Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
by Sommer Collier — last updated on Feb 14, 2025 
Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars combine the rich flavors of caramel and chocolate into a convenient cookie bar form! Featuring luscious chocolate chips and a homemade caramel sauce that is a total dream!
Why We Love This Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars Recipe
There are treats you make on rare special occasions. Then some treats are so comforting they end up being family favorites that are replicated month after month, and year after year.
Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars are the latter treat variety.
Sticky chocolate chip bars oozing with thick buttery caramel filling… These cookie bars scream family game night, movie night, or any other kind of cozy night you want to share with people you love.
Caramel chocolate chip cookie bars have layers of chewy chocolate chip cookie dough with a gooey, creamy caramel in the middle that is so easy to whip up!
This recipe came from a cookbook my friend Shelly Jaronsky wrote called The Cookies & Cups Cookbook, named after her wildly popular dessert blog.
Ingredients You Need
- Butter – unsalted and softened to room temperature
- Brown Sugar – packed
- Sugar – granulated sugar
- Eggs – large and room temperature
- Vanilla – adds extra flavor
- Salt – balances out the flavors
- Baking Soda – to help them lift in the oven
- All-Purpose Flour – or a gluten-free replacement flour
- Chocolate Chips – semi-sweet chocolate chips
- Sweetened Condensed Milk – to make the caramel creamier
- Soft Caramels – an easy way to add caramel to cookies
- Flaked Sea Salt – for added flavor and texture
How to Make Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9×13-inch baking pan with foil and liberally coat it with nonstick cooking spray.
In the bowl of an electric mixer or a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the softened butter with both sugars until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs, vanilla, salt, and baking soda. Mix well, then scrape the sides of the bowl with a spatula.
Turn the speed to low and add the flour. Beat to combine, then mix in the chocolate chips.
Press half of the cookie dough into the bottom of the prepared baking dish.
In a medium saucepan, add the sweetened condensed milk and unwrapped caramels. Set over medium-low heat and stir until the caramels melt, making a smooth caramel filling. Pour the caramel layer over the cookie dough base.
Drop the remaining dough over the caramel filling in small teaspoon-sized clumps. Bake the bars for 25-30 minutes, until the center is just set and the edges are golden brown.
Sprinkle with sea salt flakes and allow the cookie bars to cool completely. Then lift the bars out of the pan by the edges of the foil and cut. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.
Tips & Tricks
- Don’t over mix the batter! Once the cookie batter has flour in it, it will start to build gluten. You don’t want the batter to build too much gluten or else the cookies will end up tough instead of chewy and moist!
- To most efficiently press the chocolate chip cookie dough into the baking dish, try coating your fingers in flour! This will help prevent the cookie dough from sticking to your hands.
- Don’t sprinkle the top with table salt! The top should be sprinkled with a flaky, coarse salt like sea salt or kosher salt. If you don’t have flaky salt, simply skip the salt on the top.
- Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a dollop of whipped cream on top!
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes! To make these gluten-free, replace the flour with a gluten-free replacement flour that is a 1 to 1 ratio!
Definitely. Allow the salted caramel chocolate chip cookie bars to cool to room temperature, then freeze in an airtight freezer container or a zip freezer bag. Freeze for up to 3 months, then thaw before eating.
Since we want the edges to be set, but the center to be slightly soft and chewy, the bars will naturally sink in the middle a little bit! It is totally normal.
Store any leftover caramel cookie bars in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days! If you have lots of them, feel free to freeze them!
Check the Recipe Card Below for Instructions on How to Make Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars + Video!
Looking for more cookie & bar recipes? Try out some of your favorites:
- Blueberry White Chocolate Blondies
- Lemon Drop Cookies
- Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars
- Cream Cheese Cookies
- Brown Butter Cookies
- Scottish Shortbread Recipe
- Bailey’s Irish Cream Coffee Bars
- White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
- Oatmeal Fudge Bars
- Gooey Blueberry Cookie Bars
- Potato Chip Cookie Bars
Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Video
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
- 14 ounces sweetened condensed milk
- 10 ounces soft caramels, unwrapped
- 1 teaspoon flaked sea salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9×13-inch baking dish with foil and liberally coat with nonstick cooking spray.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the softened butter with both sugars until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs, vanilla, salt, and baking soda. Mix well, then scrape the sides of the bowl with a spatula.
- Turn the speed to low and add the flour. Beat to combine, then mix in the chocolate chips.
- Press half of the cookie dough into the bottom of the prepared baking dish.
- In a medium sauce pot, add the sweetened condensed milk and unwrapped caramels. Set over medium-low heat and stir until the caramels melt, making a smooth caramel filling. Pour the filling over the cookie dough base.
- Drop the remaining cookie dough over the caramel filling in small teaspoons-sized clumps. Bake the bars for 25-30 minutes, until the center is just set.
- Sprinkle with sea salt flakes and allow the bars to cool completely. Then lift the bars out of the pan by the edges of the foil and cut. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.
Notes
Nutrition
Recipe from The Cookies & Cups Cookbook by Cookies and Cups.
My new favorite bar! A nice twist to a chocolate chip bar. Baked perfectly in foil lined pan sprayed with cooking oil. Will be making often.
Do the caramel filling need to cool at all before pouring over the dough? Thanks!
I made these last night and they were so. GOOD. Holy cow. My boyfriend loved them as well. Waited about 1 hour for them to cool a little and couldn’t wait any longer. I saw some people saying they were too rich and I disagree. Perfect recipe.
OMG! These look incredible! I need to make these ASAP!
I’m wondering how these would be if I used caramel or chocolate flavored sweetened condensed milk? I picked up a couple of cans but can’t seem to find a recipe worthy. lol
These are excellent! The family loved them. The recipe says room temperature for so many days…we put them in the frig after being cut up and they lasted longer and were even better cold. On Pinterist it’s the pin everyone goes to and saves off my board., even people I don’t know. I’ve never seen a response like that on there thus far. Thank you for this wonderful recipe.
I made this for our July 4th cookout. The bars are good. My only change would be to not use the foil lining. It adhered to my pan and had to be scrapped out with a spatula.
My favorites together look so good I’ll be making these for sure thanks for the recipe
That looks so good!
I keep finding amazing looking recipes with caramel, and I keep hoping for one that will have a caramel that isn’t made using the sore bought wrapped kind. But these look absolutely divine! I have to make them so I’m going to try to figure out a caramel from scratch. Any tips? Or ideas of recipes that would work similar to the wrapped caramels?
Our stores carry Caramel Bits in an 11 0unce size package. They are small round balls of caramel that melt quite quickly and are equally as good as wrapped caramels. I’m not sure but I think they are made by Kraft.
Hi Tara,
You can make “dulce de leche” using JUST sweetened condensed milk: http://www.aspicyperspective.com/nutty-coconut-caramel-brownies/
Or here is our homemade caramel sauce: http://www.aspicyperspective.com/caramel-sauce/
Don’t panic if this looks more like bread pudding, right out of the oven. Once everything has cooled, and can be sliced into bars, I dare you to save some for the rest of the family! OHHH MYY! This is a keeper! P.S. I only had salted butter on hand. I just added less sea salt. Perfect.
These look so good n gooey, I want to lick the screen!!! These would make an amazing chat n my diet. :)