Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies are delicious and packed with zucchini. These chocolate chip cookies are the perfect way to sneak in some veggies and use up all the zucchini from your garden!
Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies are so yummy! My kids absolutely love Zucchini Bread, so I decided to see what I could do with some cookies and the results are even better than I had hoped! These cookies are thick and soft and didn’t last very long around here.
INGREDIENTS IN ZUCCHINI CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
Sugar – You only need granulated sugar to add sweetness to these cookies.
Butter – Real butter works best. Make sure the butter is softened to room temperature before creaming it with the sugar.
Eggs – Three large eggs will bind all of the other ingredients together.
Vanilla – Yes, three tablespoons of vanilla is a lot, but it makes the cookies so delicious! The higher the quality of the vanilla, the better.
Flour – All-purpose flour works best. You’ll start with about 4 cups of flour and add more as needed.
Cinnamon – Cinnamon is a crucial ingredient in zucchini bread and goes perfectly in these cookies as well.
Baking powder and baking soda – These act as the leavening agents in the cookies. For best results, make sure they aren’t old or expired.
Salt – A little bit of salt helps to intensify the other flavors in the recipe.
Zucchini – You will need 2 cups of grated zucchini. You can leave the zucchini peeled or unpeeled depending on preference. I usually use unpeeled zucchini in bread and other recipes, but if you do peel it, the zucchini is much easier to hide!
Semi-sweet chocolate chips – You will need a 12-ounce package of semi-sweet chocolate chips to add to the cookies. You can use milk chocolate chips or dark chocolate chips if you prefer.
HOW TO MAKE ZUCCHINI CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
Preheat the oven to 350°.
In a large bowl, beat together the sugar and butter for about 2-3 minutes.
Add the eggs and vanilla and for another 2-3 minutes.
Add 4 cups flour, cinnamon, baking powder, salt, and baking soda and mix just until combined.
Fold in the grated zucchini and chocolate chips. (At this point, you will likely need to add more flour, depending on how wet your zucchini is. I usually add about 1-1 1/2 cups of flour for a total of 5 1/2 cups of flour. The cookies end up being thick and cake-like and we love them this way, but if you want a thinner, chewier cookie, don’t add quite as much flour. Either way, the dough will be stickier than most regular chocolate chip cookie recipes.)
Use a cookie scoop to drop cookies onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake for about 12 minutes, or until the tops start turning a light golden brown.
Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
How to make The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies:
After trying out multiple chocolate chip cookie recipes over many years, I have picked up several important tips for making the absolute BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies!
- Make sure that you have enough flour in the dough. If the dough is too sticky, you may need to add a little bit of flour.
- Spend a little extra time when you mix the sugar and butter. Creaming them together for 2-3 minutes will improve the consistency of your cookies.
- Preheat the oven. This will help your cookies turn out right every time!
- Use a cookie scoop! If you want all your cookies to be perfectly shaped and have them all be the same size, a cookie scoop is the way to go.
- Use parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Doing this will make it really easy to remove the cookies from your cookie sheet so that you don’t have to scrape them off the pan – they will just slide right off in perfect shape!
- Don’t overbake the cookies – when I take mine out of the oven, they still look slightly under-baked but they will continue to bake on the cookie sheet for a couple more minutes so that’s ok!
Chocolate Chip Cookie troubleshooting tips
Over the years, I have had many cookie failures along with all of my successes and I have learned a few things along the way! You may have a favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe that you love, but they don’t always turn out perfectly. Why?! Here are some helpful tips for some common cookie problems!
Why are my chocolate chip cookies flat?
If your chocolate chip cookies are flat and spread out too much while baking, you may need to add a little bit more flour. Start by just adding a few tablespoons of flour to the batter and see if that is enough to help the shape of your cookies. If you are using a recipe with butter, make sure you aren’t melting the butter. There are a few cookie recipes that actually call for melted butter, but most of them just require the butter to be softened to room temperature. Which leads to the next question…
How do you soften butter to room temperature?
