough in the fridge for several days. Keep it in a sealed zip-top bag or airtight container and bake in batches as needed.
Freezer: Freeze both baked cookies and raw, shaped dough for up to 3 months. You can bake the dough straight from frozen—just flatten the disks slightly first, and add 2 minutes to the baking time. Or let the raw disks come to cool room temperature before baking.
Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 ¼ cups (315 g) all purpose gluten free flour blend, (See Recipe Notes)
- ½ teaspoon xanthan gum, omit if your flour blend already contains it; use a heaping 1/2 teaspoon
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ cup (150 g) granulated sugar
- ¾ cup (164 g) packed light brown sugar
- 8 tablespoons (112 g) unsalted butter, at cool room temperature (69°F is ideal)
- 2 (100 g (weighed out of shell)) eggs, at room temperature, beaten
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips, plus more as desired, up to 16 ounces total
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F (unless you plan to chill your cookie dough overnight). Line baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour blend, xanthan gum, salt, baking soda, and granulated sugar.
- Add the brown sugar and whisk again, breaking up any lumps with a fork if needed.
- Create a well in the center and add the butter, eggs, and vanilla. Mix the wet ingredients together in tight circles in the center, then stir into the dry ingredients until combined.
- Fold in 12 ounces of chocolate chips. The dough will be thick but workable. Add more chips if desired.
- Divide the dough into 21 (or up to 24, if you used more chips) portions, about 50 grams each. Roll into balls, then flatten into disks about 1 1/2-inches in diameter and 1/2-inch thick.
- If you like, press a few extra chips onto each dough ball for a more chocolatey look.
- Arrange cookies about 2 inches apart on the lined baking sheets.
- Cover and chill the shaped dough for 12 hours—or up to 5 days—for the thickest, best-flavored cookies. Even chilling the dough for 30 minutes will help control oven spread.
- Bake one sheet at a time until the cookies are golden on the edges and just set in the center, about 12 minutes.
- Let cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
FAQs
Yes and no. Chilling helps control spread, enhances the texture, and deepens the flavor. You can bake the shaped cookies right away and they will still taste great, but even 30 minutes of chilling time will help control spread. Maybe bake some now, and chill the rest!
You may have overmeasured the flour, skipped xanthan gum, or used butter that was too cold to mix in properly. Or maybe you just didn’t let them cool long enough, as they’re delicate at first!
Your dough may have been too warm, your butter too soft, or your baking sheet still hot from the last batch.
If your flour blend doesn't contain xanthan gum, adding guar gum or konjac powder instead can work. For a full explanation, see our post about xanthan gum substitutes using this recipe for testing.
Yes, you can refrigerate the raw, unshaped cookie dough in a sealed container . Just don't pack it down too much in the container or it will be too hard to scoop. You may have to let it sit at room temperature briefly until it's scoopable.
Another great cookie recipe! You never let me down. These are even better than Toll House cookies. I used Better Batter flour that I weighed and chilled the dough for three hours. They were just perfect. Thank you for all the great recipes!
You’re so welcome, Mindy! So glad you went the extra mile to weigh your ingredients and chill the dough, so you got the full effect. Thanks so much for sharing your experience!
Is there a way to get the gram weights to show up in print mode?
Hi, Lisa, the third party software I use for recipe cards defaults to “customary” measurements. At the top there’s a toggle, where you can instead select metric, and then that’s how it will print. It won’t print both, though, I’m afraid.
I love this recipe. This is my go to for cookies. I’ve made it several times and it tastes great every time. Raw (I love the batter) and cooked! Thank you, Nicole.
You’re so welcome, Hannah! So glad you love these cookies. Thank you for sharing your experience!
Perfect amount of chocolate!
So glad you enjoyed them, Abbi!
I made these for my granddaughter on Sunday.
Served them freshly baked with tea.
So good with all the melty chocolate chips -but she wondered if they’d still be good after cooling.
Monday morning she texted to say she’d just had one for breakfast and yes, sooo good. 😋
You sure didn’t over-hype the description of this recipe.
Aw, Karen, that’s so sweet! Cookies for breakfast are underrated. Thanks so much for sharing your experience and that story!
Agreed. This is excellent.
I just tried these cookies. They are really good for GF. I’ll definitely be making theses again.
4.5/5
Started by following the recipe exactly, using Robin Hood all purpose gluten free flour (includes xanthum gum in blend). Ended up a bit too dry, which is very likely due to difference in the flour blend. Added an extra tbsp vanilla and 1-2tbsp butter to get the dough to a normal consistency, then allowed to rest overnight in the fridge. Baked at 350F for 15 minutes then rested for 5 before transferring to cool and they came out perfect (longer cook time likely due to cookie size). They didn’t spread as much as I expected (barely any spread), which I’m guessing was again due to the difference in flour. They tasted great, and texture was normal, with many comments that they didn’t taste gluten free, so overall a success.
I’m afraid I recommend explicitly against that flour blend, Elliot. Your issues are definitely due to the blend.
This worked great as a crazy dough/ cookie box recipe for Christmas or Easter! I made a triple batch and divided it & added mix ins to get multiple flavors from one batch of dough. I made standard chocolate chip, butterscotch chips & pecans & chocolate for turtle cookies, cranberry cinnamon & rolled oats (basically cinnamon raisin), dark chocolate chips & added orange extract and dried zest, added peanut butter for plain peanut cookies and also made Hershey kiss peanut cookies, lemon baking chips & some raspberry jelly swirled in. It all turned out delicious and the dough could hold any dried mix ins at about the same amount as the listed chocolate chip quantity (but I eyeballed mix in quantity) and I made sure to only add a very small amount of liquid mix ins. I always like the standard recipe but I figured it was worth trying as a cookie box dough because all the Shoestring recipes are reliably great quality.
That’s so great to hear, Kay, that you were able to make different flavors by swapping out mix-ins. Thank you so much for sharing that, and I so appreciate your confidence in my recipes. It means a lot to me!
Amazing flavor and texture