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Everyone needs a really good chocolate chip cookie recipe in their back pocket and this sourdough version – it’s the one. Crispy edges, a gooey middle these Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies are chewy and loaded with chocolate.
And they are packed with flavor – thanks to the combination of brown butter (or just melted butter) and sourdough discard! Even better, there’s no mixer required. You can make this entire recipe in about 10 minutes by hand. There couldn’t be a better sourdough chocolate chip cookie recipe – quick, easy, full of flavor and lots of chocolate!
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Why You’ll Love These Cookies
- Brown Butter Flavor – If you haven’t experimented with brown butter, you’re missing out! It gives a depth of flavor to these cookies – similar to my Brown Butter Sourdough Shortbread cookies that’s so good.
- So Easy – No hand mixer needed, this recipe is super simple because the butter is already melted! And if you prefer using a regular stick of melted butter – the cookies still turn out great – or try my sourdough chocolate chip cookie bars also made with melted butter.
- Uses Sourdough Discard – I love adding sourdough discard into so many recipes and with these cookies it makes them extra moist and chewy. You’ll want to try discard in my Oatmeal Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies and Chocolate Chip Sourdough Discard Snack Cake too!
- Switch it Up – These cookies are so versatile. Use milk chocolate chips, MnMs or even toss in some toffee chunks like I do in my Sourdough Blondies. Whatever you choose to add to this cookie dough, it’s going to be yummy!
- Crispy Edges & Gooey Middle– One of the best things about a chocolate chip cookie is the crispy edges and the ooey gooey middle and these cookies have BOTH. They are dangerously easy and like my Sourdough Snickerdoodles, hard to stop at just one!
Important Ingredients
- Sourdough Discard: If you want to play up the tang in these chocolate chip cookies, use discard that is a couple days old and smells acidic. If you prefer less (or no) tang, use discard that is fresher and doesn’t smell acidic. I always use 100% hydration sourdough discard – from a starter fed equal weights flour and water. If your discard is very runny, you may need a little extra flour in this recipe.
- Unsalted Butter – I love turning the unsalted butter into brown butter for this recipe. It adds a nutty delicious flavor that pairs so well with the sourdough discard and chocolate chips.
- Brown Sugar – Light or dark brown sugar work well in this recipe. Dark gives more depth of flavor, but I usually have light on hand.
See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities
Substitutions
- Chocolate Chips: Choose whatever favorite chocolate chips you like. I like to use semi-sweet chunks and bitter-sweet chips, but a combination of milk and semi-sweet would be delicious too.
- Sourdough Discard: Bubbly sourdough starter can be substituted for the discard in this recipe.
- Whole Wheat Flour: These cookies are incredible with a soft white wheat flour that I freshly mill in my grain mill. Increase the flour to 225 grams if you use a soft whole wheat flour. I haven’t tried them yet with an aged store-bought whole wheat flour, but I think they would work well.
- Brown Butter: If you want to skip browning the butter, this recipe also works well with melted unsalted butter. If you use salted butter, decrease the salt by 1/2 teaspoon in the recipe.
- Brown Sugar: Originally this recipe called for dark brown, but I’ve found light brown works really well too. Use what you have on hand.
Sourdough is not just for Cookies and Discard Recipes! If you’re interested in baking sourdough bread and aren’t sure where to start, use my free guide to make a sourdough starter from scratch, or start with my Beginner Sourdough Bread recipe. You’ll be baking delicious sourdough in no time!
How to Make Sourdough Cookies
Step 1: Brown Butter and Mix the Dough
Step 1: Brown the butter in a saucepan on the stovetop by heating the butter over medium heat and stirring every couple minutes. Watch closely so your butter doesn’t burn!
Note: You can make these cookies with melted butter instead if you want to skip this step.
Step 2: Pour the butter into a mixing bowl and let cool for a few minutes. Then add the brown and white sugars. Mix together. Add the sourdough discard and mix until combined. Mix in the egg yolk and vanilla extract until smooth.
Step 3: Fluff the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt together in a small bowl. Pour the flour mixture on top of the butter mixture and stir until combined.
Note: If your discard is very runny, the dough may be too wet, so add a little extra flour. I prefer using younger discard since it’s thicker and gives a milder flavor, but older discard works if you don’t mind the extra tang.
Step 4: Pour the chocolate chips on top of the cookie dough and mix together. The dough will be soft, but not overly sticky.
Long Fermenting Cookie Dough: These cookies are best baked after being refrigerated for 30 minutes to an hour. BUT, you can continue refrigerating the cookies for up to a couple days and long-ferment the dough. This will result in the feremenation benefits of sourdough and give the cookies a little more tangy flavor.
Step 2: Shape and Chill the Dough
Step 5: Scoop the dough into balls and place onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.
Step 6: Refrigerate the cookie dough balls for 30 minutes to an hour until firm and chilled. Alternatively, stick in the freezer for 15-20 minutes until chilled.
Step 3: Bake the Cookies
Step 7: Preheat oven to 375ºF. Place cookie dough balls on a parchment-lined baking sheet, and spread out, about 12 per sheet. Add a few extra chocolate chunks on top of each cookie if desired.
Step 8: Bake cookies at 375ºF convection for 7-8 minutes until cookies are puffed up and edges are crispy. Go around the baked cookies with a circular biscuit cutter right when the come out of the oven for a more uniform shape if desired. Top with a sprinkle of flaky sea salt (optional but delicious).
How to Store Leftovers
Leftover cookies can be stored in an air-tight container at room temperature for a few days. I like to freeze leftover cookies once they completely cool to preserve freshness even more. Cookies are delicious chilled or warmed up in the microwave for 10-15 seconds. You can also pull a batch of frozen cookies out, place on a plate and cover them to thaw a few hours before serving.
