These indulgent Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars are chewy, soft, melt in your mouth and the perfect cross between a dessert bar and a classic cookie.
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I recently started eating mostly paleo, and these chocolate chip cookie bars were the first indulgent treat I had this year. Let’s just say it was totally worth the cheat.
The chocolate chip cookie bars recipe comes straight from a new cookbook that I recently added to my collection, The 8×8 Cookbook by my friend Kathy Strahs. Kathy is a fantastic veteran blogger and cookbook author and was such an inspiration to me when I started my blog.
Perks and Highlights of the Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Cuisine Inspiration: American Classic
Primary Cooking Method: Baking
Dietary Info: Vegetarian Indulgence
Key Flavor: Rich Chocolate meets Caramelized Sugar
Skill Level: Beginner Friendly
Key Ingredients
- Unsalted Butter: This brings all the rich, creamy goodness to the mix
- Dark Brown Sugar: It’s the molasses that brings that deep, caramel-like sweetness.
- Large Egg: Gives your bars the perfect chew and structure.
- Baking Soda: This little leavener’s gonna make sure your bars rise to the occasion.
- Salt: Just a pinch to make all those sweet flavors pop and lock.
- Semisweet Chocolate Chips: These morsels bring the boom boom pow – half melting into the mix, half staying chunky for that double texture hit.
How to Make Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
- Heat the oven to 350° F.
- Line an 8×8-inch metal baking pan with parchment paper.
- Beat the butter and both sugars together for several minutes until they’re light and fluffy, either with an electric mixer or by hand with a wooden spoon in a large bowl. Beat in the egg and vanilla until they’re well combined. Separately, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until they’re well combined. Fold in 1 cup of the chocolate chips.
- Pour the dough into the prepared pan, spreading it to the edges and corners (it doesn’t have to be perfect—the dough will further spread in the oven). Bake until the bars are fully set and lightly browned on top, about 25 minutes. Allow them to cool completely in the pan on a cooling rack.
- In a small microwave-safe bowl, heat the remaining chocolate chips in the microwave at 50% power in 30 second increments, stirring after each heating, until they’re fully melted (alternatively, you can melt the chocolate in a double-boiler on the stove). Drizzle the melted chocolate over the cooled cookie bars before cutting and serving.
- BETTER YET: Cutting a pan of chocolate chip cookies into bars takes a whole lot less effort than scooping individual drop cookies!
How to Store
Let them cool completely before adding them into an airtight container. Keep on your counter for up to a week, or chill them in the fridge if you like your treats cool. For a longer stash, wrap ’em up and let them hibernate in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Favorite Chocolate Chip Recipes to Try
- Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake
- Sweet and Salty Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
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Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened 1 stick
- 3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips, divided
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 350° F.
- Line an 8×8-inch metal baking pan with parchment paper.
- Beat the butter and both sugars together for several minutes until they’re light and fluffy, either with an electric mixer or by hand with a wooden spoon in a large bowl. Beat in the egg and vanilla until they’re well combined. Separately, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until they’re well combined. Fold in 1 cup of the chocolate chips.
- Pour the dough into the prepared pan, spreading it to the edges and corners (it doesn’t have to be perfect—the dough will further spread in the oven). Bake until the bars are fully set and lightly browned on top, about 25 minutes. Allow them to cool completely in the pan on a cooling rack.
- In a small microwave-safe bowl, heat the remaining chocolate chips in the microwave at 50% power in 30 second increments, stirring after each heating, until they’re fully melted (alternatively, you can melt the chocolate in a double-boiler on the stove). Drizzle the melted chocolate over the cooled cookie bars before cutting and serving.
- BETTER YET: Cutting a pan of chocolate chip cookies into bars takes a whole lot less effort than scooping individual drop cookies!
Notes
Nutrition
Excerpted from The 8×8 Cookbook: Square Meals for Weeknight Family Dinners, Desserts and More—In One Perfect 8×8-Inch Dish, by Kathy Strahs (Burnt Cheese Press, 2015). Reprinted with permission.
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Considering that my 8-inch square pan is the one that gets the biggest workout at my house, I need to buy this book! I’ve always preferred that size because then you’re not way overdoing it with portions and leftovers everywhere. And these cookie bars are worth more than a single splurge!
Yes you should definitely check out this book!
I have never met a cookie bar I haven’t liked Jocelyn!! These look so easy and so delicious! Perfect size too!
Same here! I love them all.
Thanks so much for sharing my book, Jocelyn!!
My pleasure!!
How much chocolate do you use? I don’t see it in the recipe anywhere.
Hi Linda, thanks for bringing that to my attention. Some of the recipe cut off but it is now updated.
Thank you so much. I heard you on the radio the other day and you were talking about the Salted Caramel Lava Cakes so I decided to make them for my husband for Valentines Day! What a wonderful sweet treat! I’m really looking forward to making these Chocolate Chip cookie Bars next!
This is simple (love the minimal ingredients!) and beautiful! I like that cookie bars are a thing. 🙂 And, thanks for highlighting these cookbooks.
Thank you so much Elsa. The cookie bars are insane!!
I love this concept – both of the book AND of your series! I would love to make these bars, but the recipe got cut off. Can you post the rest? 🙂
Thanks hon! It is totally updated now. Thanks for noticing the cut off haha.
I love the concept of this book! My family of three has never owned anything larger than an 8×8, so 13×9 pan recipes always mean lots of adjusting 🙂 And I love that you’re sharing the much-needed black voices in this industry! These bars look amazing- pinning 🙂
Thank you so much hon!
I’ll take a thick, chewy cookie bar over a cookie any day. These look irresistible!
Same here girlfriend!
that chocolate drizzle totally puts these amazing cookie bars over the top!
Totally!
Are there really only 5 ingredients in these bars? I love chocolate chip cookie bars and could easily eat them as a meal! 🙂
It really does only have a few ingredients total!