The best recipe for soft and chewy gluten free choc chip cookies ever, with no special ingredients and easy instructions. Unlike some cookie recipes, this cookie dough is ready to go in the oven immediately. No chilling required!
What's the secret to soft, chewy chocolate chip cookies?
Changing cookie texture and thickness with just a slight change in the balance of what start out as super simple ingredients is a real life education in baking chemistry. To make soft, chewy, thin cookies, you must have:
- Enough butter that the cookies spread, but not immediately
- Just enough egg to bind the cookie dough
- Baking soda to help the cookies brown quickly
- No baking powder, which makes cookies rise much taller
- Enough flour to help the cookies keep their shape, but not so much that they don't spread
- The right all purpose gluten free flour blend (including xanthan gum)
- A touch of extra starch to help soften the cookies
- A simple digital kitchen scale, so you can measure your ingredients by weight for accuracy
What else does a recipe for chocolate chip cookies have?
The most important flavor in a chocolate chip cookie (besides the chocolate chips, of course) is molasses, which you'll find in the brown sugar. You can't make a chocolate chip cookie without it, but if you use too much, your cookies will have too much moisture, and they'll become crispier than they should.
The dough for these cookies is soft, but not quite as soft as it is with thin and crispy gluten free chocolate chip cookies, which are made with less egg and more butter, proportionately.
What do these soft gf choc chip cookies taste like?
These particular chocolate chip cookies remind me of Archway brand chocolate chip cookies—they come in a cardboard sleeve, covered in plastic. The thin choc chip cookies and the oatmeal cookies were always my favorite.
For a short time, Archway did make a couple varieties of gluten free cookies, but they were very thin and crispy. Nothing against thin and crispy chocolate chip cookies, but the Archway brand cookies that I miss are the soft-baked “homestyle” cookies.
These cookies bake up evenly, like Archways. That means that, unlike our thick and chewy gluten free choc chip cookies, these cookies don't even have any crisp edges.
How long to chill chocolate chip cookie dough?
Chocolate chip cookie dough is often best chilled before baking. However, this recipe for flat and chewy gluten free choc chip cookies shouldn't be chilled at all before baking, because the ingredients are balanced to control oven spread with soft butter.
A cookie recipe like this, that doesn't require any chilling, takes less time to make. You'll still have to make sure that your refrigerated ingredients like butter and an egg are at room temperature first, of course.
To warm the egg quickly without heating it, place your egg in a bowl of very warm (but not hot) water for 10 minutes. To warm the butter to room temperature quickly, unwrap the stick of butter, chop it into squares or slices, and let it sit at warm room temperature.
If your room temperature is rather cold, you can microwave the butter for 15 seconds at a time at 50% power, at most. You don't want to melt the butter at all.
Chilling cookie dough helps solidify the fat
Chilling the dough before baking returns the fat to a solid state, so that it takes longer to melt in the oven than the other components of the dough. That helps to control the spread of the cookie, which keeps it from running across the baking sheet and crisping too much.
To combine fat, usually in the form of butter, with sugar, egg, and flours, the fat can't be cold. In most baking recipes, the fat is either at room temperature or in liquid form.
Chilling the cookie dough returns the butter to solid form. When you're chilling it for this reason alone, it's best to chill the cookie dough in the refrigerator after shaping it, and only until it's firm to the touch (usually about 15 minutes).
Can you freeze gluten free cookie dough?
If a cookie recipe calls for chilling the dough before baking, you can freeze the shaped, raw cookie dough. Just place the shaped dough on a lined baking sheet and freeze it until solid.
Then, pile the frozen balls of cookie dough into a sealed freezer-safe container until you're getting ready to bake. To bake the cookies, allow the dough to come to cool room temperature before baking, or they won't melt in the oven at all.
For example, I often freeze the shaped dough for our recipe for New York Times-style gluten free chocolate chip cookies. Those cookies are so special, and require special ingredients, so I always make extra to store in the freezer for emergencies.
How do you keep gluten free chocolate chip cookies soft?
