What Makes This Recipe So Good
We’ll get to the air fryer in a minute, but first let’s talk cookies. This recipe for homemade chocolate chip cookies is SO. GOOD. SO GOOD! We went the classic route, no salted caramel mix-in or double chocolate chocolate chip dough. The result is a sweet, rich, buttery, iconic chocolate chip cookie that’s just crisp enough on the outside and perfectly soft and chewy on the inside. It’s so fast and easy. No, baking cookies in the oven isn’t overwhelmingly time-consuming, I’ll admit. But you’re looking at 10-15 minutes in the oven, plus the 10-15 minute preheat, plus the 5-10 minute cooldown. We’re talking 30-40 agonizing minutes waiting for chocolate chip cookies. With the air fryer, though, it preheats in minutes (without heating up the whole kitchen), the cookies bake in 7 minutes, and then they only need a few minutes to cool. We just went from 40 minutes of agony to 15. SO much better. This method is perfect for portion control – just keep the dough balls frozen and defrost 1-4 at a time when you get a cookie craving. Once they’re defrosted, you can follow the air fryer instructions as written! No more temptation or pressure to bake up an entire sheet pan of cookies and have them sitting around taunting you. Small-batch air fryer chocolate chip cookies on demand!
Chef’s Tips
For the best dough results, you want the egg at room temperature and the butter softened (a.k.a., also at room temperature). If you forget to take those out early enough, don’t fret. You can bring the egg to temperature by placing it in a bowl of warm water for 10 minutes or so. For the butter, soften it in the microwave – just be careful not to melt it completely. Yes, it’s safe to use parchment paper in the air fryer. Just don’t line the basket or the racks until you’re ready to put the cookies on top to hold it down. Otherwise, it’ll blow around while the air fryer preheats. If you’re nervous about using regular parchment paper in the air fryer, you can pick up special made-for-the-air-fryer parchment liners that have holes for ventilation. If you want to refrigerate or freeze your cookie dough to use later, it’s totally easy to do. Just prepare the dough as instructed, including the step about portioning the dough into cookie dough balls. For the fridge, just place the dough balls in an airtight container and refrigerate them up to 7 days. You can layer parchment paper between them if you’re stacking them on top of each other, so they don’t stick together. For the freezer, line a plate or baking sheet with the dough balls and place them in the freezer for an hour. Once they’ve firmed up, you can transfer them into an airtight container or sealable freezer-safe bag and freeze them up to 3 months. Just let the cookies defrost overnight before air frying them!
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