Olive Oil Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Quick and easy cookies packed with dark chocolate chunks. These olive oil chocolate chunk cookies are a little crunchy on the outside yet super soft on the inside. 

Baking requires patience. Allow the butter and eggs to come to room temperature. Completely cool cake before adding frosting. Allow bread to cool before slicing into.

And the absolute worse, allow cookie dough to rest in the fridge for 24-48 hours before baking. UGH. What’s a girl to do when she wants cookies STAT, on the double, in less than 30 minutes? Answer: olive oil cookies!

Ingredients

No patience required for these cookies. No mixer needed. And absolutely no chilling time for the dough. You can even use eggs straight from the fridge!

As the name indicates, these cookies are made with olive oil instead of butter. Olive oil creates a tender, crumbly texture with hints of fruity notes. Your choice in olive oil will determine the richness and overall taste of these cookies!

For best flavor, use high quality olive oil. Use an olive oil with a fresh aroma. It is important to use olive oil that tastes good on its own. Throw out olive oil that smells stale, sour, or rancid.

Asides from oil, the cookie dough is made with the standard cookie ingredients: white sugar, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, and flour. A touch of instant espresso powder helps to the heighten the flavors of the olive oil and chocolate.

More Chocolate Chip Cookie Variations

• Rye Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Tofu Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Best Butterless Cookies

I’ve always been curious about making butter-less cookies. I’m a traditionalist when it comes to baking and I do not shy away from butter. Butter is a magical ingredient that adds flavor, texture, and color.

Cookie recipes usually begin with the creaming of butter and sugar. This adds air and structure to the cookie dough. As butter cooks, the milk solids turn brown, giving baked goods that nice golden color. But what happens when you remove the butter and replace it with olive oil?

Unlike traditional butter based cookie dough, this dough will seem rather dry and crumbly. Don’t worry. If it’s too difficult to mix with a spatula, use your hands to knead the dough together. After mixing the dough together, immediately scoop dough into portions.

If left unattended, the dough will eventually harden and dry out. I use an ice cream scooper to equally divide the cookie dough. It’s the best way to get uniform shaped cookies.

Use high quality ingredients

There are a few caveats to this recipe (which all boil down to using high quality ingredients):

1. The olive oil is important. Do not substitute for an olive oil blend. Use a quality extra virgin olive oil that has fruity notes and a mellow flavor.
2. If you can, use vanilla bean paste (or if you’re really fancy, use vanilla beans), otherwise use a high quality pure vanilla extract. Please DO NOT use imitation vanilla extract.
3. Use dark chocolate that lists chocolate, cocoa mass, or unsweetened chocolate as the first ingredient; not one that has sugar as the first ingredient. This recipe works best with a dark chocolate that contains at least 65% cocoa solids. High quality chocolate will indicate the percentage of cocoa on the package. The richer the dark chocolate, the more intense it will taste with the sweet cookie dough. I’ve tested the recipe using this 70% and this 90% dark chocolate.

While I’m still the biggest fan of brown butter chocolate chunk cookies, sometimes I just don’t have the time, energy, or patience to wait for a fresh baked cookie. These olive oil cookies have definitely made me re-evaluate my chocolate chip cookie game.

I’ve made these cookies so many times over the past few days that I have the recipe imprinted in my brain. I hope it becomes your new go-to easy-peasy, when you need a cookie fix, cookie recipe.

More Olive Oil Dessert Recipes

• Olive Oil Cake
• Strawberry Lemon Olive Oil Cake
• Olive Oil Brownies
• Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake