No Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies (Cookies with Oil)

These no butter chocolate chip cookies are delicious. They also have less saturated fat than chocolate chip cookies made with butter. Instead of butter, our homemade chocolate chip cookies are made with vegetable oil (i.e. canola oil). This recipe is great for anyone who has run out of butter late at night (“$@&%! No more butter in the fridge. How do I make the cookies for the party now?”), can’t get to the store to buy butter (due to snow, rainstorms, pandemic, etc.), finds the high cost of butter insane and/or for health reasons wants to reduce the saturated fat in their family’s diet.

Delicious No Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies!!

If you liked this no butter cookie recipe, we hope you will leave a comment below and give us a 5 star rating. Thank you! We also have a printable and “pin-able” cookie recipe at the bottom of this page. For more great recipes (i.e. Butterscotch Chocolate Chip Cookies), please visit Bread Dad’s main Easy Cookie Recipes section.

Want More Color? Press M&Ms into the Top of the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough & Bake

Ingredients – No Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe 

• 3/4 Cup – Vegetable Oil – 173 milliliters – Use a neutral flavored oil such as canola or corn oil. Do not use strongly flavored oil or old oil. For more info, see the tips below.
• 2 – Large Eggs
• 3/4 Cup – Light Brown Sugar (packed) – 161 grams
• 3/4 Cup – White Granulated Sugar – 150 grams
• 1 Teaspoon – Vanilla Extract – 5 milliliters
• 2 1/4 Cups – All Purpose Flour – 270 grams
• 1 Teaspoon – Baking Soda – 5 grams
• 1/2 Teaspoon – Salt – 3 grams
• 1 1/2 Cups – Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips (morsels) – 255 grams

Servings – Roughly 24-30 chocolate chip cookies (amount depends on the size of the cookie that you create)

Equipment Needed – Measuring cup & spoons, mixing bowl, electric mixer, tablespoon or cookie dough scoop, oven mitts, silicon spatula, baking sheets, cooling rack and an oven.

Key Ingredients – Vegetable Oil & Chocolate Chips

Instructions – No Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe 

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
• Lightly beat the eggs.
• Mix eggs, vegetable oil, granulated white sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in a large bowl. Use an electric mixer to mix these ingredients together. Mix until creamy.
• Then stir in the flour, baking soda and salt. Use an electric mixer to mix all of the ingredients together. Mix until ingredients are completely blended and cookie dough looks creamy. FYI – Read the tips section below to find out why using an electric mixer results in a much better cookie than mixing by hand (when using vegetable oil). However, don’t overmix. Only mix for 1-2 minutes with an electric mixer.
• Add the chocolate chips to the cookie dough. Use a large spoon (not an electric mixer) to stir in chocolate chips. Stir until chips are mixed evenly throughout the dough.
• Chill the dough in a covered bowl in your refrigerator for 30-60 minutes. This helps to prevent the cookie dough from spreading in the oven and reduces the potential for overly thin/flat cookies. FYI – Read the tips section below for information on how to prevent cookie “spreading” & overly thin cookies.
• Scoop the dough with a tablespoon or cookie dough scoop and place this dough “ball” onto a non-stick baking sheet. You will need at least 2 baking sheets in order to bake all of the cookies at the same time (if they can fit in your oven) or you will need to bake each batch separately (one after the other).
• Leave space of roughly 2-3 inches between each dough ball because the cookies will spread as they bake.
• Bake for 8-10 minutes at 375 F or until the cookies are golden brown.
• Remove the baking sheet/tray from the oven. Wear oven mitts. Leave cookies on baking sheet to cool for 2-3 minutes. Otherwise, cookies might break when removed from the baking sheet.
• Use a spatula to remove chocolate chip cookies and place cookies on wire cooling racks in order to cool completely.
• Please READ the tips section below for extra information on how to make this recipe successfully & to avoid common cookie problems. Also please follow ALL of the instructions & do not skip steps (such as chilling the dough).

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Other Bread Dad Sections

• Cookie Tools – Cookie scoops, etc.
• Bread Machines – My favorites
• Bread Making Books
• Bread & Dessert Mixes

Tips – Chocolate Chip Cookies Without Butter

• The tips below are designed to help no butter cookie “novices” and/or people with limited baking experience. Please read these tips to ensure that your cookies come out correctly.
• Click on our “print recipe” link if you want to print out this recipe. It includes all of the recipe’s ingredients and instructions. However, the recipe print function does not include our tips section. Please read the tips section in order to avoid common recipe problems.
• This recipe is part of Bread Dad’s series on Easy Cookie Recipes.

• Warning – To successfully make these no butter cookies (and most other homemade cookies), please FOLLOW the instructions. Do not skip steps (such as chilling the dough) and make sure to measure the ingredients correctly. Also please read all of the tips below (i.e. how to avoid hard cookies & overly thin cookies).
• Do chocolate chip cookies without butter taste identical to chocolate chip cookies made with butter? No… because they aren’t made with butter! However, they are pretty similar, taste great and usually have a lot less saturated fat. As I stated at the top of the page, these “emergency” cookies are designed to help people who are missing butter (and don’t want to go out for more) or people who don’t want to eat things made with butter (i.e. due to the saturated fat in butter).
• Tips on how to avoid making HARD cookies – Do not use old baking soda (expired baking soda impacts the rise/fluffiness of the cookie), measure the ingredients correctly & don’t eyeball things (too much flour or too little liquid will result in drier & harder cookies), do not overmix the cookie dough (only mix the cookie dough for 1-2 minutes with an electric mixer), do not overbake the cookies (bake the cookies at the low end of the 8-10 minutes), use a portable oven thermometer to check if your oven temperature is off (some ovens run hotter than the temp set on the dial), do not remove the brown sugar (helps activate the baking soda & adds a little moisture), chill the dough (helps to retain the height of the cookie as flatter/spreading cookies bake faster & come out harder), do not make overly flat thin cookies (thin cookies bake quicker than expected), store freshly made cookies in airtight containers (after they have cooled down), etc.

• Tips to prevent “spreading” (i.e. OVERLY THIN cookies) – Chill the dough (see tip below), don’t squish the dough flat (higher dough results in higher cookies), use fresh baking soda (cookies made with stale baking soda don’t rise properly), measure the recipe ingredients exactly!! (too much oil results in “runny” dough and flatter cookies), always use cool or room temperature baking sheets (do not reuse a hot baking sheet to make another batch… i.e. the hot baking sheet that was used to bake your first batch of cookies), do not overmix the dough (only use an electric mixer for 1-2 minutes), make sure to use the right oven temperature (follow the recipe’s instructions because ovens that are too hot will cause cookies to “melt” too quickly and thus they will spread more than expected), etc.
• Some bakers like to chill the cookie dough in their refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before baking in order to prevent flat/thin cookies. Colder dough results in less spreading. Others like to chill the dough for at least 2 hours in order to improve the taste and to reduce potential spreading even further.
• Chilling the dough also helps with the ability to shape the cookies. The cookie dough is less sticky & runny. Therefore, it is easier to create round cookies with smooth edges.

• Visitors – What “extra” ingredients do you like to add to your chocolate chip cookies (i.e. raisins, M&Ms, butterscotch chips, dried cranberries, fudge, etc.) in order to make your cookies even more unique? Please post your thoughts in the comment section below. Help cookie beginners with your favorite chocolate chip cookie variations & tips.
• Optional – If you want an even more kid friendly cookie, you can replace 1/2 of the chocolate chips with M&Ms!
• Optional – If you want a “nuttier” cookie, you can replace 1/2 of the chocolate chips with chopped walnuts.
• For other no butter cookie variations, you can make this recipe with 50% chocolate chips & 50% dried cranberries, 50% chocolate chips & 50% butterscotch chips, 50% chocolate chips & 50% golden raisins, etc. Have fun with your no butter cookie making!! Making a variety of different no butter cookies allows you to easily produce many unique no butter desserts & snacks.
• In case you need cookie variation ideas – Our visitors have added Smarties (a chocolate candy from Europe), crushed peanut M&Ms (thanks Val), raisins (thanks Pamela), cacao nibs and slivered almonds (thanks Emily), crushed Malteasers (thanks Cindy), chopped up Dove dark chocolate squares (thanks Amber), a mix of white chocolate chips and semi sweet chocolate chips (thanks Kathy), crushed nuts (thanks Cherry), crushed Cadbury mini eggs (thanks Alessandra), unsweetened cocoa powder for a darker & more “chocolaty” cookie color (thanks Christina), chopped pecans (thanks Noelle), chopped up easter egg (thanks Tash), etc.
• If you like no butter desserts & snacks, you should also try our No Butter Oatmeal Cookies and No Butter Banana Bread recipes.

