Easy Blueberry Chocolate Chip Cookies

These chewy blueberry chocolate chip cookies are loaded with fresh blueberries and dark chocolate chunks with just a hint of orange zest and flaky sea salt to top them off. They're easy to make — no mixer required! — and have the perfect balance of sweet, tart, bitter, and salty flavors.

I used my spiced chocolate chunk cookie recipe as a base for these blueberry chocolate chip cookies.

The technique is slightly different; I opted for a mixer-free method to give the cookie a denser, chewier texture. With less air incorporated, these cookies will also spread out less when you bake them, which is better for accommodating the blueberries.

This is also relatively small batch cookie recipe, using only one stick of butter and one egg to make 25 cookies! And if you have leftover blueberries, consider making my easy-peasy mini lemon blueberry muffins!

Ingredients

Here's what you'll need to make these blueberry chocolate chip cookies. See recipe card for quantities!

• Fresh blueberries - Look for smaller blueberries, they tend to be sweeter and will be easier to mix in to the cookie dough. Frozen blueberries are fine, you'll just need to defrost them first. If you try to dry them from frozen it will take forever.
• Flour - Regular all purpose flour is just fine here.
• Sugar - Plain white granulated sugar.
• Brown sugar - I use dark brown sugar, but light brown will also work here.
• Unsalted butter - You'll need it melted, then cooled. To do this in as little time as possible, microwave in 10-second bursts, but stop when there are still a few solid pieces of butter left. Stir until they melt, then let cool at room temp for 25-30 minutes. When you can see some butter just barely starting to solidify around the edges, and the bottom of the bowl is cool to the touch, it's ready.
• Egg - A large egg, at room temperature. To quickly get an egg to room temperature, submerge it in hot water for 5-10 minutes.
• Orange zest - Use a microplane to remove the zest from a large naval orange until you have about a teaspoon. The orange zest compliments the sweet-tart flavor of the blueberries, but if you prefer a less intense orange flavor you can use less zest or even omit it entirely.
• Vanilla - Vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste are fine.
• Baking soda - This is the chemical leavener in this cookie recipe. Without baking soda, your cookies will be flat and thin.
• Salt - I use Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt in all of my baking. It is half as salty as other brands of salt (including other brands of kosher salt) by volume. You will want to cut the amount of salt in these cookies in half if you're using a different brand.
• Dark chocolate - I used Ghirardelli 72% dark chocolate, but any dark chocolate bar will work here. Don't use chocolate chips or bagged chocolate chunks; they have stabilizers and emulsifiers in them that prevent them from melting in the oven.
• Flaky salt - Optional, for finishing. I use Maldon Flaky Sea Salt — the 8.5 oz box usually lasts me about 2 years!

Fresh vs. Fresh Dried Blueberries

The secret to a good blueberry chocolate chip cookie? Drying the blueberries in the oven before you mix them in. This does take a bit of time — 2 to 4 hours — but is so worth it! You can do this up to 3 days before making the cookies, just store them in an airtight container in the fridge.

Drying the blueberries does two important things. One, it intensifies the blueberry flavor, and two, it removes a lot of moisture from the blueberries (blueberries are about 85% water!). When I tested these cookies without drying the blueberries, it was really unpleasant to bite into a wet blueberry in the middle of a chewy cookie. And the moisture made the cookies spoil faster.

The difference between drying blueberries yourself and not drying the blueberries at all is the difference between good cookies and bad cookies.

By drying fresh (or frozen) blueberries, rather than buying dried blueberries at the store (which are more like raisins in texture) you can control how much moisture leaves the berries.

We aren't drying them until they're like raisins. We're just drying the blueberries by about 25%. This will give you the perfect blueberry texture and flavor for blueberry chocolate chip cookies.

I've included instructions at the end of this post if you'd rather use freeze dried or store bought dried blueberries. But just know they're not as good as if you dry the blueberries yourself!

Instructions

Start by, yep, you guessed it — drying the blueberries. We just want to evaporate about 25% of the water content so they don't burst while mixing and also aren't trapping moisture inside your cookies.

To dry the blueberries: Preheat your oven to 200F. Arrange the blueberries on a lined sheet pan and dry for 2-4 hours. Bigger blueberries will take longer to dry than smaller ones, so yours may be fine after 2 hours or you might need the full 4 hours.

Toward the end of the blueberries' time in the oven, take the egg out of the fridge and melt the butter. This will give the butter time to cool and the egg time to come to room temperature, which will make mixing the dough much easier. This is also a good time to do your mise en place (measuring all the other ingredients so they're ready to go).

To make the cookie dough: Melt, then cool the butter. Do this in the bowl you plan to mix the cookie dough in. Everything else will be added to this bowl, so give yourself plenty of room.

When the bowl is cool to the touch and the butter is still liquid but has just started to solidify around the edges, you're ready to start mixing. Use a sturdy balloon whisk for this step.

Add both sugars, and whisk vigorously for at least one minute. Seriously, set a timer. The goal isn't just to combine the butter and sugars, it's to incorporate air and start dissolving the sugars — turning it into a paste that holds its shape when you stop whisking. It should be lighter in color and fairly thick.

Add the egg, the vanilla, and the orange zest, and whisk vigorously for one minute more. Everything should be very well combined and your batter should look cohesive, smooth, and glossy — not wet.