Amy’s Recipe Tip
Freeze the Dough Balls to Make Ahead of Time. I love keeping cookie dough balls in my freezer. I make up a whole batch of dough, shape them into balls and freeze the balls on a cookie sheet. Once frozen, stick them in a ziplock or freezer-safe air-tight container. Before baking pull them out of the freezer and let them thaw a little bit or stick them in the refrigerator the night before you want to bake them to defrost. Bake and enjoy!
Frequently Asked Questions
I love adding sourdough discard to many recipes. Some recipes it enhances the flavor. Some recipes I use it for the moisture and benefits of fermented flour. And some recipes I just want to use up some of my discard and not let it go to waste. For these cookies, I prefer using a fresh or young discard so I don’t get any sour flavor.
Isn’t that the million dollar cookie question?! Seriously, I know – no one wants to chill the dough and I get it because I always want cookies – NOW! Because this recipe has melted butter in it, it really should be chilled before baking. This keeps your cookie from spreading too much in the oven. If you really don’t want to wait, you don’t have to, as long as you are okay with a thinner/crispier cookie.
In my experience, this is either because they need a little more flour or they need to be chilled for longer. This is an easy recipe because of the melted butter in the dough, but that also means if you want a thicker cookie, you’ll need to chill the dough. I like to chill my dough in the refrigerator for an hour OR you can stick it in the freezer for 20-30 minutes before baking.
Sourdough Cookie Recipes
If you tried these Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies or any other recipe on my website leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. Happy Baking!
Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies
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Ingredients
- 113 grams unsalted butter, about 1/2 cup, browned or melted
- 185 grams brown sugar (dark or light), about 3/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons, see recipe notes
- 60 grams granulated sugar, about 1/4 cup
- 100 grams sourdough discard, scant 1/2 cup, see recipe notes
- 1 egg yolk, from a large egg
- 4 grams vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon
- 175 grams all purpose flour, about 1 1/3 cups, see recipe notes
- 3 grams baking soda, about 1/2 teaspoon
- 3 grams baking powder, about 1/2 teaspoon
- 4 grams salt, about 1/2 teaspoon
- 175 grams chocolate chunks, or chocolate chips, about 1 cup
- flaky sea salt, if desired
Instructions
- Brown the Butter: Heat the butter in a small to medium-sized pan on the stove over medium heat. Swirl the butter around and stir every minute. The butter will bubble up and fairly quickly, and you will notice a nutty smell and see little brown flecks appearing on the bottom of the pan when you stir the butter. Immediately remove the pan from the stove (the butter can burn quickly if left for too long on the stove).Pour the brown butter along with all the little brown bits on the bottom of the pan into a medium sized bowl and let sit for a few minutes to cool.Note: Melted butter can be substituted for the browned butter if you prefer.
- Mix Wet Ingredients: Add brown sugar and granulated sugar to the bowl. Mix together with a kitchen spatula or wooden spoon. Add the sourdough discard and stir together to combine completely. Mix in the egg yolk and vanilla extract until smooth and combined.
- Mix Dough: To a small bowl, add the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt and fluff together. Pour the flour mixture into the butter mixture and mix together until just combined. Add chocolate chips and stir into the dough until evenly dispersed. Note: If your sourdough discard is on the runny side, you may need to add a little extra flour to get the right texture of the dough. I like using a younger discard in this recipe since it’s thicker and gives a milder flavor, but if you enjoy the tang of an older, runnier discard, just be aware your dough may turn out wetter and need some adjustment with extra flour.
- Scoop and Chill Dough Balls: Scoop the dough into balls and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet or in an air-tight container. Cover the cookie dough balls and place into the refrigerator to chill for about 30 minutes to 1 hour. Alternatively stick the dough balls in the freezer and chill for 15-20 minutes before baking. It is possible to bake these cookies right away, but they will not be quite as thick and will spread a lot more than the chilled dough, resulting in a thinner and crispier cookie. You can also chill/long-ferment the dough in the refrigerator for up to 72 hours. Dough can be frozen and stored for 3 months. Let the balls come back to "chilled" temperature before baking.
- Bake Cookies: Preheat oven to 375ºF convection or 400ºF non-convection (see recipe note). Place 12 dough balls on a parchment-lined baking sheet, spread apart so they won't bake into each other. Add a few more chocolate chips to the top of each cookie if desired. Bake cookies for 7-8 minutes until edges are crispy and cookies are puffed up. The middle will still be a little gooey. Sprinkle the tops with flaky sea salt if desired. Let the cookies sit for about 5-10 minutes on the baking sheet to set up before removing to a cooling rack. Note: If you want uniform, circular cookies, take a round biscuit cutter and place it around one of the hot cookies straight out of the oven. Move your hand around in a cricle around the hot cookie.
- Repeat with the remaining cookie dough balls and enjoy. These cookies are especially delicious still slightly warm from the oven.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
These are the cookies my husb. and I crave after the kids are in bed. I swapped the white sugar for date sugar (kept the brown) and lowered the bake temp (to avoid burning the date sugar) and lengthened the bake time by a few minutes. The cookies stayed close to a ball shape/didn’t spread at all (probably due to the sugar swap), so I used a spatula to press them into more of a cookie shape after the first pan. The amount of time I spend thinking about how delicious these were frozen means it is time to make another batch! Thanks!
Thanks for sharing your swap ideas! Enjoy!
These cookies are amazing! My kids loved them!
I’m glad it turned out great. Thanks for the review!
love these cookies, if i don’t have sourdough what could i use as a substitute??
If you don’t have sourdough discard, I would probably sub for 1/4 cup additional butter and 1/4 cup additional flour. I haven’t tried it, but in general you would want to replace discard with equal parts flour and liquid.