• You should use a NEUTRAL flavored vegetable oil (i.e. corn or canola oil) in order to make these no butter chocolate chip cookies.
• Stronger flavored oils (i.e. peanut oil or olive oil) may NEGATIVELY impact or change the taste of the cookies. You want to use an oil that has very little flavor.
• You should also consider using fresh oil when baking as some oils spoil faster than others. Old oil can go rancid and taste bitter, stale, funky, etc. Old oil can leave a bad aftertaste in your baked goods.
• Oils also spoil faster when exposed to air (oxidation), light, heat, etc. Vegetable oils should be stored in a tightly sealed container and in a cool & dark pantry. Some people like to refrigerate their vegetable oils in order to extend their shelf life.
• Economic Benefit – A number of our visitors (Cindy & others) have pointed out that it is cheaper (in most cases) to use basic vegetable oil versus butter (on an ounce to ounce basis) when making cookies. Therefore, cookies with oil recipes may help to lower your baking bills during times of economic uncertainty.
• A key advantage of homemade cookies (versus packaged cookies) is that you can screen out unwanted ingredients and strange preservatives & chemicals.
• These cookies are not dairy-free cookies because many types of chocolate chips contain milk or dairy-based ingredients. Consider vegan chocolate chips if you want to look for chocolate chips without dairy-based ingredients. Always read the labels on recipe ingredients to see if the ingredient contains potential allergens (i.e. dairy or nuts).

• Use an ELECTRIC MIXER for the best results! No butter cookies come out much better if you mix the ingredients with an electric mixer for 1-2 minutes. The cookie dough comes out “creamier” and the vegetable oil is blended in MUCH better if you use an electric mixer (vs just a spoon). If you use just a spoon to mix all of the ingredients, the vegetable oil will not be properly blended into the cookie dough.
• However, DO NOT overmix (don’t mix for more than 1-2 minutes) because this could result in problems such as cookies spreading too thin during baking and/or hard cookies. Overmixing results in excess gluten development (which leads to hard & dense cookies).
• Completely mix the eggs, vegetable oil and sugar together with an electric mixer BEFORE adding the flour. This will result in much better cookies. See the inadequately blended problems in the line below.
• Mixing only by hand can lead to the cookie dough being inadequately blended. This can result in your cookies having unwanted “clumps” of ingredients (i.e. small flour clumps) and/or a gritty texture (inadequately blended sugar grains). Use an electric mixer for 1-2 minutes for the best results.
• However, do not use the electric mixer on the chocolate chips… as this will just grind & chop them into tiny bits! Hand stir the chocolate chips into the cookie dough with a large spoon.

• Use FRESH ingredients (i.e. baking soda and flour) for the best results. For example, if you use stale baking soda, your cookies will not rise properly. The cookies will be flat and dense. Baking soda & powder is best if used within 6 months of opening the container.
• Old flour can affect the taste of homemade cookies. Old flour can spoil and taste bitter, sour, musty, etc. Cookies made with old flour do not taste good!
• Try to keep your ingredients (i.e. flour & sugar) in airtight food containers in order to extend their shelf life and avoid contamination by moisture (absorbed via the air), pests, dust, etc. Excess moisture in flour & sugar can also throw off recipes (as it can distort the liquid-to-dry ingredient ratio in recipes).
• Do not use heavily compacted flour (versus fluffed flour) when making cookies. Compacted flour can add too much flour to a recipe and this increases the potential for dry & hard cookies. At a minimum, you should shake your flour container to aerate the flour before scooping with a measuring cup. Moreover, some people like to transfer flour with a tablespoon to their measuring cup in order to help fluff their flour. FYI – Many international home bakers like to use a kitchen scale in order to measure the ingredients more accurately and to avoid the measuring cup problem of compacted vs fluffed flour.

