I tried 5 secret ingredients for better chocolate-chip cookies, and I'd totally use 3 of them again

I'll never turn down a chocolate-chip cookie, but I prefer one that's soft, gooey, and full of melty chocolate with a slightly crisp exterior.

Some recipes can achieve this contrast with basic ingredients, like my favorite from celebrity chef Duff Goldman. But surprising add-ins can also make for impressive results.

In my never-ending efforts to make the perfect chocolate-chip cookie, I decided to try recipes with five different secret ingredients: chickpeas, instant pudding, apple-cider vinegar, miso paste, and cream cheese.

Admittedly, I expected the worst from the chickpea-based cookie recipe I found on a blog called I Heart Vegetables.

I love chickpeas in savory dishes, but I've always been able to distinctly taste them in desserts.

Although chocolate-chip cookies are typically made with butter, eggs, granulated sugar, and flour, this recipe skips all of those ingredients.

Instead, it calls for chickpeas, nut butter, maple syrup, vanilla, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and dark-chocolate chips.

Rather than a stand mixer, this recipe relied on a food processor to make the dough.

I blended the drained chickpeas with the almond butter until they were combined. Then I added the remaining wet ingredients followed by the dry ingredients.

After making the dough, I folded in the chocolate chips by hand.

The final dough was very thick, but it turned out smoother than I thought it would.

My cookies took a full 14 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

When I checked on them halfway through the baking time, I was impressed they weren't spreading. But they did look pretty dry.

When I picked up a chickpea cookie, I noticed it was incredibly fragile — I wouldn't try eating one on the go.

They weren't underdone, but the inside was filled with melty chocolate chips.

They were slightly sweet but mostly earthy in flavor, and the texture was too soft.

The chickpea recipe might be a good option for anyone who needs vegan or gluten-free desserts. But I don't expect to make these again for myself.

The texture of the cookies was a far cry from what I normally like. Plus, even if they tasted better than I expected, I could clearly taste the almond butter and chickpeas.

For soft chocolate-chip cookies, some people swear by adding instant pudding.

I found a recipe on Allrecipes that includes pretty standard ingredients alongside the simple add-in.

There's no need to whip up the pudding in advance for this recipe.

I simply dumped the instant-vanilla-pudding mix right in after creaming together the butter, sugar, and brown sugar but before adding in the egg and vanilla.

I scooped out the cookies onto a baking sheet and placed them in a preheated oven set at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

The recipe stated they should take about 12 minutes, but mine took closer to 15 to finish baking.

These cookies had a great texture, no doubt thanks to the pudding mix. The middle was soft and gooey without being underbaked.

My only complaint is that they had a very faint artificial-like aftertaste, likely from the vanilla flavoring in the pudding.

I don't know if I'll be attempting this one again. The texture was great, but the aftertaste just wasn't for me.

I noticed that this recipe didn't call for any salt, and I wonder if a pinch or two would've helped balance the flavors.

Apple-cider vinegar is a great ingredient for salad dressings, but I wondered if any of that acidic flavor would stick around in a cookie.

The recipe from The Cookin' Chicks followed a pretty standard procedure, with the addition of just one teaspoon of ACV.

The recipe was pretty straightforward.

I combined the wet ingredients and sugars in a stand mixer all at once. Then in a separate bowl, I whisked together the dry ingredients and poured them in with the wet ones.

I folded in the chocolate chips last and used an ice cream scoop to portion out the dough on a baking tray.

The recipe said to bake the cookies at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for seven to nine minutes.

I could tell my cookies were far from done at seven minutes, so I baked them for the additional two.

At this point, the tops still looked too pale and jiggly, but the bottoms were starting to look too dark. I was worried these would turn out underbaked in some spots and burnt on the bottom.

In the end, my cookies spent 14 minutes in the oven — even a minute sooner and the centers would've been underbaked.

When I pulled the cookies from the oven, the tops had risen significantly and looked really pillowy.

The bottoms were slightly overdone, but thankfully, they didn't taste bitter.

The centers were so soft and light, probably due to the combination of apple-cider vinegar and baking soda as rising agents in the dough.

Paired with the super-crisp bottoms, the textures complemented one another well.

The recipe called for both dark-chocolate chunks and semi-sweet chocolate chips — a total of two cups of chocolate chips for a recipe that makes about 18 cookies.

This turned out to be a bit too much chocolate for me.

I'd make this recipe again, but I'd probably add one cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips and just 1/4 to 1/2 cup of dark-chocolate chunks.

I love adding plenty of sea salt to chocolate-chip cookies for a savory twist, so I was excited to try the miso-chocolate-chip cookies from Bon Appétit.

Miso is a seasoning made with fermented soybeans, and it adds a savory, salty, umami touch to any recipe.

The recipe called for otherwise common chocolate-chip cookie ingredients in addition to some white miso.

As with many of the other recipes I tested, this one involved simply adding the miso in with standard chocolate-chip cookie dough.

Once the dough was ready, it needed to chill in the fridge for an hour before baking.

My first batch of cookies went in the oven at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 12 minutes. The exteriors were overbaked, and the insides weren't done at all.

I put in the second batch for 10 minutes, and in the meantime, I decided to read some of the comments on the recipe for insight.

Many people wrote that their cookies burned at 375 degrees Fahrenheit, so I decided to turn down the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit for the last few minutes of baking.

I cooked a final batch from the last remnants of dough at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 12 minutes, but they didn't look as good as the second batch.

The second batch was the best one. They were very crisp on the edges and bottoms, but the center was so soft it was nearly caving in.

As for flavor, I got some umami, which paired well with the bittersweet chocolate chips. But truthfully, if I didn't know there was miso added, I don't know if I'd notice that extra flavor.

Overall, I was a fan of the miso recipe, especially when it came to the texture of the cookies.

In the future, I plan to experiment with adding a little more miso to enhance the savoriness of the cookie.

That, plus a few tweaks to the baking time and temperature, could make the cookies even better.

When I first saw the recipe for cream-cheese chocolate-chip cookies on Chelsweets, I expected it to be swirls of cream cheese throughout the finished cookie.

Instead, the cream cheese is mixed right into the dough with the wet ingredients.

Either way, I figured they'd be tasty.

The process, again, was simple. After mixing everything together, I noticed this dough was very glossy and smooth.

Then came the hard part where I had to be patient — the cookies needed to chill for at least two hours before baking.

Once the dough was properly chilled, I portioned out the cookies on a baking tray and popped them in the oven.

After about 13 minutes, they were ready.

They looked a little overbaked, but thankfully they were just right. They spread a bit, but thanks to the long chill time, it wasn't too much.

This chocolate-chip cookie had very crispy edges, and the center was everything I hoped for: gooey, pillowy, and chocolaty.

The only downside to this recipe is that it takes the longest to make because it has an extended rest time.

You also need to take about an hour to bring the egg, butter, and cream cheese to room temperature before mixing the dough.

But they were definitely worth the wait.

I'm looking forward to working with the miso recipe some more, as those were a hit with my partner, too.

The reaction of apple-cider vinegar and baking soda also made for a very fluffy center. The cookie's only real crime was that it was slightly too heavy-handed on the chocolate.

But my favorite of the bunch was the cream-cheese cookies, which had both great flavor and texture.

The recipe required a lot of waiting around, but I don't mind some downtime in exchange for amazing cookies.

I loved these three cookies, but I still prefer Goldman's chocolate-chip-cookie recipe above all of them. It doesn't require a special ingredient, long chill times, or baking trial and error.