Chewy Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies with Sea Salt
This is the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. Okay, that’s a bold statement but it’s true. I worked for many months on this recipe and after so many adjustments, once I landed on this recipe, I haven’t changed it in years. If you find a better cookie recipe, please send it my way because I will only be pleasantly surprised.
Now, I should clarify. These are the best cookies if you like a soft and chewy cookie. If you are someone who reaches for a thin cookie or loves crisp edges, these likely won’t be your favorite. My spin on the classic chocolate chip cookie creates a slightly less sweet dough than your average cookie but the milk chocolate chips bring a little extra sweetness and that’s all balanced out with a hint of sea salt.
Quick and Easy
One thing I love about this recipe is that I don’t bother with room temperature butter. You’ll notice this in a lot of my cookie recipes. If you have a powerful bowl-lift stand mixer, I recommend using cold butter in this recipe. This way, you can whip up these cookies anytime you have a craving or a surprise guest and you don’t even have to chill the dough before baking!
However, if you use a tilt-head mixer or a hand mixer to make these cookies, I recommend softened butter. Prepare everything else as directed but after you’ve mixed everything, just chill the dough for 30 minutes before scooping onto the baking sheet.
Ingredients
Of course, the best cookie comes down to using the best ingredients. It wouldn’t be my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe without my go-to flour! This is not sponsored but I recommend KAMUT® White Flour in this recipe (and you can learn more about it here) but if you don’t have KAMUT® White Flour, don’t worry. I write all of my recipes for both KAMUT and all-purpose flour. Just purchase the best quality flour you can find within your budget. Look for small-batch farmed wheat to increase your chances of better taste and higher nutrient density and look for organic flour to lower your pesticide exposure.
Aside from flour, I also aim to use other organic ingredients and pasture-raised eggs. The richness of high-quality egg yolk enhances the quality of baked goods. And because these are sea salt chocolate chip cookies, I pay a lot of attention to the type of salt I include in this recipe. I use Gros sel de Guerande (a French grey sea salt that is surprisingly very affordable and easy to find) but you can choose any flaky or coarse sea salt. Any large-grain salt will add texture and a nice dimension to these cookies.
Sometimes I don’t mind salted butter in a recipe that calls for unsalted because I can just adjust the amount of salt I add but, in this case, make sure to use unsalted butter. You want to end up with a hint of salt, not actual salty cookies and you don’t want to remove any of the added salt because it adds so much more than just flavor in this recipe!
I know semi-sweet chocolate chips are classic in homemade chocolate chip cookies but I use milk chocolate chips in this recipe. I definitely use darker chocolate in many recipes but, in this cookie, I love the milk chocolate chips because they are a little sweeter, a little less bitter, and, for many brands, the milk chocolate chips are actually larger than the semi-sweet or darker options.
Technique
Prep two sheet pans with parchment paper and set aside.
Start the cookie dough by mixing flour, baking soda and salt with a whisk or dough hook and set aside. Add (cold or room temperature) butter, white sugar and brown sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer or to a large mixing bowl if using a hand-held mixer. Cream together butter and sugars then add eggs one at a time followed by vanilla extract. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. I like to crack my eggs into a small, clear prep bowl so I notice if any piece of shell accidentally ends up with the egg before I’ve added it to the other wet ingredients.
Perhaps a bit unconventional but, for cookies, I add all dry ingredients to the wet at once. If you’re more comfortable adding a little bit at a time, go for it! It’s also a good idea to add a little bit of the dry ingredients to the wet at a time if you’re using a smaller stand mixer or mixing bowl.
If using any style of stand mixer, remove the bowl from the mixer and switch to a wooden spoon or a strong spatula to mix in chocolate chips. I always weigh out my chocolate chips. This way, I get a consistent amount and, let’s be honest, by this point in the baking process, most of my measuring cups are dirty! But, if you don’t have a kitchen scale or prefer to use a measuring cup, I’ve provided that measurement in the recipe too.
If you used room temperature butter, it’s time to chill your dough. If you used cold butter, grab a cookie scoop, muffin scoop or ice cream scoop and the sheet pans you prepared earlier. I always spray my scoop with a little cooking spray so the dough releases easily onto the tray then I start scooping! For this recipe, I use slightly overfull scoops and place 8 on a tray, evenly spaced out. Dough balls need a little more space between each other than they do from the edge of the tray.
The average classic chocolate chip cookie recipe recommends scooping by tablespoons but an actual scoop will really up your cookie game. A scoop will help your cookies turn out uniform in size and, because they’re all the same size, they will bake evenly too. No more batches of cookies where one cookie is almost raw and another is almost burnt!
Another technique to make sure your cookies bake evenly is to rotate your trays and swap racks halfway through bake time.
To get soft cookies, I bake until the bottom edges of the cookies are just starting to turn a golden brown. When you remove the cookies from the oven, the top of the cookies will have a dome shape but once they cool, they will settle and have more of a rustic look. To maintain that chewy texture that really makes these the best chocolate chip cookies, I let them cool completely on the cookie sheet.
Another great thing about this recipe is that these remain chewy chocolate chip cookies whether they sit out overnight or in an airtight container for a few days on the counter. Even after frozen for up to a few months, these cookies retain that chewy center! To thaw frozen cookies, just set out on the counter for an hour and they are ready to enjoy. Aside from when they’re fresh out of the oven (as soon as they are cool enough to handle), I actually enjoy these cookies best after frozen and thawed. If you try this recipe, let me know your favorite way to enjoy these cookies!
Milk Chocolate Chip Sea Salt Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 ¼ cups KAMUT® White Flour (or 2 ½ cups white all-purpose flour)
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp French grey salt (or other coarse/flaky sea salt)
- 12 TBSP unsalted butter *see note
- ½ cup sugar
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 TBSP pure vanilla extract
- 9 oz milk chocolate chips (or 1 1/2 cups)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350℉ **(see note)
- Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Combine flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
- Cream together butter and both sugars.
- Add eggs, one at a time, to the butter and sugar and mix until just combined.
- Add vanilla to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined.
- Add dry ingredients to wet. In 3 batches or all at once if using large stand mixer.
- If using a stand mixer, remove bowl and add chocolate chips. Mix with a wooden spoon or sturdy spatula.
- Refrigerate dough for 30 minutes or until chilled but still soft enough to scoop. Then preheat oven to 350℉ when you're ready to scoop dough.***
- Spray a 1 oz cookie scoop with cooking spray and scoop dough onto trays, evenly spaced and 8 per tray.
- Bake for 16 minutes until edges of the bottom of the cookies are just starting to brown. Rotate and swap trays halfway through bake time.
- Let cool completely on trays on cooling racks.
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