Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: The perfect amount of sweetness.
Texture: My favorite part, each bite is the ideal balance between soft and chewy.
Ease: Super easy 30-minute sugar cookie recipe with no chilling required.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe: Fun, simple, and perfect for holidays from Christmas to Valentine’s Day, even 4th of July. Everyone LOVES these cookies.
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Not to boast, but everyone who has tasted or made this sugar cookie recipe has said it became their instant favorite!! It took weeks of testing to get it just right.
These Soft & Chewy Sugar Cookies require NO CHILLING and are incredibly easy to bake up.
Reader Love
Delicious! Just made these with my 3 year old daughter. Easy to follow recipe and will be my go-to for sugar cookies! Only difference was adding rainbow sprinkles (the round ones) to the sugar to roll the balls in before baking.
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This recipe is perfect for your Christmas cookie boxes or just enjoying with a glass of milk. If it’s a warmer time of year, it also makes a great base for ice cream sandwiches!
Originally, I had created a recipe with cream cheese that was ultra-soft. However, I found that it would become claggy, and each bite would get stuck to the roof of your mouth.
After many rounds of recipe testing, I finally nailed an easy sugar cookie recipe that’s soft and chewy (and STAYS soft) and has that perfect sparkly crackled top.
Sprinkle of Science
Ingredients Notes
- All-purpose flour – Make sure to weigh your flour accurately. If you add too much flour, your cookies won’t spread at all and won’t be soft or chewy.
- Baking powder – This gives the sugar cookies lift, without adding too much spread or browning.
- Fine sea salt – So important to balance the sweetness!
- Unsalted butter – It’s important that your butter is at a cool room temperature (around 67°F), otherwise your cookies may spread.
- Granulated sugar – The star ingredient! Don’t reduce the sugar – find out why here and peek the image below.
- Eggs – One whole egg with an extra egg yolk lends richness and chewiness to the texture. Make sure they’re at room temperature.
- Vanilla extract – No sugar cookie recipe is complete without the flavor of vanilla extract.
Keys to SOFT Cookies
- The extra egg yolk helps to add more moisture and richness, for a soft and chewy texture.
- The other trick is found in the size of the dough ball…. a whole 3 tablespoons in each! This creates larger cookies that spread out perfectly with ultra-soft centers.
- Whatever you do, don’t overbake this sugar cookie recipe. They should still look ever so slightly ‘wet’ in the center when you pull them from the oven.
How to Prevent Cookie Spreading
To prevent flat sugar cookies that spread into little puddles, it’s important to make sure your butter is at a COOL room temperature.
Your sticks of butter should give slightly when pressed with your finger but still hold their shape. To be precise, your butter should be 67°F.
Crinkly Tops in Sugar Cookies
Besides rolling in sugar, baking powder is one ingredient that gives these cookies their characteristic cracks, so make sure your baking powder is fresh.
TIP: When the cookies are piping hot out of the oven, use a round cookie cutter to swirl around the edges of each cookie to re-shape into a perfect circle and enhance those crinkly tops.
The Best Baking Sheet for Cookies
The below photo features cookies from the same exact batch of dough, baked for the same amount of time at the same temperature.
2. Wilton Non-Stick: browned heavily with less spread
3. Walmart Mainstays: pale cookies, pan warped and rusted
4. Viking Ceramic Lined: cookies burnt on the bottom
5. Nordicware Unlined Aluminum: my favorite Goldilocks pan*
6. OXO Gold Nonstick: browned heavily with less spread
A light-colored aluminum half sheet pan is my favorite for baking cookies. Avoid dark nonstick pans altogether, they brown too much and may burn the bottoms of your cookies. Check out my Baking Pans 101 post for all the surprising details.
Do You Need to Chill the Dough?
It’s not required, baking immediately after mixing will result in absolutely delicious cookies.
However, if time permits, chilling the scooped dough in an airtight container for 24-72 hours does result in cookies that are thicker, chewier, and more flavorful. Roll in sugar after chilling otherwise the sugar will absorb into the dough. Learn more about chilling cookie dough here.
What Temperature and How Long to Bake
Bake at 350°F for 10 to 12 minute, or until the sugar cookies are set and are just beginning to brown around the edges, for classic thick & chewy sugar cookies.
The higher the temperature and/or the longer you bake, the crispier your cookies will be.
If you like really soft, almost dough-y cookies, bake at 325°F, adding a few minutes to the bake time.
How to Store Cookies to Keep Soft
Store sugar cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days. Store cookies with a tortilla, apple wedge, or piece of bread to keep them soft for longer.
Freezing
This sugar cookie recipe freezes beautifully. Freeze the uncoated, pre-portioned balls of cookie dough in a freezer-safe container, tightly wrapped in plastic wrap, or in a Ziploc bag. Allow them to thaw overnight in the fridge or for 30-60 minutes at room temperature, then bake as directed below.
FAQs
Can I Make This Recipe With a Hand Mixer?
Yes! A hand mixer will work just as well as a stand mixer.
Can This Recipe be Used For Cut-out Cookies?
No, this sugar cookie recipe was designed for simple drop-style cookies. If you want cookie cutter sugar cookies instead, check out my Cut Out Sugar Cookie recipe here.
Why use a cookie scoop?
It makes quick and easy work of portioning the dough uniformly so no one fights over the biggest cookie. I love using a 3-Tablespoon size cookie scoop for this sugar cookie recipe. Learn more about Cookie Scoops and how to use them here!
Can I add almond extract?
Yes! Feel free to add 1/2 – 1 teaspoon almond extract for a fun twist.