• DON’T OVERBAKE!!! Overbaked cookies come out hard & dry. Don’t leave the cookies in the oven longer than recommended & don’t use a higher than recommended baking temperature.
• Do NOT substantially reduce the sugar in this recipe. For the best results, always use the ingredient amounts called for by a recipe. Reducing sugar can affect a cookie’s texture and taste. If you make a significant reduction to the sugar quantity then you will get much drier & blander cookies. Sugar helps to retain moisture. For more on this issue, you might like to read this King Arthur Baking article.

• Some people like to make butterless chocolate chip cookies for health reasons. They are trying to reduce the saturated fat in their family’s diet. Unfortunately, according to many health experts, too much saturated fat in a person’s diet may lead to cardiovascular problems. For information, you might like to read this American Heart Association article on saturated fat.
• When selecting a vegetable oil for this no butter cookie recipe, please read the label on the vegetable oil container if you are trying to reduce saturated fat. Be aware that some vegetable oils (such as coconut oil and palm oil) may contain more saturated fat than other vegetable oils.  For information on the levels of saturated fat in various vegetable oils, you might like to read this Wikipedia article.
• FYI – I like to use canola oil when making cookies without butter due to its neutral flavor and lower saturated fat content.

• To prevent cookies from drying out & becoming hard, they should be stored in an airtight container. This should only be done after the freshly baked cookies have completely cooled down. Of course, the easiest & tastiest solution to prevent cookies from drying out is to eat them the same day that they are baked!
• For long-term storage, cookies should be wrapped in plastic wrap or aluminum foil, placed in an airtight bag or container and then placed in the freezer.

• You can make the cookie dough balls (drops, spoonfuls, etc.) with 2 tablespoons, a cookie dough scoop or your hands. Some people also like to wear food grade plastic gloves when making cookie dough balls/drops.
• Use of a cookie dough scoop will give you more consistently shaped cookies versus varying sizes from using a less “exact” methods such as using a tablespoon or your hands.
• For “rounder” cookies (with no edges sticking out), you can use a cookie dough scoop or mold the cookie dough by hand into round balls and then press down on the dough ball until it turns into a pancake shape.
• For a more “natural” cookie shape, you can scoop the cookie dough with a tablespoon and place the cookie dough “drops” onto the baking sheet without shaping the dough. Your chocolate chip cookies will taste great and just have a few more natural edges and bumps.
• Optional – Once you have placed the cookie dough balls on the baking tray, you can press extra chips into the top of the dough balls if you want an even greater chocolaty “appearance”.

• Place the baking tray on the oven’s middle rack for best results. If the baking tray is placed too high or too low in the oven, the baking tray may be too close to the heating element.
• If you are making the cookie dough balls by hand, no butter chocolate chip cookie dough will feel a little “oiler” (versus “regular” butter chocolate chip cookie dough).
• This butterless chocolate chip cookie recipe uses semi-sweet chocolate chips. However, you can use milk chocolate chips if you want sweeter cookies.

• Historical Fact – According to Wikipedia, in 1938 “Ruth Wakefield invented the chocolate chip cookie. She added chopped up bits from a Nestlé semi-sweet chocolate bar into a cookie” and “Andrew Nestlé and Ruth Wakefield made a business arrangement: Wakefield gave Nestlé the right to use her cookie recipe and the Toll House name for one dollar and a lifetime supply of Nestlé chocolate”.
• FYI – Many chocolate chip cookie recipes are some type of variation of this original Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe. For more information, you should read the Wikipedia article on Chocolate Chip Cookies.
• If you are looking other recipes that screen out certain cookie ingredients (i.e. make cookies without eggs), you might like to try our No Egg Chocolate Chip Cookies.

