Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies [soft + chewy]
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Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies are an essential sourdough recipe to have in your collection. Not only do they taste amazing, they will make your kitchen smell incredible, use up your sourdough discard and there's no brown butter in sight, making them simple to make with just a bowl and spoon.
These sourdough discard chocolate chip cookies can be made with active sourdough starter or sourdough discard. They're soft with a chewy texture in the middle and crisp edges (they're never cake-like) and will disappear from your cookie jar in record time!
You can customise this chewy sourdough discard chocolate chip cookie recipe with a few tweaks including changing the type of chocolate chips that you use, adding nuts or even a sprinkle of flaky sea salt (I've added a tonne of variation ideas further down the page!). You could also make these cookies into a sourdough cookie skillet!
If you want to try some other sourdough discard cookies, you might enjoy making these sourdough cowboy cookies, sourdough snickerdoodles, sourdough gingerbread cookies or sourdough Anzac biscuits (oatmeal cookies), sourdough thumbprint cookies or why not decorate these sourdough sugar cookies. Can you tell cookies are one of my favorite things? I've also popped all of my sourdough discard recipes here and all of my sourdough discard cookie recipes here.
What Is Sourdough Discard?
Sourdough discard is the portion of unfed starter that you remove before you feed your starter. You will generate quite a bit of discard while you're building your sourdough starter (it is essential to discard your starter before you feed it).
These cookies are a great way to use up your discard (you'll find loads of other ideas here). Once you've got a mature and active starter and you're baking sourdough bread regularly, you may not have as much discard. In this case, you can feed your starter a little extra to create some ... because cookies!!! They really are a great way to use up extra sourdough starter.
Here are 5 ways to strengthen your sourdough starter and here's how to increase the amount of starter you have in the jar.
How Long Can You Store Discard In The Fridge?
Because discard is unfed sourdough starter, it will not last indefinitely. It must be refrigerated (unless you are using it immediately after taking it out of the jar). You should try to use it within two weeks of putting it in the fridge. The reason being, the longer you leave it, the more sour it will become.
For this recipe I recommend using discard that's less than a few days old - you don't want your cookies to have too much of a sour flavor, particular because the dough is fermented overnight. In fact, maybe I should have called these overnight sourdough chocolate chip cookies.
You can read more about storing sourdough discard in the fridge here.
What's Different About Sourdough Cookies?
The thing that sets sourdough cookies apart from regular cookies is that sourdough discard contains water (generally 50%). Water isn't generally associated with cookies, so our technique in baking these must accomodate for this.
These cookies do not have any other liquid, apart from the sourdough discard and egg. You also need to chill this mixture down to allow it to rest and become firm. Refrigeration also helps to evaporate more of the water in the discard and concentrate the sugars.
I like the mixture after it's been in the fridge 24 hours - it tastes so much more complex and has a great sourdough tang! It also helps the cookies to spread less in the oven, giving you a better texture.
How To Make Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies
Sourdough chocolate chip cookies are pretty easy to make. Most of the time is waiting for the dough to chill in the fridge! It's a little bit like making delicious sourdough bread!
Here's how to make sourdough chocolate chip cookies with discard or active starter:
- Place some of the dry ingredients (all purpose flour, baking soda, corn starch, salt and chocolate chips) into a large bowl and combine. Set this aside.
- Now in a separate bowl, combine sourdough starter, melted butter, brown sugar, white sugar, egg + egg yolk and vanilla extract. Stir together until they resemble runny caramel.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and bring together using a spatula. Once you've brought the dough together, cover it in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator. It's best to refrigerate for 24 hours if you can.
- The next day, when you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 165C (330F) and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- Use a cookie scoop or large spoon to scoop out balls of dough. I have used 30g dough balls for this recipe. Place the dough balls onto the prepared baking sheets.
- Place the cookies into the oven for 12 to 13 minutes or until they are golden brown on top but still molten in the centre. The baking time may differ depending on your oven.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray for around 10 minutes. The cookies will continue to bake for a few minutes after they are removed from the oven and will firm up as they cool. After 10 minutes, carefully transfer to a wire rack and allow them to cool completely.
Ingredient Notes
I wanted to explain a little bit about why some of the ingredients have been included in this recipe ... just in case you were curious or haven't made chewy chocolate chip cookies before.
- brown sugar (or dark brown sugar) - it's best to use a higher proportion of brown sugar to white granulated sugar for a softer, chewier texture.
- corn starch - a little cornstarch will give you a softer cookie (cornstarch is called cornflour in Australia and the UK. It's the white powder you add to gravy or sauces to thicken them, not yellow cornmeal). Cornstarch helps the cookies to bake soft and stay soft.
