Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies are thick and chewy with a flavor that will blow you away! The cream cheese keeps these cookies incredibly soft and tender and adds just a hint of tang.

There are a few things that I love more than a chewy chocolate chip cookie, and there is no shortage of different recipes on CLF. These soft batch cream cheese chocolate chip cookies are right up there with these thick chocolate chip cookies and these bakery style chocolate chip cookies. If you don’t have cream cheese on hand and the CCC craving strikes, make one of those recipes!

Looking for more cookies with cream cheese? Check out these red velvet cookies! Wherever your cravings take you, I promise there is a recipe here for you!

Ingredients & Substitutions

• All-Purpose Flour
• Cornstarch: Cornstarch dilutes the gluten-forming proteins in the flour, which keeps the crumb soft and delicate without making the cookies cakey. If you don’t have it, tapioca starch works as a 1:1 substitute, or you can simply leave it out.
• Baking Soda
• Cream Cheese: Cream cheese in cookies gives them a soft, chewy texture. It also adds a nice tang and rounds out some of the sweetness. I always use full fat Philadelphia cream cheese.
• Unsalted Butter
• Light Brown Sugar: Packed light brown sugar adds moisture and chew through its molasses content, along with a gentle caramel note that pairs beautifully with the cream cheese. Dark brown sugar works as a 1:1 substitute if that’s what you have.
• Granulated Sugar
• Kosher Salt
• Egg
• Vanilla Extract
• Semi-Sweet and Bittersweet Chocolate Chips: The combination is what gives these cookies a layered chocolate flavor. If you prefer more chocolate, try these same chips in my double chocolate chip cookies for comparison. You can absolutely use milk chocolate or dark chocolate chips instead, or a single variety if that’s what you have on hand.

See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.

Variations on This Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies

• Mix-In’s. Swap some or all of the chocolate chips for peanut butter chips, M&M’s, butterscotch chips, or mini Snickers, in any combination you like
• Stuffed Cookies. Flatten each dough ball into a disc, place a frozen scoop of peanut butter or a caramel candy in the center, and wrap the dough around it before baking. The frozen filling keeps the inside from overbaking while the outside sets.
• Chocolate Chip Swap. Use milk chocolate, dark chocolate, or a single variety in place of the semi-sweet and bittersweet combination. You can even try white chocolate and dried fruit as I do in these white chocolate cranberry cookies
• Fleur de Sel Finish. Press a pinch of fleur de sel onto the top of each dough ball just before baking for a salty-sweet contrast that sharpens the chocolate flavor. This is a small change that makes a noticeable difference.
• Brown butter! You can make my brown butter chocolate chip cookies with cream cheese! They are truly divine!

Professional Tips

• Scoop the dough before chilling. Chilled dough is hard to portion cleanly and frustrating to work with. Scoop all the balls first, then refrigerate them, so they go straight from the fridge to the oven with no extra work.
• Add the flour in 2-4 small additions on low speed. Each addition should be mixed only until the flour disappears before adding the next. Overmixing after the flour goes in develops excess gluten, which works against the soft, tender texture.
• Pull the cookies when the edges are just starting to color. These cookies should not look fully brown at the edges when they come out. A faint kiss of color at the sides is the cue. They will firm up as they cool on the pan, and overbaking is harder to forgive here than underbaking.

How to Make Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies

The dry ingredients come together first, then the dough builds in the stand mixer bowl.

Step 1: Whisk the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt until evenly combined. Set this bowl aside.

Step 2: Cream the butter and cream cheese. Add the cold but pliable butter and cream cheese to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on medium speed just until a smooth paste forms. You are not looking for a light, fluffy mixture here. Stop the moment you no longer see streaks of either.

Step 3: Add the sugars, egg, and vanilla. Add the light brown sugar, granulated sugar, egg, and vanilla extract to the creamed mixture. Beat on medium-high speed until the mixture looks smooth, cohesive, and just slightly lightened in color, about 60 to 90 seconds.

Step 4: Add the flour mixture in small additions. Reduce the mixer to low and add the flour mixture in 2-4 small additions, waiting for each one to just disappear before adding the next. Stop mixing the moment the last addition is incorporated. Overmixing at this stage develops gluten and will tighten the dough, working against the chewy texture you built in the creaming step.

Step 5: Fold in the chocolate chips. Add the chocolate chips and mix briefly on low just until they are evenly distributed through the dough. Reserve a small handful to press onto the tops of the portioned dough balls before baking, which I always do for a better-looking finished cookie.

Step 6: Scoop the dough before chilling. Using a 2-inch cookie scoop or a quarter-cup measuring cup, portion the dough into balls now, before refrigerating. The dough is soft and easy to work with at this stage. Once it is cold, it becomes firm and difficult to portion cleanly. Press a few reserved chocolate chips into the top of each ball.

Step 7: Preheat the oven and arrange the dough. Preheat the oven to 350°F conventional. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and place the dough balls about 2 inches apart. These cookies do not spread much, so you can fit more on a sheet than you might expect.

Step 8: Bake until the edges just catch color. Bake for 11 to 12 minutes. The sides should show just the beginning of color. The residual heat from the pan will continue setting the centers as they cool, and overbaking is the fastest way to lose the chew.

A word of caution: with cream cheese in the dough, the cookies will look softer and paler at the correct pull point than a standard cookie would. Do not wait for them to look done on top.

Step 9: Cool on the pan, then transfer. Let the cookies rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before moving them to a wire rack. They are too fragile to lift cleanly right out of the oven. After 5 minutes they will have firmed just enough to hold together. Let them cool completely on the rack before stacking or storing.

Recipe FAQs

Before You Go

These cookies, with their tangy cream cheese dough and pools of melted chocolate, are the kind of thing that disappears faster than you expect. If you want to keep baking, browse more Cookie Recipes or make these New York Times chocolate chip cookies next!