• If you have a problem with a cookie recipe, please make sure that you are following the recipe exactly (i.e. using the correct oven temperature), using the correct amounts of ingredients (i.e. don’t eyeball the measurements versus using a measuring cup or accidentally add a tablespoon when a teaspoon is called for), using the correct ingredients (i.e. baking soda/powder versus yeast or all purpose flour versus bread flour), etc. Please don’t “wing” things with recipes.
• In addition, you should always try to use relatively fresh baking soda & powder for the best results. For example, using baking soda from an open container (that has been deodorizing your refrigerator for months) may lead to subpar results. Old & hard baking soda/powder may lead to rising problems and/or leave small bitter clumps in your butterless chocolate chip cookies.
• Make sure that your oven has been completely preheated. If the oven has not been properly preheated, cookies can come out undercooked. Many people like to use a portable oven thermometer in order to see if the oven has been properly preheated.
• Some ovens can be 25-50 degrees F hotter or colder than the number you set with your oven dial. Oven temperature problems can throw off many recipes (i.e. lead to over or undercooked baked goods). Consider using an oven thermometer as your expected oven temperature may be different than reality. An oven thermometer (which usually costs less than $10) is an easy way to measure the actual temperature inside your oven.

• My recipes are based on US ingredient measurements (i.e. US cups & tablespoons). However, as a courtesy to our European visitors, I have also included some very ROUGH European equivalents (i.e. grams & milliliters). Since I rarely use European measurements when baking, please let me know in the comment section below if any of the European ingredient measurements need to be changed (i.e. for XYZ ingredient, milliliters are more commonly used versus the grams information listed in the recipe).
• Always wear oven mitts/gloves when dealing with hot ovens, baking trays, etc.
• Be safe! Food that contains candy and/or nuts is a potential choking hazard for very young children.
• For more simple & delicious homemade cookie ideas, please visit Bread Dad’s section on Easy Cookie Recipes.

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Questions – No Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Why make chocolate chip cookies without butter?

Sometimes people don’t have butter at home but they still want to make cookies. For example, they are unable to get to the store in order to buy any butter because it is late at night, there is a winter storm, etc. Making chocolate chip cookies with vegetable oil solves the issue of not having any butter at home. Vegetable oil is a good substitute for butter. Moreover, for health reasons, some people want to reduce the saturated fat in their diet. Replacing butter with some types of vegetable oil can reduce the amount of saturated fat in homemade cookies.

Can you freeze chocolate chip cookies made with oil?

Hmm… there shouldn’t be any leftover cookies since these taste so good. Ha! Seriously, if you have made extra cookies, you can easily freeze homemade no butter chocolate chip cookies for longer storage. Before freezing your cookies, please make sure the cookies have completely cooled after baking (or the cookies may have an ice crystal problem and/or they may be soggy when thawed).

Just wrap each cookie in plastic food wrap and place them in a hard resealable & airtight plastic container. A hard container helps to reduce the chance that the cookies are broken as you move things in the freezer. Then put the container in the freezer.

Alternative method – You can layer non-wrapped cookies inside a hard resealable plastic container. Line the container with baking parchment paper and add a single layer of cookies. Then place another sheet of baking parchment paper on top of these cookies, add another layer of cookies, cover again with another sheet… and so on until the container is full of cookie layers. Place in freezer.

To “restore” your frozen no butter cookies, you can thaw them out by unwrapping them and leaving them on the kitchen counter.

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Reference Sources

• Wikipedia, Butter
• Wikipedia, Chocolate
• Wikipedia, Saturated Fat
• Wikipedia, Vegetable Oil

Your fantastic comments motivate us to write more easy recipes. Also beginning bakers learn a ton from your helpful tips and amazing recipe variations. Thank you!

Related Recipes

• Butterscotch Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Chocolate Chip Cranberry Cookies
• M&M Chocolate Chip Cookies
• No Butter Banana Bread
• No Butter Oatmeal Cookies
• No Egg Chocolate Chip Cookies

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