This 5-ingredient chocolate chip shortbread recipe makes perfectly buttery, crisp shortbread cookies loaded with mini chocolate chips. Freeze the dough ahead of time so it’s ready to roll, cut out, and bake for your Christmas cookie platters!
I partnered with my friends at Bob’s Red Mill for this Chocolate Chip Shortbread recipe. I only partner with brands that I love and use in my own kitchen. Thank you for supporting the brands that make this website possible.
As someone who’s baked about a million chocolate chip cookies in my lifetime, I’d say chocolate makes everything just that much better. If you agree, I think you’re going to love today’s buttery, tender chocolate chip shortbread cookies. These are my classic 3-ingredient shortbread cookies with just two additional ingredients: Vanilla extract and mini chocolate chips. They’re thick and crumbly, with crispy golden edges and plenty of chocolate in each square.
Add this chocolate chip shortbread to cookie platters with Danish butter cookies and Russian tea cakes. I also like to make no-bake Christmas treats, like peanut brittle and rum balls, while a batch of shortbread is in the oven!
What Makes This the Best Chocolate Chip Shortbread Recipe
- It’s all about the right ingredients, and the right ratio for a buttery, tender texture.
- These chocolate chip shortbread cookies are crowd-favorite, easy holiday cookies, perfect for Christmas cookie exchanges.
- The shortbread needs minimal chilling time, and the dough and cookies are freezer-friendly. Get a head start on this year’s holiday baking!
Shortbread Ingredients
Head to the pantry and gather the following ingredients to make this easy shortbread cookie recipe. Scroll to the recipe card for the full list with amounts.
- Salted Butter – Brought to room temperature. I always recommend using real butter, not margarine or an alternative, for this shortbread recipe. If you make your shortbread dough with margarine, you may need to add more flour and will likely need to chill the dough for longer. You can also use unsalted butter, but I’d suggest adding a pinch of kosher salt to the dough in this case.
- Sugar – I recommend regular granulated sugar for these shortbread cookies.
- Vanilla Extract – Please use pure vanilla extract or vanilla paste, and not imitation vanilla.
- All-Purpose Flour – My favorite is the unbleached flour from Bob’s Red Mill. Very important: Measure the flour using a digital kitchen scale or the spoon-and-sweep method to avoid overmeasuring. Too much flour makes the already crisp shortbread very dry.
- Mini Chocolate Chips – You could use regular-sized chocolate chips or even chopped baking bars. I like mini chips, as it means more chocolate in every bite.
Quality Counts!
With so few ingredients in this homemade shortbread, quality counts. Use quality butter, pure vanilla extract, and of course, the right flour. I LOVE Bob’s Red Mill Unbleached All-Purpose Flour, which is what I use. It’s unbleached, unbromated, enriched baking flour milled from high-quality North American wheat. It’s perfect for cakes, cookies, yeast breads, biscuits, muffins… literally everything.
Bob’s Red Mill products are also certified Kosher and made with ingredients grown from non-GMO seeds. So, beyond being flavorful, I feel good about the ingredients that I use to feed my family.
How to Make Chocolate Chip Shortbread
Mix and chill the shortbread cookie dough up to 48 hours ahead of baking, or freeze it to roll out later. It’s a great way to ensure I always have a fresh batch of cookie dough on hand for last-minute cookie exchanges and gifting. Here are the steps.
- Mix the shortbread dough. Beat together the butter, sugar, and vanilla until light and creamy. Slowly stir in the flour. Don’t overmix! Then, fold in the chocolate chips.
- Chill the dough. Transfer the cookie dough to a Ziploc bag or wrap it tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerate. Chill the dough for at least 2 hours, or overnight.
- Roll out and cut the cookies. While the oven preheats to 325ºF, roll out your shortbread dough to about ⅓-inch thick. Using a sharp knife, cut the dough into squares (or use cookie cutters in your desired shapes). Arrange the cut-out shortbread on a lined baking sheet.
- Bake. Bake the chocolate chip shortbread at 325ºF for 18-20 minutes, until lightly golden on the bottom. After baking, move the cookies to a wire rack to cool fully before storing.
Chilling the Cookie Dough Before vs. After Rolling It Out
I give two options when preparing these chocolate chip shortbread cookies for the oven. You can either roll out and cut the dough into shapes before chilling, or chill the dough before rolling and cutting. Both methods work well, with minor differences:
- For crisp, clean edges, cut the dough first, and then chill it.
- If you don’t mind a rustic edge, chill the dough and then roll it out. This is the method I use here (as pictured).
Baking Tips and Variations
- Roll the dough to the thickness you want your cookies to be. Shortbread doesn’t contain eggs or leavening, so it won’t rise as it bakes. The thickness you roll is the thickness you’ll get! I usually roll mine out to about ⅓-inch thick.
- Don’t overmix the dough. Overmixing leads to dense, tough shortbread cookies. Mix only until the flour is just combined, then gently fold in the chocolate.
- For more depth of flavor, consider browning the butter in a saucepan first to make browned butter shortbread. Browned butter has a richer taste and nutty aroma.
- For classic vanilla shortbread cookies, omit the chocolate.
- Substitute chocolate chips with chopped pecans, walnuts, almonds, or sprinkles, like in this funfetti shortbread.
- Add a chocolate drizzle. Drizzle the cooled chocolate chip shortbread cookies with melted chocolate for a festive finish.
Make-Ahead and Storage
- Keep them airtight. Store these chocolate chip shortbread cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.
