These gluten-free chocolate chip cookies are not "good, for gluten-free" — they’re just plain delicious! With their crisp edges, soft chewy centers, and buttery rich flavors, they’ll have even your non-GF friends craving them.
I developed this recipe for all my fellow cookie lovers who crave a gooey, buttery cookie or miss their mom's or grandma's classic chocolate chip cookie recipe. I tested and re-tested a total of 8 times, and finally created a cookie that truly tastes like the real thing.
This recipe was originally published on November 28, 2021. It was updated with new information on September 3, 2025.
Key Ingredients & Substitutions
These cookies are made with mostly pantry ingredients. Here are some notes on a few of the key ingredients:
Butter - You can use either regular or dairy-free butter, just make sure it’s softened at room temperature so it creams well. For the best texture, choose one that has a fat content of at least 80%. If your butter has a lower fat content than 8 grams per 2 teaspoons, combine ⅔ cup butter and ⅓ cup refined coconut oil or shortening.
Sugars - This gluten-free chocolate chip cookie recipe uses a combination of granulated sugar, brown sugar, and corn syrup. The granulated sugar gives a nice crisp to the edges, the brown sugar will add a delicious molasses flavor to the cookies, and the corn syrup helps to keep the centers soft and fudgy. If you have to choose just one sugar, I would use light brown sugar.
Gluten-free 1-to-1 flour - I prefer using Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 Baking Flour, but any cup-for-cup all-purpose GF flour blend that includes xanthan gum should work. You can read more about different types of flours in this post all about gluten-free flours.
Chocolate chips - Feel free to use semi-sweet chocolate, milk, or dark chocolate. You can also chop up your favorite bar of chocolate
Flaky salt - Although it’s technically optional, I highly recommend adding a sprinkle of flaky sea salt (a.k.a. Fleur de sel) to balance out the sweetness of the cookies.
Recipe Pro Tips
Here are some tips to make sure you end up with the most delicious gluten-free cookie:
Use a scale to measure your ingredients. Using measuring cups is perhaps more traditional for some of us, but it's very inconsistent. You could very easily add too much flour to your cookie dough and end up with dry, doughy cookies. By using a kitchen scale, you can measure your ingredients accurately and get delicious cookies every single time!
Use a cookie scoop to ensure your cookies are evenly sized. By using a cookie scoop, all your cookies are going to be the same size, they’ll all be baked evenly, it’s faster than using spoons, and you can skip rolling the dough around in your hands.
Add extra chocolate chips before baking. Before you put the cookies in the oven, add about 5 or 6 extra chocolate chips on top! This gives them that *chef’s kiss* straight-from-the-bakery-window look.
How To Make Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
The dough for these gluten-free cookies comes together with just 15 minutes of prep. Here’s how they’re made:
Step 1: Cream the butter. In a large bowl, beat the butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and corn syrup for a couple of minutes until it becomes light in color. Add the egg, honey, vanilla, and beat again until it’s fluffy and creamy.
Step 2: Make the cookie dough. In a separate bowl, combine the gluten-free flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Add this to the creamed butter mixture, and mix until you’re left with a thick but workable cookie dough. Add your chocolate chips and fold them in with a spatula. Cover the bowl and put it in the fridge to let it chill for at least 2 hours while you preheat your oven.
Step 3: Bake. Using your cookie scoop, portion out the cookie dough onto the prepared baking sheet. My scoop holds 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon (20ml), but you can also use a regular tablespoon and scoop out a slightly heaped amount of dough. Top each dough ball with extra chocolate chips and a pinch of flaky salt. Bake them for 18-19 minutes, and let them cool on the baking sheet for at least 10 minutes before moving them onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Don’t Skip: Chilling the Dough
It’s essential to chill the cookie dough in this recipe for a few reasons:
It hydrates the flour. Gluten-free flour blends can leave you with that awful gritty texture some gluten-free cookies have. Resting the dough, even for just 30 minutes, will give the flour time to properly hydrate. For the best texture, chill the dough for a minimum of 2 hours, or even overnight.
It prevents spreading. Chilling the dough solidifies the butter, which will melt slower in the oven than room temperature butter. A chilled dough will give you a thicker, chewier, gooier cookie, while a room temperature cookie will be flat, thin, and greasy.
