Chocolate Chip Cookies without Brown Sugar

These are the best chocolate chip cookies without brown sugar! This easy cookie recipe starts with melted butter, doesn’t require chilling, is made in one bowl and you don’t even need to use a mixer. If you find yourself craving chocolate chip cookies and you have no brown sugar, do not fear! This is the recipe you've been searching for!

Who can relate to this scene? 

You're standing there in front of your cupboard, all ready to make chocolate chip cookies but find that you're out of brown sugar.

It's 8:00pm on a Tuesday night and you're already in your PJ's and you are most definitely NOT making a trip to the grocery store.

You ask yourself...

"Is brown sugar really necessary in chocolate chip cookies?"

"Can I just swap white sugar for the amount of brown sugar in the cookie recipe?"

"What's the difference between white and brown sugar anyway ?"

You close the cupboard door - all of your hopes and dreams are completely crushed. You end up having a sad and soggy bowl of cereal instead as you hunker down for the next episode on Netflix.

My dear fellow baker, I have been in this situation more times than I can count. I feel you!!

I've got your back!

I've developed the best recipe for chewy chocolate chip cookies without brown sugar so we never have to be in that horrible situation ever again. And they're absolutely delicious!

What does brown sugar do for chocolate chip cookies? 

Before I get to that, let me recap on what brown sugar is.

Brown sugar is an ingredient you'll find in pretty much every great chocolate chip cookie recipe (except for this one of course ;-)).

The type of brown sugar that is typically found in the baking aisle at the grocery store is essentially white sugar with molasses added to it.

This variety of sugar is soft, packable and has a higher moisture level than regular white granulated sugar.

There's two different types: dark brown sugar and light brown sugar. They're basically the same, but dark brown sugar gives off more of that caramel taste.

This makes your baked goods chewier, more moist, and lends some caramel flavor and undertones.

On the other hand, white sugar makes cookies more crisp.

Many chocolate chip cookie recipes without brown sugar yield a very crispy cookie, instead of a soft texture, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if you're a classic chocolate chip cookie person you probably want some chew in there!

What is a good substitute for brown sugar in chocolate chip cookies?

My recipe here does not require a direct substitute for brown sugar. But, if you are keen to try some experimenting, you can use these ideas for substituting brown sugar:

• Maple sugar - sugar made from pure maple syrup - my Maple Oatmeal Cookies recipe uses maple sugar too!
• Add molasses to white sugar - mix 1 tablespoon of dark molasses with 1 cup of granulated white sugar for 1 cup of brown sugar. 

How to make chewy cookies without brown sugar

Even though we're not using brown sugar, I was able to create great texture and flavor by making a few tweaks to my standard chocolate chip cookie recipe. and keeping to basic ingredients.

The extra egg yolk adds more fat and richness to the cookies, which helps offset some of that crispness you get from only using white sugar and gives it that more classic, chewy texture. 

I also reduced the bake time for these cookies, baking them until only the edges were a slight golden brown. This had the most impact and helped retain moisture and chewiness. 

In one of my last test batches, I ended up adding 1 tablespoon of maple syrup to see if that had any effect as well. I found that it helped add a little more bend and chew to the cookies, but I was also very happy with the results not using it.

That's why the final recipe lists it as optional.

If you have pure maple syrup on hand, I recommend adding it but you'll still get great cookies without it!

How to make Chocolate Chip Cookies without brown sugar

As mentioned, this recipe is knock-your-socks-off easy. That's the way I like to keep my chocolate chip cookie recipes.

You don't even need to wait for softened butter because this recipe starts off with melted butter!

This chocolate chip cookie dough literally comes together in just a few moments and you'll be enjoying warm, fresh cookies out of the oven in under 30 minutes. The best chocolate chip recipe is the quickest one you've got when you get that craving!

I like to use semi sweet chocolate chips but any kind of chocolate works well with this recipe.

Once the dough ingredients are mixed together, use a cookie scoop to create perfect sized balls of dough to place on a parchment lined baking sheet.

How to make Instagram-worthy cookies

My favorite trick to making chocolate chip cookies look more beautiful is by strategically placing some semi sweet chocolate chips or milk chocolate chips on the top AFTER the dough balls are formed.

This not only adds more chocolate (yum!), but the extra chocolate chips also give your cookies a professional, finished look!

You can also use chopped chocolate in these, but chocolate chips or white chocolate chips are more preferable and classic.

These soft chocolate chip cookies bake for a little less than 15 minutes and I suggest to pull them out of the oven when they are just turning golden brown on the edges. 

This is the secret to keeping these cookies as chewy as possible.

Because they do not have any brown sugar to retain moisture, you'll need to keep an eye on the bake time, as overbaking will yield a crispy cookie.

If you're looking for a crispier cookie, bake longer until they turn golden brown.

I hope you enjoy this chocolate chip cookie recipe without brown sugar!

When you do pick up more brown sugar, check out my favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies here!

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