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These nutella cookies are soft, chewy, and deeply chocolaty with that unmistakable hazelnut richness. They come together in about 20 minutes and bake up thick with crisp edges and a gooey center!
A Quick Look At The Recipe
This is a brief summary of the recipe. Jump to the recipe to get the full details.
Jump to RecipePrep Time
10 minutes
Cook Time
10 minutes
Total Time
20 minutes
Servings
20 cookies
Difficulty
Easy
Calories *
192 kcal per serving
Technique
Cream butter, Nutella, and sugars, then incorporate dry ingredients and bake.
Flavor Profile
Rich chocolate-hazelnut cookies with bittersweet chocolate.
* Based on nutrition panel
I followed your note about adding the flour slowly and mine stayed thick and chewy instead of spreading flat. That one tip made all the difference! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Lauren
Why This Recipe Works
- Nutella carries the flavor. It adds both fat and hazelnut depth, so the cookies taste rich without being heavy.
- Controlled mixing matters. Gradual flour incorporation prevents tough cookies.
- Chocolate balances sweetness. Bittersweet chips keep everything from tipping too sweet.
Table of Contents
These nutella cookies are one of those recipes that looks simple but rewards precision. The biggest difference between a flat cookie and a thick, chewy one comes down to how you handle the butter and flour.
I tested this alongside my double chocolate chip cookies and chocolate pudding cookies, and the biggest takeaway is this: slow down when adding flour and don’t rush the mixing. That’s what gives you that bakery-style texture instead of something dense or dry.
If you love Nutella desserts, this dough also uses the same flavor balance that makes my nutella truffles so addictive.
Ingredients & Substitutions
- Butter: Use unsalted butter so you control the salt. Butter should be cool but close to room temperature so it creams properly.
- Nutella: The defining ingredient, this chocolate-hazelnut spread adds both flavor and fat, which directly impacts texture.
- Brown Sugar: Adds moisture and chew. This is what keeps the cookies soft even the next day.
- Granulated Sugar (White Sugar)
- Egg: Adds structure, moisture, and just enough lift.
- Vanilla Extract
- All-Purpose Flour: Add it gradually to avoid overworking the dough.
- Cornstarch: This is one of the keys to a thick, chewy cookie.
- Baking Soda: Reacts with the brown sugar to give lift.
- Kosher Salt
- Chocolate Chips: I prefer bittersweet here to balance the sweetness of the dough.
See the recipe card below for full ingredients and quantities.
Variations on Nutella Cookies
- Make ice cream sandwiches. Sandwich these cookies with chocolate ice cream or vanilla bean ice cream for an easy dessert.
- Add texture. Fold in chopped nuts or candied fruit peel for contrast, or take inspiration from salted chocolate cherry pistachio pecan bark or peanut butter cup cookies and put the mix-ins right on top!
- Lean into hazelnut. Pair with flourless chocolate torte or add toasted hazelnuts directly into the dough.
Professional Tips
- Use cool, pliable butter. If it’s too warm, the cookies will spread. If it’s too cold, it won’t cream properly.
- Add flour slowly. I add mine in 5–7 additions. This is the difference between tender cookies and tough ones.
- Don’t overmix after flour. Mix just until incorporated to keep the texture soft.
- Chill if needed. If your kitchen is warm or your dough feels soft, chill it in the fridge for 1–2 hours for thicker cookies.
How to make nutella cookies from scratch
Use these instructions to make the perfect nutella cookies every time. Full measurements are in the recipe card below.
Step 1: Mix dry ingredients. Whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl until evenly combined.
Step 2: Cream base. Cream butter, Nutella, and both sugars on medium-high speed for about 3–4 minutes until smooth and until smooth and slightly fluffy with a creamy consistency. Scrape the bowl once.
A stand mixer makes creaming faster, but a hand mixer works.
Step 3: Add wet ingredients. Mix in the egg and vanilla until fully incorporated and the mixture looks glossy.
Step 4: Incorporate flour. Reduce speed to low and add the dry ingredients in 5–7 additions, mixing each just until combined.
Step 5: Add chocolate chips. Fold or briefly mix in chocolate chips into the batter until evenly distributed.
Step 6: Portion dough. Scoop using a cookie scoop into 1-inch dough balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet.
Step 7: Optional chill. Refrigerate for 2 hours or up to 3 days for thicker, chewier cookies. You can also freeze dough balls in the freezer.