- all purpose flour - you want to use flour with a lower protein for the best cookies (I know, you are used to using high protein bread flour for sourdough bread) but trust me on this, stick with all purpose flour!
Must Read Tips for The Best Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies!
Now this is a really simple recipe ... but there a few things you need to do to make sure you get the best results! You want chewy cookies that aren't caky or dry with lovely chocolate chunks evenly distributed throughout.
- Make sure you melt the butter for this recipe before you start. Letting it cool just slightly before you add it to the other ingredients will give you the best result. You don't want it to have cooled too much - it should still be slightly warm. I use salted butter in this recipe, but you can use unsalted butter if you prefer.
- Adding the chocolate chips to the flour mixture ensures they are evenly distributed as they are slightly coated in flour before the liquid ingredients are poured in.
- Don't be tempted to add more flour to the mixture - even if you think it seems too wet for cookie dough! Adding more flour will give you a cake-like cookie.
- Refrigerating the dough will give you the best sourdough chocolate chip cookies. It means they won't spread so much in the oven and you'll get a chewier, softer texture to the cooled cookies. I also love that refrigerating them overnight means that the dough ferments and the sourdough bacteria get to work their magic on your cookie dough! While you won't reap the same health benefits as eating sourdough bread, they're still doing lots of good!
- Don't over cook these cookies. Remove them from the oven when the centre still looks wet or they will be too dry when they cool.
- I've used chocolate chips in my cookies. If you prefer a more "molten" or melted chocolate texture to your cookies, you can use chocolate chunks or chopped chocolate.
Tasty Flavor Variations
There are lots of variations that you can make with these cookies. Here are a few of my family's favorites:
- Add 100g of roasted peanuts along with the chocolate chips for a delicious peanut twist.
- White Chocolate, Cranberry & Macadamia - Replace the milk chocolate chips with 50g each of white chocolate chips, dried cranberries and macadamia nuts.
- Add a few tablespoons of your favorite chai spice or pumpkin spice to the mixture when you mix the dry ingredients for a spiced twist (seriously so good!).
- Swap the milk chocolate chips for dark chocolate chips and sprinkle them with flaky sea salt before baking.
You might also enjoy these sourdough cowboy cookies full of chocolate chips, pecans, rolled oats and sweetened coconut flakes.
These sourdough discard cookies would make a gorgeous gift! We love to gift them to our neighbours, teachers and friends!
Size Matters
When you are scooping out the cookie dough for these cookies, size matters! In the pictures in this blog post I've used 30g balls of cookie dough. I find this is the perfect size to ensure a chewier cookie.
For extra large bakery style cookies you could use up to 100g of cookie dough. You'll just have to bake them a little longer if you're making cookies this size.
Storing & Freezing
You can keep these cookies fresh for about 3 or 4 days in an airtight container (although they don't last long in my house). I find they stay freshest in a glass jar (I absolutely love having chewy sourdough chocolate chip cookies in my glass cookie jar). Avoid storing them in a plastic container.
These can be frozen too. I freeze baked cookies on a cookie tray and then pop into a ziploc bag. That way I can take out a couple to pop into lunchboxes when I need them. They defrost well.
You can also freeze the cookie dough and bake cookies as you want them. I freeze the dough into balls and then place into a ziploc bag so I can grab out a handful as I want them. Pop the frozen balls onto a baking tray and let them soften a little before baking as per normal.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you bake room temperature sourdough cookie dough, it will spread as soon as it hits the oven giving you flat cookies. Ideally, pop it in the fridge for around 24 hours. When you scoop the cookie dough out, try to make sure it's in a ball and don't flatten the dough balls out before they go in the oven.
Sourdough chocolate chip cookies are soft and chewy with a unique sourdough tang. They aren't necessarily sour, as this can be offset by the the use of brown and white sugars. Sourdough cookies are a bit more complex and tangy in flavor than a regular cookie though.
This recipe has not been developed with gluten free flour, so I don't recommend using it. I developed the recipe to work with all purpose flour.
Sourdough Discard Chocolate Chip Cookies
Equipment
- Baking Tray
Ingredients
- 350 g All Purpose Flour
- 8 g Baking Soda
- 6 g Corn Starch
- 2 g Salt
- 250 g Chocolate Chips
- 100 g Sourdough Starter or Sourdough Discard
- 180 g Salted Butter Melted
- 160 g Brown Sugar
- 100 g White Sugar
- 1 Egg + Egg Yolk
- 5 g Vanilla Extract
Instructions
- Place some of the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, corn starch, salt and chocolate chips) into a large mixing bowl and combine. Set this aside.
- Now in a separate bowl, combine sourdough starter, melted butter, brown sugar, white sugar, egg + egg yolk and vanilla extract. Stir together until they resemble runny caramel.
