These dark chocolate caramel cookies are rich, fudgy and oozing with caramel. The cookies are incredibly soft with a rich chocolate flavor that balances perfectly with sweet, salted caramel. Surprisingly simple to make – these cookies look and taste gourmet!

**This post was updated August 19, 2024. The original recipe used caramel bits. The updated recipe stuffs each cookie with caramel so that there’s more ooey, gooey caramel in each cookie**

If you’re looking for a decadent, gourmet cookie recipe – then these dark chocolate caramel cookies are just the thing. They’re rich and fudgy chocolate cookies that are stuffed with caramel and topped with a hint of sea salt. The cookies have a soft and chewy texture and ooze with salted caramel when you take a bite.

The combination of rich chocolate, sweet caramel and a hint of salt makes these truly a thing of beauty.

Making Dark Chocolate Caramel Cookies

This recipe is very simple to make. You’ll start by making your chocolate cookie dough. You’ll beat together the butter and sugars, then mix in the egg and vanilla. The dry ingredients (flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt) get carefully mixed into the dough. Then lastly, you’ll stir in the chocolate chips. Note that the dough will be thick!

Then it’s time to chill the dough. You’ll need to chill the dough for about 30 minutes before forming it into balls. This is so that the dough isn’t quite as sticky to work with.

From there, it’s time to assemble the cookies. This process isn’t difficult – but it does take a bit of effort and your hands will get messy.

1. Start by scooping about 1 to 1.5 tablespoons of cookie dough. I use a medium cookie scoop that holds 1.5 tablespoons of dough for this.
2. Flatten the dough ball slightly, then place a caramel in the middle.

3. Scoop out another scoop of chocolate dough – this time 1 tablespoon is more than enough. I use about about a half scoop from my cookie scoop. Place it on top of the caramel.
4. Then pinch the edges of the cookie dough around the caramel. Ensure that the caramel is completely covered with dough. Then roll into a ball.

At this stage, the dough balls then need to go back in the fridge for at least 1 hour, or up to 48 hours.

When you’re ready to bake, you’ll place the cookie dough balls on your lined cookie sheets and bake in the preheated oven for about 12 minutes, or until the tops look just set. I like to add sprinkling of sea salt flakes on top of the warm cookies to balance out the flavor.

What Kind of Caramels To Use?

I’ve tried this recipe with a variety of caramels. I find that soft caramels work best, as opposed to ones that maintain their shape perfectly when you bite into them. You want a caramel that you can easily bite into and somewhat pull apart. I do not recommend using a dollop of caramel sauce, as it will melt into the cookie dough as they bake.

A Rolo will work as well – however, you won’t get as much caramel as the cookies pictured.

Baking Tips & Tricks

The recipe is super easy too – my only “warning” is that the dough is very sticky and thick. But that’s how it’s supposed to be.

• The butter should be softened but not melted. Melted butter performs differently in baking than softened butter, and since this recipe was developed using softened butter, it’s important not to use melted.
• Carefully measure your flour – too much and the cookies can get dry.
• Use Dutch process cocoa for a richer chocolate flavor – that’s where the dark chocolate part comes from. If you only have natural cocoa, the recipe will still work but the cookies just won’t be as dark in color or have quite as rich of a chocolate flavor.
• The dough will be thick and it will be slightly difficult to incorporate all of the dry ingredients into the butter mixture. This is expected.
• Chill the dough for 30 minutes before forming it into balls. Then they’ll need to go back in the fridge for about an hour. This is to ensure that they don’t spread too thin.
• Use a cookie scoop – otherwise your hands can get pretty sticky.
• After the cookies come out of the oven, place a few extra caramel chips on top of each cookie for the perfect bakery style look.

These chocolate caramel cookies are soft, fudgy, extra chewy, and have just about everything you could want in a cookie. The hint of sea salt balances out the rich chocolate and sweet caramel perfectly, and they’re just a little different than your regular chocolate chip cookies which makes them extra special.

Love chocolate & caramel? Try these other favorites:

• Chocolate Cupcakes with Caramel Frosting
• Chocolate Caramel Cake
• Caramel Peanut Butter Blondies