Step 8: Bake cookies. Bake at 350°F for 9–11 minutes until edges are set and tops are just beginning to brown.
Step 9: Cool properly. Let cool for 5 minutes on the tray, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Chef Lindsey’s Recipe Tip
Rotate your cookie sheets halfway through baking.
Recipe FAQs
Yes, you can add Nutella directly to cookie dough. It replaces part of the fat and sugar while adding flavor, which is why nutella cookies are softer and richer than traditional chocolate chip cookies. However, adding too much Nutella without adjusting flour can cause cookies to spread. This recipe is balanced so the cookies stay thick and chewy.
Nutella cookies spread too much when the butter is too warm, the dough wasn’t chilled, or the flour wasn’t incorporated gradually. To fix this, use cool, pliable butter and add flour in several small additions.
You do not need to chill nutella cookie dough before baking, but chilling for 1–2 hours will create thicker, chewier cookies and improve flavor. If your kitchen is warm or your dough feels soft, chilling is strongly recommended.
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If you tried this recipe and loved it please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it goes in the comments below. I love hearing from you; your comments make my day!
Nutella Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup unsalted butter softened
- ⅓ cup Nutella stir before scooping, heaping
- ½ cup light brown sugar packed
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoon cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips I use Ghirardelli, in case you’re new around here
Instructions
- Whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt.
- Cream butter, Nutella, and sugars until smooth.
- Add egg and vanilla; mix until combined.
- Add dry ingredients gradually, mixing just until incorporated.
- Stir in chocolate chips.
- Scoop into 1-inch balls.
- Chill dough (optional) for 2 hours.
- Bake at 350°F for 9–11 minutes.
- Cool on the tray for 5 minutes, then transfer to a rack.
Video
Notes
- Yield: About 20 cookies
- Technique: Add flour slowly for best texture.
- Storage: Store in an airtight container or freeze dough balls.
- Variations: Stuff with Nutella or add chopped hazelnuts.
Nutrition
Before You Go
If you loved these nutella cookies, try more from my collection like cookie recipes! If you’re in the mood for more chocolate, try my chocolate biscotti or cherry chocolate chip cookies next.
Hi!
I am a nutcase (ha!) when it comes to those cookies and have been making them regularly since i first saw this reciper a month ago.They are perfection and the answer to most of daily hassles and world conflicts but in my case, they inevitably always come out flat. This isnt a deal breaker in itself and there are bigger problems in life but I swung by your page today to see if i had missed some crucial instruction the first time around. It doesnt look like it so i have to ask: how do you get your cookies to have this perfect mounted shape with the thick middle??
I bake mine straight out of the fridge (i read your answer to a comment about that) and even as they spread out and puff up in the oven, they do so “flatly”. And then of course they flatten completely even more while cooling and turn out to be the opposite of yours i.e thin middle, thick sides. I tried different, longer, baking times but to no avail… I havent gotten so far as to experience with different temperatures but I wouldnt know to turn the heat up or down to get a better result. I will keep making them anyway but would love your insight on this extremely important matter! 🙂
Thanks!
LOL. I agree that baking big puffy cookies is an extremely important matter! Without baking with you it is hard to give you a definitely answer but I can think of a few things. 1) What is the protein content of your flour? Even AP flour varies in it’s protein content by 100%, which is kinda crazy. I use Bob’s Red Mill most frequently and it has 4g of protein in 1/4 c. Gluten (the protein in flour) creates structure and will help keep them from spreading like crazy. 2) Don’t skip the cornstarch! 3) I made the dough rounds and chilled them overnight so they were very, very cold. 4) Sometimes I get lazy and make my dough rounds more like 1.5 inches in diameter. Bigger rounds that you roll into a tall cylinder instead of a ball will give you a fatter cookie, so you could try rolling them more like a small can and less like a round ball. I also don’t flatten the rounds before I bake them, which is why the tops are so domed on mine.
As for temperature, try 325 F. If you bake them hotter, especially straight from the fridge, the outside will cook and brown faster than the inside can cook, so you will get a crispy outside and a raw inside. These crispy raw cookies probably won’t spread as much but they won’t be cooked either! Your oven could also run hot. Invest in an inexpensive oven thermometer so that you know exactly what temperature your cookies are baking at.
