Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

My recipe for classic gluten free chocolate chip cookies has 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 resting 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 well over 400 five-star reviews, this is the ultimate recipe.

If you want more chocolate, try out my gluten free double chocolate cookies!

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: Provides most of the structure for the cookies. I like Better Batter's original blend without any more xanthan gum or Nicole's Best multipurpose with a heaping (or rounded) 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum. Bob's Red Mill 1-to-1 gluten free baking blend also works well, but it has less xanthan gum. If you chill the dough overnight, it will absorb enough moisture to control the cookies' spread in the oven, so you don't need to add more xanthan gum. If you aren't planning to chill the dough, I recommend adding an extra 1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum to Nicole's Best (for a total of 3/4 teaspoon), or 1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum to Bob's. Otherwise, the cookies may spread more than we want. 
• 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 buttery 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 first, since cool room temperature of 69°F is ideal.
• Eggs: Help the cookies rise and add structure to help hold their shape as they cool. The eggs work in combination with a binder like xanthan gum, even without gluten, to create thick, chewy cookies.
• Vanilla extract: Adds a deep, 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 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 into the dry, instead of creaming the butter and sugars separately first, ensures a dense and 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, creating a perfectly controlled spread.

Rest the dough
For chewy cookies that have tons of deep flavor, cover the shaped dough so it doesn't dry out, and rest it for 24 hours. You can also bake a few cookies right away, and let the remaining dough rest, but even resting for 30 minutes will help develop the flavors and improve texture and browning. If you're resting the dough for longer than about 1.5 hours, rest it in the refrigerator to prevent spoiling.

If the dough is cold
If you've chilled the cookie dough, set the shaped pieces out on parchment-lined baking sheets about 2 inches apart until the dough reaches at least cool room temperature.

Bake the cookies
Place the baking sheets, one at a time, on the middle rack of a preheated 350°F oven for about 12 minutes. When the cookies are done baking, 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 set
Let the cookies sit on the baking sheet for a few minutes or they'll fall apart. Once set, they're very stable.

But what happens when I…

I often get emails and comments asking what happens if you cream the butter and sugar together, don't rest the dough, or if you can make these cookies “even better” by using brown butter. Here's why this recipe works best exactly the way it's written:

If you cream the butter and sugar, the cookies are thicker because they contain more air so they're less pleasantly chewy and don't have that crackly texture on top.

Using brown butter does add some depth of flavor, but even when you add back in exactly the amount of moisture that cooks off, the cookies are still crumbly.

Not resting (or chilling) the dough robs the cookies of variable browning and flavor development. It's not as big of a deal as the other changes above, though. Skipping the rest only leads to slightly more oven spread since that's when the flour absorbs and locks away some of the moisture. But these cookies don't have an overabundance of butter, so they won't overspread either way.

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