Switch to a spatula and add the flour, salt, and baking soda. Gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until the flour is almost incorporated.

Add the chopped chocolate and dried blueberries and continue folding gently just until combined. Some blueberries might burst as you mix, but try to avoid this if you can.

The excess flour will finish mixing in as you mix in the blueberries and chocolate. This prevents over-mixing and will keep your blueberry chocolate chip cookies tender!

Use a 2 tablespoon scoop to portion the cookie dough onto a parchment lined quarter sheet pan. As you scoop, you might find that the blueberries start bursting. That's okay. Try to make sure you get an even distribution of blueberries and cookie dough in each scoop!

To get chocolate puddles on your cookies, top each cookie dough ball with a few chocolate chunks (this is optional!).

Chill the cookie dough in the fridge for at least one hour (ideally overnight) before baking (this is not optional!).

To bake: Preheat the oven to 375F. Arrange cookies on parchment lined half sheet pan with about 2-3" of space between them (I can usually fit about 10 per pan). Bake for 9-11 minutes, until deeply golden brown around the edges but still slightly soft in the center.

Sprinkle immediately with a pinch of flaky salt. Let cool on the pan for a few minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Hint: For perfectly round cookies, use an overturned glass or ring cutter to scoot the cookies into shape while they're still hot. I like to use one of these round cutters (pick one that is just slightly larger than your cookies).

Substitutions and Variations

Here's some ingredients you can substitute and some variations on this recipe you can try!

• Dried blueberries - If you want to skip the step of partially drying the fresh blueberries you can use freeze dried blueberries (order them online) or dried blueberries (find them near the raisins at your grocery store). You'll want to double the amount of blueberries if you use either of these options because they are completely dehydrated and much less flavorful than fresh dried blueberries.
• Orange extract - Instead of orange zest, you can skip the vanilla extract and use orange extract instead.
• Salted butter - To use salted butter, cut the amount of salt in the recipe in half.
• Roasted blueberries - Roast blueberries on a sheet pan for 10 minutes at 400F. Increase the amount of flour to 170 grams. Follow the recipe as written. (Warning: This will turn the cookies a weird blue/purple color!)
• White chocolate - Use white chocolate instead of dark chocolate for a much sweeter white chocolate chip blueberry cookie.

Equipment Notes

You don't need any fancy tools to make these blueberry chocolate chip cookies, but there are a few things that will make the process easier for you. Here's what I used:

• Kitchen Scale - A kitchen scale is more accurate than cup measurements and will give you the right ratio of butter, flour, sugar, and baking soda so your cookie dough behaves the way you want it to. I tested and developed this recipe using weight measurements. A kitchen scale is very affordable (this one is ~$20) and totally worth it, I promise.
• GIR Ultimate 11 inch Whisk - Vigorous whisking is a must for these cookies and the GIR Ultimate 11 inch whisk is my favorite for efficient whisking. Whisking is hard on the arms no matter how muscle-y you are, so make things easier on yourself by investing in a nice, sturdy, efficient whisk.
• GIR Premium Spatula - Once you add the dry ingredients, you need to switch to mixing with a spatula. A sturdy-yet-soft silicone spatula is the perfect tool to use here. It can slide through the dough without breaking up the berries, but also won't buckle under the weight of the cookie dough.
• Large Glass Mixing Bowl - A plastic mixing bowl will also work here. Anything microwave safe is fine, since you'll need to melt the butter in it. If you only have metal mixing bowls you can either melt the butter in another container or use a double boiler to melt the butter.
• 2 Tablespoon Cookie Scoop - Use a cookie scoop to make sure your blueberry chocolate chip cookies are all the same size. I use a 2 tablespoon scoop which works really well.
• Kana Goods Pre-Cut Parchment Paper - Cleaning blueberry juice off of a silicone baking mat is a nightmare. These pre-cut sheets of parchment paper are super helpful when making slightly messy cookies like these! You can use the same sheet to roast the berries and to line your sheet pan to bake the cookies. Then recycle it when you're done. No messy cleaning needed.

Practical Tips & Recipe Notes

• Be VERY GENTLE when you mix the blueberries into the cookie dough. It's okay if some of them burst, but you mostly want them to stay whole. If your cookie dough turns blue on you, don't worry — this won't hurt you cookies in any way! They'll just be a weird blue/purple color. The dough might also be a little stickier due to excess moisture, so you may want to mix in another 1-2 tablespoons of flour if the dough is hard to scoop. To prevent the cookies from turning blue/purple be gentle when you're mixing the dough — use the spatula to gently fold the ingredients together rather than mixing vigorously. You don't want too many of the blueberries to burst!
• When you scoop the cookies, try to get an even distribution of cookie dough and berries in each scoop. If you do a scoop that is more blueberries than cookie dough, it won't hold together in the oven.
• Chilling the cookie dough is NOT optional — if you skip this step the cookies will spread out into thin, crispy puddles in the oven.
• Yes, you can use chocolate chips instead of chopped chocolate in the cookie dough. However, this will change the way the cookies hold their shape in the oven. You won't get melty chocolate puddles on top or delicious hidden pockets of chocolate inside. Chocolate chips and store bought chocolate chunks have emulsifiers and stabilizers in them to help them keep their shapes in the oven. A hand chopped chocolate bar does not.

📖 Recipe