Chewy, gooey, and no brown sugar required! These delicious Chocolate Chip Cookies without Brown Sugar have a perfectly crisp edge and chewy, gooey middle. Even better, these easy, one-bowl cookies are no-chill, and ready in just 30 minutes!
Can you make good chocolate chip cookies without brown sugar?
Well the title of this recipe might have given you a hint, but yes! There are a million and one recipes out there for chocolate chip cookies, and some will be made without brown sugar.
What you will likely find though is most of those cookies are going to be lacking my personal favorite part of a chocolate chip cookie - the ooey, gooey, chewy middle! Whether we're talking about sugar cookies, peanut butter cookies, or loaded candy bar cookies, chewy cookies are where it's at in my book.
Brown sugar is a type "inverted" sugar (other examples are molasses and honey). That's essentially a fancy way of saying it's the kind of sugar that helps make cookies bendy and chewy.
White sugar, on the other hand, isn't "inverted." Thus, it tends to lend a crisp and snappy quality to your cookies instead. Because of this, most cookies without brown sugar are more likely to fall into the "crispy" category than the chewy one.
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Why You'll Love These Cookies
- Ooey, gooey, chewy middle: these cookies are still wonderfully chewy thanks to some extra moisture from an additional egg, but the white sugar gives them a super satisfying crisp edge as well.
- One-bowl, quick mix: they're a one bowl mix up, with only 15 minutes or so of prep time.
- Simple ingredients: all these ingredients are ones you should already have in your cupboard whenever you get the urge to whip something yummy.
- Fast bake: they only take 15 minutes to bake so you can satisfy that cookie craving in just 30 minutes!
- Customizable: any chips work in these cookies. So you can stick with my favorite dark chocolate chips, switch to semi-sweet, milk, or white chocolate, or make your favorite custom blend.
- A beautiful crackle: we all know we eat with our eyes first. These cookies have a beautifully crackly top that will have your mouth watering before even taking your first bite!
Ingredient Tips + Substitutions
- Unsalted butter: we're adding two rounds of salt to these cookies so be sure to use unsalted butter here so the saltiness doesn't get overwhelming.
- Baking Powder + Baking Soda: using both is important here as one helps our cookies puff up (baking powder) and one helps them spread out (baking soda). We need the baking powder in this particular recipe (because white sugar makes cookies spread out. Since we have extra white sugar in this recipe, the baking powder helps to keep them rising up as well.
- Dark chocolate chips: my favorite readily available chocolate chips are the Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate Chips as they counter this sweet cookie base well and pair nicely with the sea salt. However you can use whatever chocolate chips, chunks or chopped bars you like (dark, semi-sweet, milk, white, and even peanut butter chips would all work well here).
- Flaked Sea Salt: the course sea salt goes on before baking, and these beautiful little crystals give us the perfect salted pop of flavor to balance their sweet cookie bases below. This recipe does work without the sea salt if you don't have any on hand, but I highly recommend you pick some up for the full experience of this tasty recipe.
For a full detailed list of all ingredients and measurements, just head down to the recipe card below!
And please note, that any additional substitutions haven't been tested so I can not guarantee the results. However, if you do experiment and find a variation you love, please let me know in the comments below!
How to Make Chocolate Chip Cookies without Brown Sugar
- Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Beat in the eggs until batter is smooth and slightly fluffy again.
- Mix in the dry ingredients just until combined.
- Stir in the chocolate chips just until evenly distributed.
- Scoop into 2" rounds, tray up on a baking sheet and top with flaked sea salt.
- Bake until edges are just golden brown, but the centers are still pale. Right out of the oven, knock the tray firmly on the counter to settle the molten dough. Cool, share and enjoy the chocolate-chippy goodness!
For a more detailed list of all these steps, just head down to the recipe card below!
Storage + Freezing
- Making ahead of time: you can bake these delicious cookies from the fridge or freezer if you'd like to make them in advance. Just note, they won't spread nearly as much when baked from a chilled temperature as they are designed to work best when baked fresh.
- This dough will keep in the fridge for 4 days or in the freezer for up to a month.
- For best results, store as fully scooped dough balls with their decorative chip in (if using) so you can just drop them right on the sheet. Then just sprinkle with the sea salt right when you're ready to bake. You still bake them at 350°F, but you may need a few extra minutes for proper doneness, so just follow the visual cues listed in the recipe more than the time itself in this case.
- Storage: these cookies will keep for up to a 5-7 days in an air-tight container at room temperature.
- Freezing: while you can freeze baked cookies for up to a month, I find texturally these cookies are best enjoyed fresh.
Pro Baker Tips
- Bake by weight if possible: baking by weight is always the most accurate way to bake. It will give you the most consistent results that look like what you see in these photos. While of course the recipe will still work using cups, be sure for flour especially that you use the "fluff, sprinkle, scrape" method for measuring to make sure you don't get too much extra flour in your recipe.
- Get the butters fluffy, but don't overmix: we want to really beat this batter well before adding the eggs and dry ingredients. Whipping our batter at the early stages traps air bubbles in the dough which later helps to give you that crackly top. That said...you definitely don't want to overmix this dough once the flour is in. So in the later steps, you're mixing just until the comes together, and then just until the chips are fairly well distributed to make sure your cookies stay nice and tender.
- Knock it when it's hot: hitting the cookies on the counter fresh out of the oven helps collapse their lofty domes and settle the molten batter. This gives you that nice chewy texture and helps to crackle the top.
