This easy-to-make Ina Garten cookie recipe has been on rotation in my house for weeks
- Ina Garten is one of my favorite chefs, so I tried her recipe for oatmeal chocolate-chunk cookies.
- Made with chocolate, dried cranberries, and oats, the cookies are so good I've made them many times.
- The simple flavors in this Garten cookie recipe have made it one of my family's favorites.
I love trying celebrity-chef recipes, from Alton Brown's green-bean casserole to Giada de Laurentiis' lasagna, but my absolute favorite star to emulate at home is Ina Garten.
I find Garten's recipes to be easy to follow and full of flavor — I've even cooked an entire Thanksgiving meal using her recipes
So, when looking for a new dessert to make, I turned to Garten first and decided to try making her salty oatmeal chocolate-chunk cookies.
They were such a hit that the recipe has been on rotation in my house for weeks because it's delicious and incredibly easy to whip up.
Here's how I make this Garten classic in my own kitchen.
Garten's salty oatmeal chocolate-chunk cookies require simple ingredients.
To make them, you need unsalted butter, light-brown sugar, granulated sugar, vanilla extract, eggs, all-purpose flour, baking soda, kosher salt, old-fashioned oats, bittersweet chocolate chunks, dried cranberries, and fleur de sel.
Garten uses fleur de sel, a French sea salt, in her recipe, but I usually just use Maldon sea-salt flakes from my pantry because it's been easier for me to find.
I've used chocolate chunks I chopped from a bar and store-bought ones from the baking aisle and both have worked well in this recipe.
Once the butter and eggs are at room temperature, I mix the wet ingredients and sugars together with a stand mixer.
I beat the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar for a few minutes until light and fluffy, then added the vanilla and each egg, one at a time.
During the process, scrape the mixing bowl down a few times with a rubber spatula to remove any ingredients that fly up to the sides.
Next, I sift the flour, baking soda, and salt together in a separate bowl.
I've used my sifter for this step but have also lightly combined the ingredients with a wooden spoon in a bowl — both have led me to similar cookie results.
After those are combined, I stir in the oats.
Once all of my ingredients are mixed in their respective bowls, I slowly add the dry mixture into the wet one, mixing a little after each addition.
Garten stresses the importance of not overmixing the ingredients, so it's important to just give each addition a little stir.
Once all of the wet and dry ingredients are combined into a cookie dough, it's time to mix in the chocolate chunks and dried cranberries.
It doesn't take much arm power or effort to combine everything into one delicious-looking blob.
Next is one of the recipe's most important parts.
Once the cookies are scooped onto a baking sheet, I sprinkle a pinch of sea-salt flakes on top of each.
The salt will settle into the nooks and crannies of each cookie, where they'll later pack some delicious hidden punches.
Garten recommends baking the cookies in an oven preheated to 375 Fahrenheit for 10 to 12 minutes. I usually bake them for 12.
This recipe usually yields me about 36 cookies, so I bake them in batches.
When these cookies come out of the oven, they're still soft and easy to pull apart, so I allow them to rest on the baking sheet for about four minutes before transferring them to a wire cooling rack.
Even when completely cooled, the golden-brown, salty-sweet cookies remain soft and chewy in the center and stay moist for days.
The salty oatmeal chocolate-chunk cookies have become a favorite in my home, and I've made them several times since finding the recipe.
The oats add sturdiness and texture to the cookies, and each bite contains the perfect amount of chocolate. Dried cranberries add a slight tartness that only contributes to the cookie's savory-and-sweet combination of flavors.
The real star, however, is the flaky sea salt, which adds a pop of salty goodness to each bite of an otherwise sweet cookie.
Even better, this is an easy cookie recipe to whip up whenever my family asks for it, as most of the ingredients are things I already have in my kitchen.