- Freeze the shortbread cookie dough. After you’ve mixed the dough, shape it into a disc and seal it tightly in a double layer of plastic wrap. Chill the dough in the fridge as directed, and then move it to the freezer. Freeze for up to 3 months and thaw the shortbread dough in the fridge before rolling it out.
- Freeze the baked shortbread. You can freeze the baked and cooled shortbread cookies for 2-3 months. Thaw them at room temperature before serving.
More Shortbread Cookie Recipes
Chocolate Chip Shortbread
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 20 cookies 1x
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: Dessert
Description
This easy chocolate chip shortbread is crisp, buttery, and loaded with mini chocolate chips. The simple, 5-ingredient cookie dough is freezer-friendly and perfect for holiday baking.
Ingredients
- 1 cup salted butter, room temperature
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour (I used Bob’s All-Purpose Unbleached flour)
- 2/3 cup mini chocolate chips
Instructions
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the butter, sugar, and vanilla for 2 minutes. Turn the mixer to low and slowly add in the flour, mixing until just combined.
- Stir in the chocolate chips evenly.
- Transfer the dough to a zip-top bag and chill for at least 2 hours. Alternately, you can roll your dough out now, cut it into shapes, and then chill the dough. Both methods are effective.
- Preheat the oven to 325°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- Roll the dough out into a large square, 1/3-inch thick. Cut the dough into squares using a knife, or you could use cookie cutters.
- Place on a baking sheet and bake for 18-20 minutes.
- Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
Store airtight at room temperature for up to 5 days.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 153
- Sugar: 5.4 g
- Sodium: 78 mg
- Fat: 9.6 g
- Carbohydrates: 15.3 g
- Protein: 1.4 g
- Cholesterol: 24.5 mg
Really good but only baked mine for like 9 minutes and still thought they were a bit overdone. I guess it depends how you cute them.
I’ve made these and I’ve done all the same things as it says in the recipe but the dough will not come together. It’s unbelievably crumbly. It’s been chilled over two hours and I took it out and it’s just as crumbly as it was in the bowl. It’s absolutely impossible to work with, I can’t cut it out at all and I ended up scrapping it completely. This recipe NEEDS some sort of liquid to bind it together I think. Has anyone else had the same issue???
Hi, can I still make this if I don’t have a stand mixer? Thanks 🙂
Love this recipe! The only thing I changed is that I evenly split the chocolate chips with white and dark. They were finished within a day at our home . Thank you , will definitely use this recipe again
Made this and followed the recipe using Google to individually convert all measurements to grams, followed the “1, 2 3” ratios, baked it at the right temp for 18 minutes, was scared of overbaking it, and the end result was that the bottoms aren’t golden, they are as if butter melted on the bottom, as if they are underbaked. they don’t fall apart like shortbread should. it’s really annoying because i bake all the time, and i followed the recipie, and they just didn’t come out like they are supposed to be. It would have been helpful if the person who posted the recipe better explained how to tell when these are done in the oven. Too much room for error if you don’t say. All you had to say was something like “bottoms should look a bit golden” before taking out of oven. But you said nothing. Apart from that, these were easy to make and you don’t need to let the dough sit for 2 hours, either. you can easily handle it straight away. if i make these again i will bake them for 20 minutes at least, possibly more. so if you do make these, DO NOT TAKE OUT OF OVEN TOO EARLY – LOOK FOR GOLDEN BOTTOM FIRST
The ratios aren’t 1,2,3. They’re 1,2,4.
1 part sugar
2 parts butter
4 parts flour.
This might be why your recipe fell apart.
What are the ingredients in grams ? Thanks
you need to Google each item separately to ensure that you get the right conversion, because there is not one single chart for grams. amount in grams depends on what the item is. butter converted might be different to flour. so just google “1 cup of butter converted to grams” to get an accurate answer for butter, then do the same for flour. if you go by some generic chart, you will get your amounts wrong. this recipe, to work, needs you to have a 1:2:3 ratio – sugar, butter, flour. 1/2 cup sugar, 1 cup butter, 2 cups flour. otherwise you won’t get shortbread texture.
Am I right in thinking that in grams it’s
227g butter
100g sugar
240g flour
116g chocolate chips
Thanks 🙂
Yes! 🙂
227g butter
100g sugar
240g flour
116g chocolate chips
…and don’t forget the 1tsp vanilla extract 🙂
Serving size: 1 cookie
How many grams is 1 cookie?
What if I made 8 cookies out of the dough?
Does anyone else have an issue with the dough being too sticky? Even after chilling it, I found that the dough stuck to my fingers and I was unable to roll it!
always add flour when rolling
my dough wasn’t sticky at all. i was able to work with it right after i had mixed the ingredients. you may have gotten your conversions wrong.
If you use a shortbread mold, the cooking time is way off. It should be about 50 minutes, not 20 minutes.
i wish i had read your comment before i baked these, because i left mine in the oven 18 minutes, and they are underdone. i get very annoyed when the person who leaves a recipe isn’t accurate or crystal clear in their instructions
Can you bake these right after you make the dough?
you can, yes, but if you’re slicing them into shapes they won’t hold as well 🙂
just get a chef’s knife and cut them after they’re baked. easy peasy.
yes. my dough was easy to handle right after mixing ingredients. but because instructions for baking were off, my shortbread came out underbaked. cheers.
Hello, can I still work with unsalted butter?
Sure 🙂 You might want to add a little kosher salt to the dough, 1/2 teaspoon… or you can sprinkle the top with flaked sea salt!