Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies

All the gooey deliciousness of regular chocolate chip cookies, with the added benefits of sourdough!

You just can’t go wrong with chocolate chip cookies! 

Universally loved, and one of the first cookie recipes many home bakers learn to make.

What could possibly make this classic recipe any better?

Bacon is usually my answer to this question, but not today!

Today the answer is: Using up some of your sourdough discard!

Sourdough chocolate chip cookies! 2 birds with one deliciously soft and chewy stone!

But don’t worry, my friend. Unless you have a lot of hooch on your starter, you won’t have any sourdough tangy flavor at all in your sourdough chocolate chip cookies.

And if you DO have a lot of hooch, just pour it off instead of stirring it in and you should be good to go.

Just a note before we start: If your starter is very active, your cookies may puff up and be a little more tea-cakey-ish than cookie-ish. If that bothers you, just smush them down right after you take them out of the oven.

Ready to do this?

Grab a cute apron and let’s go!

Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yield: 24 cookies

Ingredients

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter, room temperature (2 sticks)
• ¾ cup brown sugar, packed
• ½ cup white sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• ½ cup sourdough starter
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup chopped pecans or other nuts (optional)

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 375°F.

Grease your cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

Measure out the flour and salt into a medium bowl and mix it together.

In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugars until fluffy.

Now add the egg, vanilla extract, and the sourdough starter and beat again, scraping down the sides of the bowl.

Carefully mix in the dry ingredients. Mix just until combined.

Then toss in the chocolate chips and the pecans if you are using them and mix again just until the chips are distributed well. Don’t overmix.

Using a cookie scoop or 2 large spoons, drop balls of dough onto your prepared cookie sheets.

If you love a good scoop, this is my go-to cookie scoop right here. Easy on the hands and easy to clean up. What more could a girl want, right?

Bake in a preheated oven for 8 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from baking sheets and let cool on a wire rack. 

Or just grab one while they are still hot like I do. But be careful that you don’t burn the roof of your mouth on a hot and melty chocolate chip!

These sourdough chocolate chip cookies will keep in the cookie jar for 5 to 7 days. Or at least they should. I’ve never had any around for that long so your mileage may vary…

And if you want to make up a batch of these sourdough chocolate chip cookies and you love them still warm and melty from the oven like I do, but there’s just too many of them, this is a great cookie dough recipe to freeze! 

Just follow the recipe as written, and instead of sticking the cookie dough filled cookie sheet into the oven, just pop it into the freezer.

Once the cookie dough balls are frozen, toss them into a zip top freezer bag and store them in the freezer for up to 6 months. 

When you’re ready to bake them, take out as many as you want, put them back on a cookie sheet and into a preheated 375°F oven for about 8 to 10 minutes.

So now you can fill your cookie jar with everyone’s favorite cookie AND use up some of that discard starter. Win-win!

Oh, and don’t forget to stash some of those cookies in the deep dark recesses in the back of the freezer after you bake them. That way when you need a treat, you can grab one or three and just dunk ‘em in a hot cup of tea or coffee. They’re actually pretty good frozen…

Enjoy!

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