These cookies are the perfect soft, flat, chewy texture as soon as they're cool enough to be stable. Pick one up, bite into it, and feels like you just dipped it in a glass of milk.
You can keep your soft cookies that way by freezing any cookies that you don't plan to serve that same day. Just be sure to place them in a well-sealed, freezer-safe container.
Even once they've been in the freezer for a long time, they won't freeze solid. Let them sit at room temperature and enjoy them defrosted—or pop them in the microwave for 15 seconds or less.
Ingredients & substitutions for soft gluten free choc chip cookies
As always, unless I specifically state otherwise, I haven’t tested these cookies with any substitutions. These are just my best-educated guesses.
How to make gluten free dairy free choc chip cookies
To make these cookies dairy free, try using vegan butter. My favorite brands are Melt and Miyoko's Kitchen.
You shouldn't need to make any other changes to the recipe. Just be sure your chocolate chips are also dairy free.
I've tried making this recipe with Earth Balance buttery sticks in place of butter, but the texture wasn't great. Earth Balance has too much moisture.
How to make gluten free and egg free choc chip cookies
When a recipe has only one whole egg, you should be able to replace it with a “chia egg” (1 tablespoon ground chia seeds + 1 tablespoon lukewarm water, mixed and allowed to gel). Bob's Red Mill brand egg replacer might even work.
How to make gluten free and corn free choc chip cookies
You can replace the 1 tablespoon of cornstarch in this recipe with 1 tablespoon potato starch or arrowroot powder. The bit of starch helps to soften the cookies even more.
How to make vegan gluten free chocolate chip cookies
If you use the suggestions above to replace both the butter and the eggs, your cookies will be vegan. But the taste and texture will suffer.
Instead, we have a separate recipe for chewy vegan gluten free chocolate chip cookies. I'd use that!
Soft and Chewy Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 8 tablespoons (112 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ⅜ cup (75 g) granulated sugar
- ⅓ cup (73 g) packed light brown sugar
- 1 (50 g, weighed out of shell) egg at room temperature, beaten
- 1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 ¼ cups (175 g) all purpose gluten free flour blend (I like Better Batter here)
- ½ teaspoon xanthan gum omit if your blend already contains it
- 1 tablespoon (9 g) cornstarch
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 6 ½ ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line rimmed baking sheets with unbleached parchment paper and set them aside.
- In a large bowl with a handheld mixer or the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, place the butter, granulated sugar, and light brown sugar. Beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes).
- Add the egg and vanilla, and beat until smooth (about 1 minute). Do not overmix.
- Add the flour blend, xanthan gum, cornstarch, baking soda, salt, and chocolate chips. Using a large spoon or spatula, mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until the cookie dough is just combined, and the chocolate chips are evenly distributed throughout the dough.
- The cookie dough should be fluffy but thick and not very sticky.
- Using a spring-loaded ice cream scoop or two small spoons, scoop the dough by the tablespoonful. Drop the mounds of dough on the prepared baking sheets about 2 inches from one another.
- Using moistened fingers, flatten each piece of cookie dough into a disk about 1/2-inch tall. Do not chill the dough.
- Place the first baking sheet in the center of the preheated oven and bake for about 10 minutes, or until very lightly golden brown all over. Do not overbake.
- Remove the baking sheet from the oven and allow the cookies to cool until firm, about 10 minutes, before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with the remaining cookie dough.
Notes
Soft and Chewy Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 8 tablespoons (112 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ⅜ cup (75 g) granulated sugar
- ⅓ cup (73 g) packed light brown sugar
- 1 (50 g, weighed out of shell) egg at room temperature, beaten
- 1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 ¼ cups (175 g) all purpose gluten free flour blend (I like Better Batter here)
- ½ teaspoon xanthan gum omit if your blend already contains it
- 1 tablespoon (9 g) cornstarch
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 6 ½ ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line rimmed baking sheets with unbleached parchment paper and set them aside.
- In a large bowl with a handheld mixer or the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, place the butter, granulated sugar, and light brown sugar. Beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes).
- Add the egg and vanilla, and beat until smooth (about 1 minute). Do not overmix.
