We Tried The New Chips Ahoy! Chocolate Chip Cookie To See How It Compares To The Original
In 1963, Nabisco made an exclamatory statement about chocolate chip cookies by bringing Chips Ahoy! to market. They went on to become one of the world's top store-bought chocolate chip cookies. While the original recipe has been tweaked over the years, 2024 is bringing a bigger change. In a press release, Chips Ahoy! parent company Mondelez International announced they have overhauled the Chips Ahoy! recipe, saying, "The new recipe for original Chips Ahoy! cookies features a new, tastier chocolate chip ... richer cookie flavor and creamy chocolate taste featuring the right amount of chocolate chips." Sabrina Sierant, senior director of Chips Ahoy!, went on to note, "In a category where taste is king and many chocolate chip cookies look the same, we wanted to challenge ourselves to step up our quality while staying true to what our fans already love."
One bag of these "MMMproved" cookies and one made according to the old recipe washed ashore at my door, allowing me to judge the alleged changes for myself. Is there any difference between the classic version and this latest and greatest one? It's too late to put the genie back in the bottle, but not for The Daily Meal to have its say. I judged based on taste, texture, other differences between the two versions, and overall lovability — and I've arrived at a conclusion.
Some recommendations are based on first-hand impressions of promotional materials and products provided by the manufacturer.
Old Chips Ahoy! cookie vs new Chips Ahoy! cookie
When you look at bags of the old and new Chips Ahoy! cookies, not much stands out beyond a red banner claiming, "The cookie you love just got even better." Only one way to find out if that's true!
The older cookies have a nice orange-brown glow, with a well rounded top. The newer ones are a lighter, yet duller shade of brown, and look a little emaciated when compared to their chubby elders. Both versions have bottoms that are flat and dusty. Upon taking a whiff, I noticed the old Chips Ahoy! gives off a richer, more bittersweet chocolate fragrance. The newer one smells more like standard American chocolate, akin to a Hershey bar.
The older cookie is crumbly to the touch, and starts to fall apart even more when it reaches the mouth. The chocolate has a strong flavor, which gets easily stuck to the teeth. Overall, though, it's a solid cookie. The new cookie holds together a lot better when bitten, and boasts thicker crunch and a mildly soft interior. The chocolate is definitely sweeter, with an added an hint of vanilla. It lacks the slightly bitter bite of the older cookie's chips. These cookies taste like they were maybe baked a day or so ago and left out to harden, while the older ones have a "sitting on the shelf" type of consistency and flavor.
New Chips Ahoy! nutritional information
The new Chips Ahoy! cookies share some ingredients with the old treats. Specifically, they both include unbleached enriched flour (made up of wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, and folic acid), sugar, soybean and/or canola oil, palm oil, high fructose corn syrup, leavening (made up of baking soda and ammonium phosphate), salt, natural and artificial flavors, and caramel color. The differences between the two lie in the make-up of the semisweet chocolate chips. Both sets of chips utilize sugar, cocoa butter, and soy lecithin, but the new ones include chocolate dextrose over chocolate and dextrose as separate elements, and nonfat milk instead of plain milk. "These specially blended chocolate chips feature a higher cacao content," the press release details, "and a higher concentrate Madagascar vanilla extract."
The standard serving size of the new and "MMMproved" Chips Ahoy! is three cookies. That's good for 160 calories, 8 grams of total fat, 3 grams of saturated fat, 105 milligrams of sodium, 22 grams of total carbohydrates, less than 1 gram of dietary fiber, 10 grams of total sugars, and 2 grams of protein, which is one gram more than the old original cookie. The cookies also have 10 milligrams of calcium, 1.4 milligrams of iron, and 50 milligrams of potassium. They are cholesterol free, and contain bioengineered food ingredients as well as milk, wheat, and soy.
How to buy the new Chips Ahoy!
The MMMproved Chips Ahoy! have started to make their way onto shelves at select retailers, both in store and online. A full nationwide roll-out will occur by the end of March.
Chips Ahoy! cookies come packaged in several sizes, including a standard 13 ounce bag, a 18.2 ounce family size bag, and a 25.3 ounce party size. There are also various snack sizes, including 1.55 ounce bags, 1 ounce Mini Chips Ahoy! bags, and the 3.75 ounce king size. Price and availability vary per retailer; the Chips Ahoy! product finder can help confirm availability near you. Based on the best-by date on the bag I sampled, the cookies contained within are good for five months. While this doesn't quite make them a food that doesn't need an expiration date, it's a nice big window.
The final verdict
To more thoroughly compare the old versus the new Chips Ahoy! cookies, I employed two methods. For the first, I microwaved both kinds of cookie for about 30 seconds. While you might assume this made the cookies seem freshly baked, that wasn't really the case — but the newer ones did become a bit softer. For the second, I dunked them in a glass of milk. The older cookie got even more crumbly, but its chocolate taste remained very powerful. The newer one fared better, staying more intact. What's more, the dunking brought out a more luscious and buttery taste. It's clear that the new ingredients are taking these cookies to the next level.
Notably, when I first opened the package that arrived at my door, the new cookies were in excellent shape, but the older cookies were a complete shambles. Beyond physical first impressions, though, I must admit that it's truly taste that matters. They definitely both live up to what one would expect from a Chips Ahoy! cookie in that department, but they also have two totally different tastes. The new one is hard not to like: Essentially, Chips Ahoy! has excised "bitter" from the word "bittersweet," leaving a new and welcome sugariness that simultaneously feels like a (chocolate) chip (cookie) off the old block. I'm genuinely not sure anyone will even remember what the old cookies used to taste like once the new recipe takes over the shelves.