The best way to soften butter is to set it out for a few hours before you make your cookies. Since most of us (or maybe just me!) aren’t that prepared or don’t think that far in advance, there are a few tricks to softening butter perfectly in just a matter of minutes. My favorite way to soften butter is in the microwave. It’s definitely fast, but you do have to be very careful not to melt it. Just put the whole stick of butter in the microwave (as long as it isn’t wrapped in foil!) and microwave for about 6-7 seconds. If the butter is still really cold, try another 5-7 seconds and check it again. You may need a few intervals, and if the butter is starting to feel soft, you can shorten the final interval to just a few seconds to make sure it doesn’t start melting.
actually prefer to use the defrost setting on my microwave – I don’t know exactly what that mode does differently, and it takes a little bit longer (closer to 30 seconds), but it seems to be easier to get the butter to soften without melting.
Why are my chocolate chip cookies crispy and hard?
If your chocolate chip cookies are hard, crunchy, or crispy, you probably baked them too long. Cookies will continue to bake for a couple of minutes on the hot cookie sheet even after you remove them from the oven, so you don’t want to wait until they are golden brown before taking them out! My husband really likes a few cookies to be a little more well-done so that he can dip them in milk, so I usually make half a tray of cookies for him that gets cooked a couple of minutes longer.
Most of my cookies are baked until barely done. I don’t even wait for the tops to start turning golden brown, but look at the edges on the bottom of the cookies. If the edges look like they are turning a little bit golden brown, they’re done! You don’t want the centers of the cookies to look doughy, but they shouldn’t be even slightly brown on top either.
Why do my chocolate chip cookies burn on the bottom but aren’t done in the middle?
If your cookies are always burning on the bottom, it is probably a cookie sheet issue! If you are using really dark cookie sheets, the bottoms of your baked goods will tend to burn before they are actually cooked all the way through. If you use a lot of cooking spray, the same result can happen. I prefer to use lighter colored non-stick pans so that I don’t have to use cooking spray at all. As mentioned above, I have been converted to silicone baking mats over the last couple of years and I love how easy it is for cookies to come off the tray – no sticking ever!
MORE DELICIOUS ZUCCHINI RECIPES TO TRY:
- LEMON ZUCCHINI COOKIES
- STRAWBERRY ZUCCHINI BREAD
- ICED ZUCCHINI BREAD BITES
- LEMON ZUCCHINI CAKE
- PINEAPPLE ZUCCHINI BREAD
- ZUCCHINI SHEET CAKE
- ORANGE ZUCCHINI BREAD
- ZUCCHINI BANANA BREAD
- PUDDING ZUCCHINI BREAD
- ZUCCHINI CUPCAKES WITH CARAMEL FROSTING
- CINNAMON WALNUT ZUCCHINI BREAD BARS
Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies are delicious and packed with zucchini. These chocolate chip cookies are the perfect way to sneak in some veggies and use up all the zucchini from your garden!
Elizabeth Walker says
I want to try this recipe! I always have lots of zucchini in the summer!
Amy says
This sounds like another great way to use up that zucchini! We love chocolate chip cookies and I think that the zucchini would add to them. Thank you for sharing at Foodie Friday.
Milisa says
My family loved these cookies! Great recipe!
Kaylie says
Thank you Milisa! So glad you liked them!
Jenn says
LOVING THESE COOKIES! So soft and fluffy and full of flavor!
Kaylie says
Thank you, Jenn!
Leslie says
These turned out amazing! So good. I’ll definitely be making again.
Leslie says
These cookies are amazing. Just like a soft chocolate chip cookie. The zucchini doesn’t change the flavor. I’ve made these 3 times now and they get devoured
Nellie says
Zucchini is definitely best when it’s in a cookie! So glad you enjoyed the recipe Leslie!
K says
Do you squeeze out the zucchini like you would with a zucchini bread? Or is that why there is so much flour being used? Really want to try these but don’t want to mess up because I’m not a very good baker. Thanks!
Nellie says
If the zucchini is really large and straight out of the garden, there will likely be extra moisture in it. In this case, you would need to squeeze some of the extra liquid out. Depending on the wetness of the zucchini, you may have to add a little more or less flour.