It deepens the flavor. As the dough chills, the sugars lose some of its moisture and the flavors intensify. Chilling the dough will get you cookies with a rich taste especially from the brown sugar.
Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter softened at room temperature
- 1 cup brown sugar packed
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon corn syrup you can skip it if you like
- 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2½ cups gluten-free 1-to-1 flour containing xanthan gum
- ¾ teaspoon fine salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 2 cups chocolate chips plus extra for topping
- flaky sea salt
Instructions
- In a large bowl, cream the butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and corn syrup. Add the egg and mix again. Add honey and vanilla, and mix. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Add this to the creamed butter mixture, and mix until combined.
- Fold the chocolate chips in. Cover the bowl and put it in the fridge to chill for at least 2 hours.
- Preheat the oven for 375°F (190°C). Line a baking sheet or cookie sheet with parchment paper. Scoop out cookie dough onto parchment paper using a cookie scoop (mine holds 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon, or 20ml). Top with extra chocolate chips and sprinkle a pinch of flaky salt on each cookie. Bake for 8-9 minutes. Let them cool on the cookie sheet for at least 10 minutes before moving them onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
Nutrition
Storage & Freezing
Storing: The cookies will last about 3 days if kept in an airtight container left at room temperature. That said, they're definitely the tastiest on the day they're baked! You can also make the cookie dough a day ahead and keep it in the refrigerator overnight and bake them the next day.
Freezing baked cookies: Wrap each cookie in a couple layers of plastic wrap, put them in a freezer bag or airtight container, and store them in the freezer for a month.
Freezing cookie dough: Scoop out the chilled dough onto a piece of parchment paper, and let it freeze completely before putting the dough balls into a freezer bag to store in the freezer. You can store them for a couple of months.
When you're ready to bake them, remove cookie dough from the freezer about 10-15 minutes before the oven is preheated. You may need to bake them for an extra minute, depending on how cold your dough stays.
FAQs
I like using Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour. I tried it with a measure for measure blend by King Arthur and it just wasn’t as good. Whatever flour blend you choose to use, make sure it’s meant to be used as a cup for cup replacement for all-purpose flour, and that it includes xanthan gum.
If your cookies are nicely underbaked, your wonky cookies can be made into a circle by using a circular cookie cutter to enclose the baked cookie and then shuffled around until it forms a perfect circle.
If you want to use almond flour in your gluten-free chocolate chip cookies, try my almond flour chocolate chip cookies instead! It's just as soft, gooey, and buttery as this recipe!
Yes! Just swap out the butter for vegan butter (make sure the fat content is 8g per 2 teaspoons), and make sure you use dairy-free or vegan chocolate chips.
Cookies can come out flat for a few reasons, but some most common ones are: you used old leavening agents that didn’t react, or you didn’t chill your dough enough and the butter didn’t have enough time to get cold, or you didn’t add enough flour.
Your cookies will be dry and crumbly if you over-measured the flour and added too much, didn’t allow your dough to rest, or you didn’t let the cookies cool on the baking sheet before moving them to a wire rack.
More Gluten-Free Dessert Recipes
If you're looking for wholesome cookies, try my gluten-free oatmeal cookies. They pair well with both chocolate chips and raisins! You can also try these gluten-free oatmeal chocolate chip cookies from my friend Tiffany instead.
Looking for chocolate chip cookies that are lower in sugar? These chocolate chip chickpea cookies are for you. I promise they don't taste like chickpeas!
If you want a gluten-free option for the holidays, my gluten-free Christmas cookies, chewy ginger cookies, and gluten-free thumbprint cookies are all great choices!
These lemon curd cookies are a great option if you're not in the mood for chocolate.
Want something other than cookies that’s gluten-free? My gluten-free chocolate cake, gluten-free German chocolate cake, gluten-free coffee cake, and gluten-free pineapple upside down cake are some of my favorites!
Samantha says
How long can I leave the cookie dough in the fridge before baking? Is multiple days okay?
Ai Willis says
Hi Samantha! If you're going to make the cookie dough ahead of time (more than 24 hours), I would recommend portioning them out and keeping them in the freezer in a freezer bag.