- Now pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir to form the cookie dough.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place into the fridge for 12 to 24 hours.
- The next day, when you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 165C (330F) and line two cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Use a cookie scoop or large spoon to scoop out balls of dough. I have used 30g dough balls for this recipe. Place the dough balls onto the prepared baking sheets.
- Place the cookies into the oven for 12 to 13 minutes at 165C (330F) or until they are golden brown on top but still molten in the centre.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray for around 10 minutes. The cookies will continue to bake for a few minutes after they are removed from the oven and will firm up as they cool. After 10 minutes, carefully transfer to a wire rack and allow them to cool completely.
Notes
Nutrition
Hi. I am Kakoli from India,already joined ur group.U r doing really great job ,i have just started my sourdough journey. Itz really been wonderful to read ur blogs.Plz share wholewheat recipes as well as we only eat wholewheat.
Thanks much n keep up ur great work!!
The peanut butter version is delicious. Thanks !
Hi!
These cookies are amazing and a great way to use my sourdough starter discard. The only thing is that they leave you with a slight metallic taste at the end. Could I substitute baking powder for baking soda?
Thank you
I saw your post about overnight discard recipes. I really appreciate that as my grandkids need to have the long fermentation and a lot of recipes like pumpkin, banana and zucchini breads only have a discard option. I wondered if cookies can be made with a long ferment option? If so, what would I ferment the flour with?
I only put a 4 star because I haven't made any finished products yet. I'm still working on my sourdough starter. I appreciate that you guide us on the making of the starter, as well as the end product, as well as how to trouble shoot, and fix the issues.
I’m curious why it’s important to melt the butter vs. creaming the butter and sugar? I ask in part because I recently made another sourdough cookie recipe that called for cooled browned butter and we’re not crazy about the different texture so I’m wondering if there’s a reason I couldn’t cream my butter & sugar instead for a more familiar cookie my husband might actually like and I can incorporate sourdough starter. Thank you!
I love these cookies and have made them several times. Being able to make the dough the night before and just bake in the morning is awesome!
Made these and they were a hit! sooooo good!! Thank you for sharing your recipe 🙂
Thank you for this lovely recipe, I've made it three times now and the whole family loves it! I have been omitting the 100g white sugar and just adding 160g of panela/rapadura sugar - I have found it's still very sweet without the white sugar.
So glad you're loving the sourdough chocolate chip cookies! It's great to know they are still really sweet without the white sugar x
Do you have to ferment them this long or can you just do a few hours?
Can you convert the recipe into cups/teaspoons ?
I'm sorry but I don't bake with cups/teaspoons because using a scale is much more accurate. You can read about why it's better to use a scale for baking here.
Thanks you for the recipe 😘.
Can I use coconut sugar?
For what it's worth, I never thought I could be a baker until I invested in a scale. It's a total game changer! Recipes are so easy to follow and I bake all the time now!
Hi! I’m excited to try this recipe soon! Question…can you use browned butter for this recipe? I love the taste of browned butter!
Yes you can definitely use brown butter in these sourdough chocolate chip cookies if you prefer 🙂
I don’t have cornstarch and Kroger is no longer selling it. Is there a substitute for corn starch?
Can these be frozen?
I just finished baking these chocolate chip cookies, they are excellent and easy to make. I like mixing everything in the evening, refrigerate over night and baking the next day when you have time. I also like weighing each cookie, you have consistent size, so they bake evenly. Excellent recipe. Thank you.
I just made these cookies overnight fermentation with active sourdough starter, 75 grams in weight and baked them at 325 degrees for 17 minutes or the internal temperature 175 degrees. They were perfection ❤️ after they baked, they were 3 and a half inches wide and three quarter of an inch thick. I did not flatten the dough ball. Thank you.
We do our best to avoid white sugar so do you think I could replace the white sugar with coconut sugar or honey?
The best choc chip cookies I’ve ever made. Can’t stop eating them. Thank you for the recipe, it was so easy!
So glad you love them 🙂 xo
We loved these! Didn’t add any white sugar and used half milk chocolate chips and half white chocolate chunks as that was all we had. Definitely sweet enough and had a great depth of flavour. Thanks for the recipe xxx
Hi! Can i freeze rolled out cookie dough and just pop them in the oven when I need it? Im not sure if it doesn't fit with the sourdough in it?
Thanks again and loved the recipe! 🙂
Since discovering this recipe, I'm using my sourdough starter to make cookies more than bread haha! These are the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever made, and the recipe turns out perfect every single time. Shared the recipe with my brother and he agreed.