Thank you so much for taking the time to reply and it is perfect timing! To help fight off procrastination as avoidance of actual work I made a batch of the dough earlier today. Does the trick too. 🙂
The flour i use has about the same amount of protein as yours (and i put in heaping amounts this time), i definitely use the cornstarch since i got it especially to make this recipe in the first place and im undefeated at anticipating the craving and preparing the dough in advanc so it does spend the night and most of a day in the fridge. However because my baking dish is too big, i have to refrigerate the whole bunch of dough in a bowl and do the rolling thing just before sticking them into the oven. So ill give the cylinder shape a try and turn the heat down slightly and report back to you on the results!
Cookies are my favorite method of procrastination too! My baking dish doesn’t fit in my fridge either so I make the balls/cylanders and line them up in square metal cake pans (round would work too), cover with plastic wrap and stack them in the fridge! Easy peasy. If you are short on time or you are impatient, like me, you can put them in the freezer for several hours instead of the fridge overnight. I look forward to hearing your results! [On a side note, this troubleshooting is interesting because I am having the opposite problem with a triple chocolate chip cookie recipe that Im developing, and it’s driving me crazy! Going to make another batch tomorrow!)
Practice makes perfect…or so they say! In my case, it might very well earn me perfectly clogged arteries and elastic waistband jeans but on the plus side i wont be needing scented candles in my house for a very long time. The good news is, i believe i am almost done with the trial part of the program!
Verdict: the cylinder shape and lower temperature definitely helped. The cookies were a lot thicker. Unfortunately, it wasnt enough and they still flattened a lot more than yours (even though i let them bake longer despite the fact that i like my cookies very underdone)
So for the next time: i will try rolling the dough balls before refrigerating it as it seems it is the only thing i did differently. I also think i need a lighter hand when mixing the ingredients together. I tend to get zealous over clumps and, despite knowing better, overbeat the whole thing (that might be a solution for that triple chocolate chip cookie recipe though…). I end up with a nice and smooth dough that gets runny when it bakes. Lastly, i will use a bit more flour and keep the lower temperature.
Such a simple recipe with so few ingredients and it feels like im trying to crack the Rosetta stone! 🙂 Thanks for the support through it all!
Hooray for little successes! I am a habitual underbaker much to my husband’s disgust! The cookies pictures were most certainly under baked because that is how I like them. I bake a second batch for him. 🙂
I think rolling them into balls pre baking will absolutely help. So would freezing them preshaped.
As for my triple chocolate cookies, I need to take out the cornstarch! I think I’m also going to increase the butter by a little. Sugar helps cookies spread too, so maybe I’ll change that. Ugh so many options! I am less concerned about over mixing cookies than cakes, for example, because there is usually so much sugar and fat that it inhibits too much gluten formation anyways. I do mix just to combine after adding the dry ingredients. So many things to try! High five to elastic band pants! lol
In the name of experience only (and certainly not gluttony) I have dutifully kept on working on this cookie dough in the past week. I am happy to report that the many attempts at obtaining nice mountain shaped cookies will not have been in vain as I finally reached this ultimate goal in life with my last trial! Yay me!
I added a bit more flour, closer to 2 cups, which showed me how right you were about different flours within the same type being completely different, and i followed your trick of freezing the pre-made balls of dough. That was a slightly longer process: because the dough was too sticky to roll right after mixing it, i stuck it in the fridge as is for about an hour, or until i remembered to tend to it, then i rolled it into cylinders and back in the fridge. I only put them in the freezer a half hour before baking them so they wouldnt be completely frozen. I kept the lower temperature and voila! Nice thick cookies, still not quite as perfect as yours and different in color as well (ive been wondering how you get that whitish color on the outside) but im thinking the flour here is the culprit and not much i can do about that where I am.
Now the final verdict: after all this, the trials, the questions, the forced binging on cookies… I think Im going back to my flat cookies! 😀 The nice thick cookies are beautiful but also much more cakey and I really love the almost-caramel-like-chewiness of the flat ones.
Nevertheless, it has been a super fun and educative experience! Thank you for sharing it!
Oh my goodness, Eva!!! Your dedication is remarkable! 🙂 I am glad you finally achieved the cookie heights you desired!