- Add the flour blend, xanthan gum, cornstarch, baking soda, salt, and chocolate chips. Using a large spoon or spatula, mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until the cookie dough is just combined, and the chocolate chips are evenly distributed throughout the dough.
- The cookie dough should be fluffy but thick and not very sticky.
- Using a spring-loaded ice cream scoop or two small spoons, scoop the dough by the tablespoonful. Drop the mounds of dough on the prepared baking sheets about 2 inches from one another.
- Using moistened fingers, flatten each piece of cookie dough into a disk about 1/2-inch tall. Do not chill the dough.
- Place the first baking sheet in the center of the preheated oven and bake for about 10 minutes, or until very lightly golden brown all over. Do not overbake.
- Remove the baking sheet from the oven and allow the cookies to cool until firm, about 10 minutes, before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with the remaining cookie dough.
Jessica says
How many cookiea does this make?
Nicole Hunn says
Hi, Jessica,
It makes 18 cookies. I’m not sure what happened to the yield amounts in the recipes on my site. They’re there in the back end, but not being output. We’re looking into it right now. So sorry for the inconvenience!
D. Mills says
I made these cookies three times. Following the recipe the first two, the first I refrigerated, the second I did not. Both times the cookies didn’t spread or brown, they turned out high and hard. The third time I made the following adjustments and they came out PERFECT. They spread, browned, were crispy at the edges but most and chewy inside.
1. I swapped sugar for coconut palm sugar, which I ground more finely in the blender.
2. I added a tablespoon of butter (to make it 9)
3. I creamed the butter, vanilla and sugars so long they became super smooth and fluffy, before adding the dry ingredients, which I added very slowly for maximum mixture.
4. I subtracted 2 tablespoons of flour
5. I removed them from the oven early and let them finish baking on the pan to keep the edges from over cooking.
Like I said, PERFECT. FINALLY a delicious GF cookie!
Nicole Hunn says
I’m glad you’re enjoying the cookie with your adjustments. My guesses are that you’re overmeasuring the flour when you measure it using my recipe, and/or that you’re not using one of my recommended flours. In fact, what you’re describing sounds like the results I would expect from a super high starch, tough blend like Jules flour. The lack of browning is a tell-tale sign of an unbalanced blend. I’ve made this recipe dozens of times as written, and when a cookie like this doesn’t spread, typically it’s an unbalanced flour blend and/or overmeasuring flour. In addition, the recipe specifies a room-temperature, unchilled cookie dough, so I’m not sure why you’d chill it.
Lenora says
These cookies are wonderful!! I used the dairy free version (thank you, so much for including these), and our GF/DF grandson and Celiac daughter-in-law just loved them. I made them for a family fun evening and they were a hit!! I will be making these again, they really are so easy to make!
Thank you! Thank you!
Nicole Hunn says
I’m so glad, Lenora! They’re such a great classic chocolate chip cookie, and that’s often all we need! Thank you for letting me know.
Verna says
Hi Nicole, today I made the more recent chocolate chip cookie recipe and I want to give this recipe 5 stars! They are awesome!
Nicole Hunn says
That’s great to hear, Verna!
Linda says
Delicious! The only change I made was to only use coconut sugar in the proportions you listed. Thanks for my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe!
Nicole Hunn says
Really glad you liked the cookies, Linda! Coconut sugar is much heavier and has a much more coarse ground than granulated sugar. I’d really recommend using the sugars in the recipe, if you can. But if you really want to use coconut sugar, it will help to grind it in a food processor or blender into a finer grind so it melts into the other ingredients more readily.
Ada says
Where Can I purchase better batter flour. Can’t find it in stores yet anyway.
Mare says
betterbatter.org is where you can purchase Better Batter. It is cheaper to buy in bulk from them. In the alternative, you can order on Amazon (and it is eligible for PRIME)
Gramma from Canada says
I just made these gooey delicious chocolate chip cookies…
They are so yummy all 24 …umm 23….well the remaining 22 cookies for the grandsons wiĺ be devoured after school tomorrow… oh heavens, thats not for 18 more hours… gulp… well it is still early I can make another batch before the school bus drops them off!