- Use a scoop: while not required, you’ll find an ice cream scoop to be very helpful for these cookies. It will allow you to quickly and evenly portion and form your dough balls and let you skip rounding the dough balls by hand. It also produces much more uniform cookies than scooping with a dinner spoon as well.
- Don't over-bake! Because these cookies are supposed to keep a little bit of doughy chewiness to them, we want to make sure we don't over-bake them or they can turn into crunchy cookies quite quickly. This is why we want to look for dry, still pretty pale tops, just-brown edges and bottoms, and also a slightly soft top indicating a little molten dough is still underneath.
Recipe FAQs
To re-chewy and re-gooey these cookies for that fresh-out-of-the-oven taste any time of day, just microwave in 5-second intervals until the chocolate nice and molten! (They took about 8 seconds in my microwave, reheating one cookie at a time.)
Yes! You can bake these delicious cookies from the fridge or freezer if you'd like to make the dough in advance. Just note, they won't spread nearly as much when baked from a chilled temperature as they work best when baked fresh.
This dough will keep in the fridge for 4 days or in the freezer for up to a month.
For best results, store as fully scooped dough balls with their decorative chip in (if using) so you can just drop them right on the sheet. Then just sprinkle with the sea salt right when you're ready to bake. You still bake them at 350°F, but you may need a few extra minutes for proper doneness. So just follow the visual cues listed in the recipe more than the time itself in this case.
While technically, yes, you could and you would still probably have a tasty cookie on the other end, I would recommend going for a recipe that is designed to have brown sugar from the start for the best results, like my Bakery-Style Chocolate Chip Cookies or Double Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies.
This answer is definitely a very personal one, but I love using dark chocolate specifically to balance the sweet, classic cookie base. Using some high quality chocolate and mixing up the chip shape/size for some variety in the molten chocolate pockets is also fun for that bakery-style taste.
For this recipe, I personally used half Hershey's Special Dark Chocolate Chips (my go-to grocery store chocolate chip). But feel free to use whatever chocolatey chip, chunk, or chopped bar combo sounds tasty to you!
Similar Other Chocolate Recipes You'll Love
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📖 Full Recipe
Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies (without brown sugar!)
Ingredients
- 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter (softened)
- 1 ½ cups sugar
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt (see notes)
- 1 cup dark chocolate chips (see notes)
- Flaked sea salt (optional, for garnish, see notes)
Instructions
- Prep and line: preheat your oven to 375°F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Cream butter, sugar, and extract: cream the butter, sugar, and vanilla together until thoroughly combined, for about 2 minutes on medium speed using a hand or stand mixer.
- Beat in the eggs: add in the eggs and beat for 1 minute more on medium until the batter is smooth and blended (the batter may look a touch broken still which is okay).
- Add in dries: add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to the batter, and mix on low speed just until the flour is incorporated and a smooth dough forms (be sure to scrape the bowl really well about halfway through mixing!).
- Add chips: add in the chocolate chips all at once, and mix in by hand or carefully on low speed, just until they’re evenly distributed throughout the dough.
- Scoop dough balls: scoop dough into 2” rounds, using a scant ¼ cup of dough per cookie (an ice cream scoop works well for easy portioning). Roll dough balls between your hands to fully round (if not using an ice cream scoop).
- Tray and top: place scooped cookies on prepared baking sheets at least 2” apart. For an extra hand-made touch, gently press a few extra chocolate chips into the top of each dough ball. If using, sprinkle a few crushed flakes of sea salt on top of each cookie as well.
- Bake: bake for 13-15 minutes, just until the bottoms are a medium golden brown, and the top edges are lightly browned as well (if baking one sheet at a time, they may cook faster so start checking around 11 minutes). The middles should still be fairly pale and crackly, but look dry although they’ll be soft to the touch (a touch underbaked is actually good for these cookies as they’ll crisp up when they cool).
- Cool, share and enjoy: cool cookies as long as you can keep away from them (aka about 5 minutes max in my kitchen), then pass some molten chocolate goodness and enjoy!
Test Kitchen Tips
- To salt or not to salt? The sea salt flakes are optional in this recipe as they only serve as a garnish, but I highly recommend them for a perfect salt balance to the sweet chocolate cookie base. If you don’t have them or choose not to use them, up the salt in the recipe to 1 teaspoon.
- Which chocolate chips? I prefer dark chocolate chips in this recipe (I used Hershey's Special Dark Chips as a good, less expensive option); in general, the higher the quality, the better in my book, but if Nestle’s semi-sweet chips is what you grew up loving, then definitely stick with those if you like for that extra touch of nostalgia!
- Chilled bakes: if you’d like, you can bake these cookies directly from the fridge or freezer too. Just know that doing so will make the cookies spread a little less and add a little chewiness too, but they'll still be delicious! You can chill scooped dough balls for 1 month in the freezer or 4 days in the fridge. If baking from the fridge or freezer, just tray up the chilled, scooped dough balls on your baking pan, sprinkle with sea salt, and bake according to regular recipe instructions, noting you may need an extra few minutes for cookies to fully bake.
- Small-batch chocolate chip cookies: Want just a few cookies? Toggle to "0.5X" at the top of the ingredient list and you'll have a recipe for just 8 delicious cookies!
- Storage: these cookies will keep for 5-7 in an air-tight container at room temperature.
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