The amount of flour is one reason why I really wish Americans would hop on board the weighted measurement train, because there is inevitably a different between how I scoop 1 cup of flour and how everyone else does it. I read that the difference can be over 1/4 a cup for each cup of flour! And then there is the different protein content – the bag of AP flour in my cupboard with 4g of protein per 1/4 cup is going to provide a chewier, stronger cookie than the one with only 2g. This is why baking is a combination of art and science!
I looked at my before and after photos in Lightroom and the whitish color is partially from adjusting the exposure, so don’t stress too much about that. The camera also dulls colors, which leads to a totally different kind of frustration! They were never dark on the outside but they were like a light brown.
This is definitely the only cookie that I pre-roll and refrigerate before baking. It’s too much effort and I am way too lazy for that! Your description of the flat ones sounds amazing! I will need to try them flat 🙂 Thank you so much for coming back and reporting your results! Happy baking!
I’m prepping these tonight to make them for my workplace tomorrow. Super excited to see how they turn out. Here’s a question for you – do they spread when baking? I found that I ended up with closer to 30 cookies than 20, and even the 20 on the pan are a snug fit. Alsooo I don’t have any parchment paper because it’s the one thing I forgot, so I lightly greased the pan… Hopefully that won’t hurt anything?
Hi Carly! They don’t spread that much but they do spread a little (the colder your dough, the less they spread). I bake mine in batches on two cookie pans, so while one sheet is in the oven I am rolling the cookie dough balls for the next sheet. If you don’t have two sheets then you can bake one batch (the number that will fit depends on the size of your pan) and then when that pan cools keep the rest of the dough in the refrigerator. I hope greasing the pan worked and your coworkers enjoyed them!
I guessed that the refrigerating might help with potential spreading, and it ended up working out pretty great in spite of not having parchment paper, too. ^_^ They were really delicious – I was a little nervous about cooking them too long and might have undercooked them but honestly no complaints either way; who doesn’t like a melt-in-your-mouth cookie?
Thanks for getting back to me – I’ll definitely be using this recipe again!
I’m so glad they worked out, Carly! I underbake my cookies too because I love a soft and chewy center! You can also freeze the dough in balls and bake them as you want them – they just need to bake a few minutes longer. I have some in my freezer in Atlanta right now!
These are on my 2014 holiday cookie list. I can’t wait for this deliciousness to happen. Pinned!
I made the list! Thanks, Jennie!
I made these cookies about a week ago, and OH MY GOSH! These are heaven in my mouth! They’re so moist, it’s amazing. My husband said they were too rich, he could only eat two. Fine by me! My toddler and I devoured the rest. lol your site is now my go-to for all cookie recipes! I actually just whipped up some cream cheese chocolate chip dough (it’s in the fridge right now). I can’t wait to see how those blow me away!
Hi Kayla! I am soooo happy to hear that! I do love cookies and I take them very seriously! 🙂 I still have some dough of the Nutella ones in my freezer (I have them stashed in the back so my husband can’t find them.) Let me know what you think of the Cream Cheese C.C. I absolutely LOVE those. The dough freezes well for those too. Enjoy!
Oh wow! The cream cheese cookies were delicious too! I’ll admit, I was nervous making them because I’ve never heard of using cream cheese in cookies. But my oh my, they are good! I had them done right as my husband was walking in from work. He literally ate a plate full lol needless to say, they’re a hit here!
Haha! I am thrilled that you loved those too! I think the cream cheese ones taste like the Soft Batch kind you buy at the supermarket (except better because they are homemade!). I gave some to the concierge and the postman, and they were fighting over that last few. I need to make them again soon…I think my freezer stock is running low! Enjoy!
I LOVE how gorgeously thick these cookies are!! And this…. “I use Ghirardelli, in case you’re new around here”… is perfection. Ghirardelli is my thing too. 😀
Haha! I wish they would pay me to say it, but, sadly, right now it is just my firm opinion!
I really need to try these. Was looking for cocoa or dark chocolate chip cookies recipe, this seems very nice.
It is delicious but it isn’t overwhelmingly chocolatey. If that is what you want, you should try these Quadruple Chocolate Pudding Cookies
Glad you were able to try my recipe! Your cookies look great!
Thanks for the fabulous recipe, Averie!
I looove hazelnuts and it’s all thanks to Nutella! THESE COOKIES LOOK SO FRACKING GOOD! All soft and chewy and gooooooey
I’ll have to keep trying hazelnuts just to make sure! These cookies are so right up your alley!