Golden brown with slightly crispy edges on the outside, perfectly chewy and gooey centers, surrounded by puddles of rich dark chocolate, and finished with tiny pebbles and flakes of sea salt. Yep, I just described your new favorite adult Chocolate Chip Cookie. And pssst…they’re vegan.
Secrets to making perfect Salted Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies:
- Mixing dough: When mixing the cookie dough, it should look and feel soft and mushy. You should be able to roll the dough into balls without it sticking to your hands. If the dough feels too wet, add a few tablespoons of flour at a time until it’s the right consistency. If the dough is too dry, add 1-2 tablespoons of more non-dairy milk..
- Under-bake: You ever make cookies and they turn out very hard? 9 times out of 10, you’re probably over-baking them! So when should you remove cookies from the oven if you want to get those delicious, bakery-style soft and tender cookies? After about 10-11 minutes, the cookies should be slightly golden around the edges but still appear a little raw and underdone in the centers. Once you take them out of the oven, the cookies will continue to bake and firm up on the baking sheet. However, if you’re a fan of a more crispy cookie, allow cookies to bake a little longer, about 13-14 minutes.
- Measuring flour: I like to use a scale to measure flour to get the most accurate measurement. However, if you prefer to use cups, always, ALWAYS spoon flour into a measuring cup, and use the back of a knife to scrape off the excess to prevent over-measuring.
- Add cornstarch instead of baking powder. Cornstarch helps keep the cookies extra chewy and soft.
- Parchment paper: Always bake on parchment paper to prevent cookies from browning too fast on the bottoms. It also makes for a much easier cleanup!
Right out of the oven: Under-baking is key to getting bakery-style soft and tender cookies!
Another tip: I know the sea salt on top may throw you off, but all you need is a pinch to bring out the richness of the dark chocolate and to round out the sweetness. I highly recommend flaky sea salt or pink himalayan salt. Just please don’t use table salt. Plz.
I hope this chocolate chip cookie recipe becomes a new favorite for you!
If you make this recipe, I would love to see and share your remakes! Tag me on Instagram @plantedpriyanka and use the hashtag #plantedpriyanka.
Happy Baking!
Salted Dark Chocolate Chunk Cookies (vegan)
Golden brown with slightly crispy edges on the outside, perfectly chewy and gooey centers, surrounded by puddles of rich dark chocolate, and finished with tiny pebbles and flakes of sea salt. Yep, I just described your new favorite adult Chocolate Chip Cookie.
Servings: 18 cookies
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour (180g), spoon and leveled
- 1 tsp cornstarch (3g)
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt, increase to 1/2 tsp if using unsalted butter (see note)
- 1/2 cup vegan butter (113g), softened to room temperature
- 1/2 cup brown sugar (100g), packed
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar (50g)
- 2 tbsp nondairy milk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 cup nondairy dark chocolate (72% cacao or less), coarsely chopped
- sea salt, to sprinkle
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Line your baking sheet(s) with parchment paper.
- In a bowl, whisk the flour, corn starch, baking soda and salt together. Set aside.
- In a separate larger bowl, add the butter, sugars, nondairy milk, and vanilla. Stir until combined.
- Add the flour mixture to the wet mixture and stir until combined. Avoid over-mixing.
- Fold in the chocolate chunks.
- For each cookie, scoop about 1.5 tbsp of dough and roll it into a ball. Place the scoops onto the prepared baking sheets about two inches apart. If desired, press more chocolate on top of the dough balls.
- Bake at 350F for 11-13 minutes. The cookies will appear very soft, puffy and underdone out of the oven, but will continue to bake and deflate on the cookie sheet as you let them cool. See note.
- Sprinkle sea salt over each cookie to your liking. Enjoy!
Notes
If using unsalted butter, mix 1/2 teaspoon of salt into your dry ingredient mixture. Because I always use Earth Balance or Country Crock plant-based butter, which is salted, I add only 1/4 tsp salt to my dry ingredient mixture.
Baking:
- Every oven is different, so keep an eye on the cookies. If you want cookies with chewy centers, I recommend taking them out right when they puff up and begin turning slightly golden around the edges, which is usually around the 11-minute mark for my oven.
- When the cookies are still warm right out of the oven, I like to bang the pan on the countertop a few times to create more crinkly textured cookies.
- To refrigerate, store cookie dough in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
- To freeze, form the dough into balls and place on a baking sheet. Freeze the dough balls for two hours or until completely frozen, and transfer them to a ziplock bag/airtight container. When ready to bake, thaw the dough balls in the refrigerator. Then bake as usual! Will keep in the freezer for up to 3 months.
The under-bake idea is genius! These dangerously feel like light cookies because of their thin-ness. But OH SO GOOD. Hopefully you share some more recipes for the holiday season!
Hi, “Jelly”. I’m glad you enjoyed these cookies. Thank you for your kind words!