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These Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars are the most delicious gooey bars you’ll ever make. They’re easy cookie bars start with the best chocolate chip cookie recipe and are filled with gooey chocolate and sweetened condensed milk. They’re a gooey bar from heaven!
Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Treats like this one are some of my families favorite recipes. We all love chocolate chip cookies and gooey bars – which makes this recipe perfect because it the best combination of the two. These bars taste like a gooey chocolate chip cookie and I cannot think of anything better.
These bars have sweetened condensed milk and milk chocolate chips in the center to make them SO gooey and rich. They have layers of chocolate chip cookie, chocolate, and gooey-ness! I know you’re going to absolutely love these cookie bars.
Ingredients Needed
- Flour: I always use all-purpose flour in my recipes.
- Sugar: This recipe calls for both brown sugar and regular granulated sugar.
- Sweetened Condensed Milk – you can use regular or low/non-fat but be sure not to buy evaporated! They’re in the same spot on the shelf so read the can.
- Butter: I use unsalted typically. If you only have salted butter – omit the salt from the recipe.
- Chocolate Chips: Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips are my favorite kind of chocolate chips to use in recipes like this one!
Click to see the recipe card below for full ingredients & instructions. See below the recipe card for even more information: process shots, variations, FAQ and more.
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Variations
You can use either Hershey Bars or chocolate chips for the center.
I love to make brown butter chocolate chip cookies for this but you can skip browning – just melt the butter.
How to make Cookie Bars
- Make the cookie dough – this one starts with brown butter! Simply brown the butter and stir all the cookie ingredients together.
- Add your chocolate chips – any kind!
- Press some of the dough in the bottom of the pan, then top with sweetened condensed milk and some Hershey candy bars – or more chocolate chips.
- Press the rest of the dough on top and bake until golden brown.
Expert Tips
- If you want to add some variation in the chocolate you use, feel free to try white chocolate chips, chocolate chunks, or dark chocolate chips.
- I always love adding some flaky sea salt to chocolate recipes like this one! Also, a scoop of vanilla ice cream goes great with pretty much any recipe, but especially this one!
- If you want to mix anything else in like walnuts, or pecans, that’s great! Just add a half a cup of whatever else you’d like!
Storage
- Store bars in an airtight container at room temperature.
- Bars are freezable – place in an airtight container between layers of wax paper so they don’t stick.
Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars Recipe
Video
Ingredients
- 1 cup (226g) unsalted butter, , melted
- ¾ cup (150g) granulated sugar
- 1 cup (200g) packed brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 3 cups (372g) all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ cups (255g) chocolate chips, (or mini chocolate chips)
- 1 (14 ounce can) sweetened condensed milk
- 1 4.4 ounce large Hershey bar (or smaller bars to make that same size), (or more chocolate chips)
Instructions
- Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring often, about 6 minutes, until it becomes brown in color. It will foam, reduce, then foam again. Once it’s done cooking the foam is a light brown and it will dissipate after you remove it from the heat. Once it starts to brown, keep stirring so it doesn’t burn. Let sit for about 5 minutes to cool.
- Pour into an electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment. While still hot, add both sugars and mix on low until combined. Let sit to cool for a few minutes.
- While butter mixture is cooling, combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Stir and set aside.
- Turn mixer (with butter mixture bowl attached) on low. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing completely. Mix in vanilla extract. Add flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until combined. Stir in chocolate chips.
- Line a 9×13” baking pan with foil and spray with cooking spray for easy removal.
- Press half the cookie dough in the prepared pan. Pour sweetened condensed milk over the top of the bottom layer (be careful to leave about 1/4” edge around the pan so the milk doesn’t touch the foil), then break up the chocolate bar and drop pieces over the top. Break up the remaining cookie dough and place on top of milk. Press with your hands to flatten. It will mostly cover but not completely cover the bottom layer.
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake for about 30-35 minutes until the tops of the bars start to get golden brown. Cool completely before slicing into bars.
Notes
- Store bars in an airtight container at room temperature.
- Bars are freezable – place in an airtight container between layers of wax paper so they don’t stick.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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People who are finding the bars hard/dry: it may be an issue of your layering ratios. I’ve made this recipe twice; one time I spread just enough dough on the bottom to cover the pan, which left me with enough dough to completely cover the filling layer on top. The result was tougher cookie bars; still delicious (imo), but not gooey. The other time, I had a thicker bottom layer of dough (more than half the dough, I think) and ended up with not nearly enough dough to cover the filling. I thought this would ruin the recipe but the result was that the gaps of exposed SCM bubbled up and formed a caramelized crust when I baked them, and the bars were a moist, ooey gooey delicious mess. Both times I used the full amount if flour. I assume ppl who reported getting better results with less flour also had less dough bulk because of the reduction, which would increase the likelihood of running out of dough when covering the filling. Hope this helps. Either way it’s hard to go wrong with chocolate chip cookie goodness.
These were so good! The combo of flavours with the gooey filling is great. I loved them warm from the oven but even more when the chocolate bar squares hardened and added more complexity to the texture. Browning the butter first definitely kicks this recipe up a notch. I accidentally burnt the butter, but if you strain it through a coffee filter you get rid of the burnt milk solids and it still tastes great. These were a big hit!
Love the recipe! Thanks!
I love this recipe, although I didn’t use the Hershey bar, just more Ghirardeli milk chocolate chips.
Do these need to be stored in the refrigerator or are they ok stored at room temperature?
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