Can I use salted butter?
Yes, either omit the salt entirely, or reduce the amount to 1/2 teaspoon.
How to Decorate Drop-Style Sugar Cookies?
This is totally optional, as these cookies are so pretty by themselves – but if you want to make them a more colorful treat, here some ideas:
-Roll the balls of dough in colored sugar before baking.
-Fold in 1/4-1/2 cup of multi-colored jimmies or holiday jimmies or sprinkles as a last addition to the dough.
-Use my Best Buttercream Frosting recipe for decorating.
-Another favorite is my Best Cream Cheese Frosting recipe!
Parchment Paper or Silicone Baking Mats for Cookies?
I prefer parchment paper for cookies over silicone mats, it’s easier and quicker to clean up. Learn about parchment vs. Silicone mats here.
Whatever you do, never use nonstick cooking spray when baking cookies. This will lead to too much browning and spread (hello, burnt cookie puddles).
Soft and Chewy Sugar Cookies
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Ingredients
- 2½ cups (318 grams) all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 2 sticks (226 grams) unsalted butter, at cool room temperature
- 1¼ cups (250 grams) granulated sugar, plus ¼ cup (50 grams) for rolling
- 1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt to combine.
- In a large bowl, use an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment on medium-high speed to beat the butter and 1¼ cups sugar until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl. Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla, and beat until combined, scraping the bowl down as needed. Slowly beat in the flour mixture.
- Place the remaining 1/4 cup sugar in a shallow dish. Using a large (3-tablespoon) spring-loaded scoop, divide the dough into balls, then roll in sugar to coat evenly. Place the dough balls on the prepared baking sheets, spacing 2 inches apart, and flatten slightly with the bottom of a measuring cup.
- Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the cookies set and begin to brown. Cool for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.
The BEST sugar cookies EVER!!
Very tasty sugar cookies!! Definitely will make again. They are soft and delightful.
Made these cookies and while they turned out great, they definitely did not look like the picture. I’m hoping for some insight? The only change i made was to add some lemon zest (no juice). The cookies were soft, and had a great chew in the center. No cracks (that’s ok) but they were VERY thick. I would say about twice the height of the cookies in the picture. It’s not a problem (my husband actually preferred this), but I’m just curious as to why that could be? I don’t believe i added more baking powder than called for, so just very curious! Thanks!
Hi Cassie! The lemon zest is a great addition 🙂 Do you use a digital scale to measure your ingredients? It sounds like too much flour may have been added to your cookies. Or, is it possible your butter was too cold? Check out the pink tip box above the recipe for more details, and hopefully our tips will help to perfect your next batch! Let us know how it goes if you give it another try!
I love these cookies are so good they’re so moist to be tender on the outside when I made it for my sister’s birthday party she loved them everyone asked if they can have this recipe. Thank you Tessa for making this sugar cookie recipe it is so good . And also this is my dad’s favorite cookies ever !
These are the best sugar cookies I have ever made. Most are flavorless and dry. These taste delicious and perfect texture! Also they make the best base for mini fruit pizzas. We topped with our favorite cream cheese frosting and a variety of fruit and they were delicious! For those that were getting dry and crumbly cookies, I wonder if they were baking too long. I took them out when they looked underdone and mine were soft and chewy. I also measured all my ingredients with a scale and used just barely softened butter.
So happy your cookies turned out perfectly, and I love your idea for making these into mini fruit pizzas, YUM!!
5/5 AMAZING!! My sisters loved it and I could make it easily. They said it tasted like that one company’s cookies (crumbl cookies). I didn’t use baking soda, and i used salted butter and less salt. Looked exactly the same, and tasted how it was supposed to. It’s no special occasion but i’d eat these any day.
So happy to hear how much you both loved them!
Made these today and they are delicious! Mine didn’t come out looking like yours, no cracks. But, still tasted great.
BEST SUGAR COOKIE RECIPE
Wow this was amazing My baking usually never turns out so this was a 10/10 but since there’s no 10 I’ll put a 5
So happy you love this recipe so much!
Made these and they turned out delicious! Thanks for sharing!
It turned into cookie cakes. Where did I go wrong. It’s also mildly sweet. I followed everything….
If your cookies turned out more cakey, that’s typically a sign that too much flour was added. Did you use a digital scale to measure your ingredients? You also want to make sure that your butter is at the correct temperature before creaming with the sugar. Tessa explains this more in detail in the pink tip box above the recipe. I hope you give this recipe another try!
I was looking at the recipe and it looks dang near perfect, I was wanting to add some lemon to it though. How would it affect the dough if I added 2 tbls of fresh lemon juice and the zest of a lemon to the dough… I am thinking it wouldn’t negatively affect the dough too much…
Hi Jared! We haven’t tried that, though it sounds delicious! I’d suggest replacing the vanilla with lemon juice or extract rather than adding an additional 2 tablespoons of liquid to the cookies, as that may alter their texture, but you’re definitely welcome to give it a try. Please let us know how it goes!
Dry and crumbly. No chew at all. Good flavor though. I weighed my ingredients and didn’t deviate from the recipe or instructions. They didn’t even crack. I don’t understand.
I’m sorry to hear of your issues with these cookies, they definitely shouldn’t be dry and crumbly, especially with no chew! I’m so happy to hear that you use a digital scale to measure your ingredients, though it does sound like something may have been mis-measured. Did you substitute any of the ingredients? Check out our tips in the pink box above the recipe on how to get that crinkly top. If only we could bake along with you to see what happened, but hopefully we can still figure out what went wrong! I’d love for you to try this recipe again.