Copycat Chick Fil A Cookie Recipe

Why This Chick Fil A Cookie Recipe Works

• Dark brown sugar does the heavy lifting. Chick-Fil-A lists sugar and molasses separately on their panel, and dark brown sugar is exactly those two things premixed, at roughly double the molasses of light brown. More molasses means more moisture held in the crumb, which is why these stay soft for days instead of going sandy by morning.
• Honey stands in for their invert sugar. Invert sugar is right there on their list, and honey is an invert sugar. It is the closest swap a home baker can reach for, and it is the reason the chew lands where it should. You can also opt for light corn syrup if that’s easier.
• Shortening plus butter copies their fat. Their panel reads palm oil and butter. Butter-flavored shortening plus real butter gets you the same structure, thick cookies that hold their height, with the flavor only butter brings.
• The split and press is the whole look. Split each chilled dough ball in half, mash the two halves back together with the torn edge facing up, then bake. That ragged surface is what gives you the craggy, chunky top that reads as the real thing instead of a smooth homemade dome.

What Is Actually In Chick-Fil-A’s Cookies

Almost everyone searches for these as chocolate chip cookies, but Chick-Fil-A officially calls theirs the Chocolate Chunk Cookie, and they bake them fresh in the restaurant every morning rather than shipping them in finished. Here is what they publish on their own nutrition page:

Wheat flour, sugar, semi-sweet chocolate chunks, palm oil, milk chocolate chunks, rolled oats, butter, eggs, invert sugar, water, molasses, salt, baking soda, natural vanilla flavor, and sodium acid pyrophosphate.

One cookie is 370 calories, with 17g fat, 49g carbohydrates, 26g sugar, and 5g protein. Listed allergens are milk, egg, soy, and wheat. There are no nuts and no coconut in the recipe, though they are baked in a kitchen where tree nuts are present, so cross-contact is possible. They are not gluten free, since wheat flour is the first ingredient.

Read that list next to mine and you can see how close this Chick Fil A cookie recipe sits. Their sugar and molasses becomes my dark brown sugar. Their invert sugar becomes my honey. Their palm oil becomes butter-flavored shortening. The rolled oats, both chocolates, eggs, and vanilla stay exactly as they are. The one place I went off script on purpose is chocolate, because I use a full cup and a half of chunks where theirs runs noticeably lighter.

Key Ingredients

• Dark brown sugar and granulated sugar. Dark brown is not optional here. It carries the molasses that keeps these soft and gives the crumb its deeper color.
• Butter-flavored shortening and butter. Shortening has a higher melting point than butter, so half and half keeps the cookies thick instead of letting them spread thin. I use butter-flavored Crisco, which puts the richness back.
• Honey. For chew, not for sweetness. It holds moisture the way their invert sugar does.
• Eggs. Two large, at room temperature. Cold eggs will seize the creamed butter and shortening.
• All-purpose flour. Nothing fancy needed.
• Old-fashioned oats. They add chew without turning this into an oatmeal cookie. Do not swap in quick oats, they dissolve into the dough and you lose the texture entirely. If you want oats front and center instead, my soft and chewy chocolate chip oatmeal cookies lean all the way in.
• Baking powder and baking soda. Both, for a little lift and for browning.
• Salt. Balances all that sugar.
• Milk chocolate chunks and semi-sweet chocolate chunks. Using both is not a garnish decision, it is how you get that specific flavor. Semi-sweet alone reads too dark, milk alone too sweet.

Substitutions And Additions

• Halving it is easy enough, though if you only want a few cookies my small batch chocolate chip cookies are already scaled for it.
• Light brown sugar works in a pinch, but you lose some color and some chew. If it is all you have, add a teaspoon of molasses.
• All butter, no shortening is fine if you would rather skip it. Chill the full hour and expect a slightly flatter cookie. If you want to go the other direction on flavor entirely, my brown butter chocolate chip cookies are the deeper, nuttier cousin.
• Chocolate chips instead of chunks will work. Chunks melt into bigger pools, which is closer to the real thing, but chips are fine too.
• Toasted walnuts or pecans, about three-quarters of a cup. The original has no nuts, so this takes you off the copycat path, but it is delicious.
• A quarter teaspoon of cinnamon, if you want to chase the thing people argue about online. Chick-Fil-A does not list cinnamon on their ingredient panel, and their flavoring is specified as natural vanilla, so this is not a secret ingredient reveal. But enough people insist they taste something warm in there that I think it is worth trying, and a quarter teaspoon is subtle enough that you will wonder whether you imagined it.

Chick Fil A Cookie Recipe FAQs