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.
These are so good, please do make them! 😜
Hey again!
What would you recommend doing to get a thinner, chewy cookie?
Hi Emma! For a thinner and chewier sugar cookie, you can try letting your butter get a little softer before creaming it with your sugar. This will cause your cookie to spread more, giving you a thinner cookie. Be sure to bake your dough right away after preparing – chilling the dough will encourage chewiness but also a thicker cookie. You can also experiment with adding a little more sugar to the recipe – learn more about that here. Let us know how it goes! Happy baking!
I love this recipe! I added a capful of milk and dusted the cookies with a pinch of cinnamon and they turned out wonderfully! Light, soft, fluffy and delicious! It truly is the BEST sugar cookie recipe! 😋
That’s so funny! I just made them tonight and did the same thing. There in the oven now.
I love this recipe so simple yet soooo good and comforting, it’s really fool proof and turns out very time!
Can the cookies be frozen once they are baked?
Hi Evy! I haven’t tried that. They should be fine to freeze but the sugar on the outside of the cookies may dissolve as they thaw. For best results check out the bottom of the tip box (just above the recipe) where Tessa talks about freezing the dough. Happy baking!
Amazing cookies. Always get compliments!!
These are so incredibly delicious! Exactly how sugar cookies should taste. I’m much more of a chocolate person, but these are so good and comforting. Some of mine did spread and don’t look good…I thought I followed the butter directions carefully, but maybe I ended up with it too soft in the end. So be very very careful with the butter temperature! I wonder if chilling the dough a bit would help if you do think yours was too soft? I also forgot to flatten the tops slightly with a measuring cup. I think that would have led to more uniformity and more even cooking. With that said, though, the ones that did come out right are amazing. Definitely saving this to make again someday and fix what went wrong. Would be over the top amazing with some buttercream frosting, but they don’t need it!
Hi Elise! I’m thrilled that you enjoyed these cookies so much! While chilling the dough isn’t required for this recipe, it can help if your dough is a bit sticky and also enhance the flavor of the cookies. Can’t wait to hear if you try them again! Happy baking!
Delicious cookie recipe..They got pretty flat..Can I add more flour for a thicker cookie?
Thanks for sharing this recipe..The hubby loves it..❤
Hi there! Feel free to experiment, but adding more flour to the recipe might make your cookies dry. Instead, I suggest chilling your cookie dough for 24-72 hours before baking. Not only will this result in thicker cookies, but they will also be chewier and more flavorful too Hope this helps! Happy baking 🙂
If I don’t have a mixer can I still do this by hand?
Hi Vanessa! You are more than welcome to try beating the butter and sugar by hand, but unfortunately, most humans aren’t capable of recreating the speed and strength of an electric mixer, generally resulting under-creamed butter/sugar. Learn more about why that’s important in Tessa’s article here. Feel free to give it a try – it will be quite the arm workout, and it will take much longer much than the instructed time of 2-3 minutes using an electric mixer. Let us know how it goes if you give it a try!
Could I make the cookie dough and store in the fridge until I’m ready to bake just a few (like store-bought cookie dough)?
Hi Emma! Absolutely! Chilling the dough for 24-72 hours does result in cookies that are thicker, chewier, and even more flavorful. Wrap the dough in well plastic wrap before refrigerating. If you plan to leave your dough in the fridge longer than 72 hours, check out the tip box just above the recipe for Tessa’s tips on freezing cookie dough 🙂 Happy Baking!
turned out sooooooooooo yummy it is a must make
This was a awsome recipe you have to try it so easy to make yet so yummy