Hi! I love this recipe. My family really loves another recipe I used of yours in the past though and I can’t find it. They were a more cake like consistency and a little salty. Is there anywhere I can find that one? and I’ll be sure to write it down this time!
These are the best cookies! I only refrigerated about 3 hours because everyone wanted cookies after dinner but they were delicious and so easy to make.
These are a great hit in my house. However, I'm finding my cookies are deflating too much to my liking and want a more cake like texture. What tweaking should I do to achieve this?
Can you freeze these ?
These are, by far, the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever made. Great recipe. I hade to tweak it a bit for my convection oven and baking stone, but they turn out beautifully. I do 16.5 minutes at 350⁰.
Can these be made without the cornstarch if I don't have any? or will they be ruined without it ?
I am so grateful for this recipe! I did everything according to the recipe and tips and WOW THE BEST CHOCOLATE CHIPS COOKIES EVER! All in my family agreed, we are keeping and repeating this recipe!
Thank you!
Hi, Gonna bake now those and want to exchange soda with baking powder. Just think soda taste showing too much some times. Hope it will work. What do you think?
yes that should be fine 🙂
Just made these for the first time and they're delicious! My husband had to have one from each batch as they came out of the oven and approved them each time. Will definitely be making these again! Thanks so much.
Ok….. 38 years old and this is the BEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE I have ever made in my life 🤣. The only tweak I had to make was cooking time, but my gas oven is finicky. Please save me from eating the entire batch by myself!
These are literally THE BEST chocolate chip cookies I have ever made! Idk that I will ever make a different recipe again.
I have made this recipe twice now and have not changed a thing. They went into the fridge overnight then cooked for morning tea. Wow these are the best choc chip biscuits I have ever eaten or made. Thank you Pantry Mama for sharing so many free recipes, photos and all.
Wow………
Oh wow thank you for your kind words, I'm so glad you love them! xo
This genius recipe has replaced each and every chocolate chip cookie recipe I’ve ever made in many years of baking . I add walnuts.
Thanks as always for a fantastic recipe!
I'm so glad you love this recipe! Oh yum walnuts would be such a delicious addition for sure xo
My son absolutely loves these cookies! I replace the chocolate chips with m&ms and white chocolate chips, make 50g cookies and bake at 320 for about 20 mins. And he devours them! He would if I’d let him.
Usually I double the recipe and freeze a bunch of dough in balls and then take them out to bake for the week.
Oh yum! I'll have to try it with m&ms for my 3 boys, they would love that! Such a great idea to freeze the sourdough cookie dough 🙂 Thanks so much for commenting xx
These are my go to cookie. Sometimes the mixture gets refrigerated and sometimes they are cooked straight away. I make a triple batch once a fortnight and freeze two batches, and they are always gone before baking day!
I'm confused do you use the discard or the active starter? I can't wait to make these!
You can use either active sourdough starter or sourdough discard for these cookies, it really doesn't matter since it's not providing any leavening.
How long can we leave in the freezer ! Thank you 🩷 best cookies in the world!!!!!!
Thank you, Marissa! They will keep for about 3-4 months if they last that long 😉
Hello, I am writing from Turkey. It's very nice, but it's sweetened to my taste, so next time I'll try to reduce the sugar.
I'm confused about the eggs. Is it 1 whole egg + 1 yolk?
One whole egg plus one egg yolk. 🙂
This is the best chocolate chip cookie recipe I have ever made!! I would love to try to sub in cocoa powder to make them a chocolate base with peppermint chips! Any recommendation on how to sub in cocoa powder?
That sounds delicious! We haven't tried that with this recipe, so can't say for sure. But you can use this chocolate cookie recipe or this one (and leave out the filling) and add peppermint ships.
Try this recipe for the first time using my rice sourdough starter discard. When I made my new starter for this recipe, I did use bread flour instead of rye when I fed it. They came out so soft and chewy and just scrumptious. This recipe is a keeper
Absolutely the best chocolate chip cookies ever. I make these for everyone and they always beg for more. Perfection.
I made these for the first time, and they were devoured in two days. My husband said they are the best chocolate cookie I've ever made.
Thank you for sharing your recipes!
Hi Kate - we love these but I have a question; storage suggestions I live in Australia pretty hot summer - eg can I store in fridge and can these be frozen when made thanks ☺️
Hey Leah - I'm in Australia too and recommend not storing in plastic at all. I always store in a biscuit tin or glass jar as they stay much fresher this way. I keep all the tins from Christmas for this reason! There's no reason you can't put them in the fridge, but I find that they are fine at room temp. They do freeze well both before and after baking 🙂
Have you tried mixing in a stand mixer and achieved the same results as hand mixing?
That should work with the paddle attachment 🙂
Why not 2 eggs instead of 1 egg + 1 egg yolk?