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
Yes! A hand mixer will work just as well as a stand mixer.
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.
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!
Yes! Feel free to add 1/2 – 1 teaspoon almond extract for a fun twist.
Yes, either omit the salt entirely, or reduce the amount to 1/2 teaspoon.
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!
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).
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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.
Made these for my adult son’s birthday. They were a hit!
Hi Jeanette! So happy to hear that these cookies were a hit!! Happy belated birthday to your son!
Absolutely wonderful!!! This recipe was easy. Thank you for such clear instructions… Butter consistency etc.
Hi Rhona! So happy to hear you enjoyed these cookies, and also found our instructions helpful!
I was thinking of doing a fruit pizza with this think it will work
Hi Louise! We haven’t tried that, but it sounds delicious! Let us know how it goes 🙂
Perfection. Thank you for the best sugar cookie recipe I ever used in my 50 plus years of baking.
Wow, what a compliment, Joan!! So thrilled to hear you loved these cookies so much! Thanks for the comment 🙂
Hi there! I had a question. Is there a way to make these cookies bigger and thicker? I wanted to make them probably a half inch thick with 4inch diameter. Maybe adding cornstarch? Really wanna make these! They look amazing!
Hi Rachel! If you want thicker cookies, the #1 most important thing to do is chill your dough first! While this recipe doesn’t necessarily require chilling before baking, colder dough will retain a thicker shape better when it hits the hot oven. You can also try shaping your dough into taller shapes, rather than perfect spheres, to further discourage spreading. Tessa talks all about this, and more tips on achieving thick cookies, in this article here! I would also suggest using a large cookie scoop (or even an ice cream scoop) when portioning, so you can make them a bit larger, to your preference. Of course, this will increase the bake time, so just keep an eye on them and watch for the sensory indicators Tessa talks about in the recipe (“bake until set and beginning to brown”). As always, be sure to follow all of Tessa’s tips (in the pink box above the recipe) to ensure your cookies don’t spread while baking (especially the temperature of the butter before you even start!). I hope this helps, and I can’t wait to hear what you think of these cookies!! Happy baking 🙂
Can I use salted butter and omit the sea salt?
Hi Umamah! You can do that – Tessa just prefers to use unsalted butter, and add her own salt, so she can control how much salt is actually in the recipe. There is no specified amount of salt that must be in butters sold in the US (and it’s likely the same in most countries), so one brand of salt could have double the amount of salt of the brand next to it. That being said, if it’s all you have, go for it – just know it may be slightly too salty or slightly under-salted, depending on your butter. Happy baking 🙂
These are AMAZING!!!!!!!!!
My family are not a fan of sugar cookies, so I went ahead and made them, Omg they loved them, I will make sure to add this in my recipe box.
Woohoo, so excited you and your family loved these sugar cookies, Ivette!! 🙂
Ok. These are officially my new go to sugar cookie. Super doughy and sweet!!! Killer recipe!! And ridiculously easy to throw together and make! My only regret is not doubling the recipe!
Hi Melissa! So excited you love these sugar cookies!! Thank you for taking the time to let us know!! 🙂
These cookies are so delicious!! I followed the recepie exact! And the cookies came out AMAZING!!! SO DELICIOUS!! Definitely my new favorite cookie recepie!!! Thanks!!
Yay!! So wonderful to hear that you love these cookies, JoJo!! 🙂
These are AMAZING!!! I have made them a few times now; I make two batches at a time since it only makes 16 cookies per recipe. I probably need to make 3 batches at a time. I do let the dough sit in the fridge for about 48 hours. I also make your buttercream icing lol and I’ve also tried using a vanilla/almond extract (it tastes like wedding cake!! Fantastic!! They only last a couple days lol :-).. teenagers!! I will never use anyone else for my cookie and other special treats!!!
Wow, we’re so thrilled to hear you love these sugar cookies as much as we do! Sounds delicious about adding the almond extract!
I actually told my daughter to burn this recipe bc I can’t stop at just one! These cookies are OUTSTANDING! we took them to an Easter brunch today and the were the hit of the party. BEST EVER
haha don’t burn it! Make a full batch and freeze half of the dough 😉 So happy to hear how much you love this recipe!
Cookies tasted good but I didn’t really like the sugar coating on the outside as much as I thought. Next time I’m going to leave out that step.