Great and easy recipe.. I can see these with all different types of chocolate bits ..
Thanks … another great recipe from The Gluten Free Queen…
P.S. I have all your books…
Nicole Hunn says
Hahaha that’s awesome. Thank you so much, Gramma (is it okay if I call you that? ;)) These are my favorites. They just go down so easily…
Heather Allen says
Why can you not chill? If you make these ahead can you set out until warm and then bake? I need to make about 10 different kinds of cookies for a Xmas party. And I was trying to pre make all my dough so I just have to bake off when I’m ready.
Thanks. Oh and I had butterscotch chips instead of chocolate.
Nicole Hunn says
I first read this as, “Nicole, why can you not chill?” Like, please just chill out! Now I get it. :)
The dough needs to be at room temperature before it’s baked or it won’t spread properly in the oven, Heather.
Heather Allen says
Hahaha sorry Nicole. I re-read that and it does read like that. Oopppss. I was elbow deep in 8 cookie recipes making dough today. I got ahead of myself. Lol. Sorry about that.
Heather Allen says
I will set to room temp. Thank you for all that you do. I love every thing you do and have all your cookbooks too. Tell everyone who is going gluten free about you. Huge fan! Thank you!!
Nicole Hunn says
Aw, thank you, Heather! You can definitely freeze the dough and then let it come back to room temperature if that helps!
Jackie says
Thank you!! we ate the batter. Just kidding we made a few cookies too. Appreciate all your doing here!! :)
Nicole says
Hi, Jules,
Thanks so much for sharing how you were able to make this recipe one that all the students could have. I’m glad it worked out so well!
Warmly,
Nicole
JulesD says
I just made these yesterday entirely with Crisco shortening instead of butter and used President’s Choice brand (in Canada) chocolate chips, which have no milk products in it. And, voila! Gluten-free, lactose-free, peanut-free CCC’s that are indistinguishable from regular ones. Just an idea for those Moms bringing these into the school. I also made sure to not use any mixers, etc that have latex in them as there is a high latex allergy child in the class too. EVERY child was able to have these. The teacher was thrilled.
Nicole says
Hi, Jules,
You are most welcome. I know exactly what you mean, about working out the kinks in a recipe over time. These varieties of chocolate chip cookies were something everyone demanded of me whenever I showed up (and always were eaten ahead of other, “fancier” desserts), and I thought all was lost when we went gluten free 5+ years ago. So I tweaked and tweaked again… I’m so happy that you can benefit from the tweaking! Thank you so much for your kind posts!
Warmly,
Nicole
JulesD says
WOW!!! Words cannot describe how grateful I am for this recipie! My gluten filled recipie (which the entire extended family demands I bring to any functions) had been a couple of years in the making as I tweaked it and tweaked it. I never thought a GF version would come close, but was just hoping for “good-enough”. My original recipie calls for 2.5 cups of flour, I tried directly substituting GF all-purpose, but -not only is it expensive- it didn’t turn out well.
The cookies I just made from this recipie and my original ones are indistinguishable! I didn’t believe it was possible! You are GOLD! Thank you!
Heather Allen says
Before I started using all of her recipes – I tried to sub store bought GF AP flour. And recipes just didn’t turn out. She tells you what to use for the different cookies/other recipes. But then I switched to using only her brands she suggest or making the flour mixes (she tells you how to make them). Now that I have switched to her four mixes or using GF AP Better Batter- everything is perfect and you can not tell a difference. But certain flours mixes do not work with her recipes. She really knows what she is doing so I use what she suggests. Or use her recipes to make the flour mixes myself. B/c she does it on a shoestring budget so it makes the flour mixes way cheaper. Just thought I would comment on your comment b/c I tried using other brands of flour with no luck at all. But now that I use her flours or GF BB everything is absolutely perfect. I suggest trying her flakey buttermilk biscuit recipe. That was the big test for this GF southern girl. And once that was nailed with Nicole’s wisdom /recipes I knew I could make anything. Wish I had found her 8 years ago when I started this journey. Would have saved a lot of money and a lot of time.