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.
Hi, do you mean add an egg and then crack another egg for the yolk? My friend made the recipe and it didn’t quite turn out correctly, so I wanted to clarify for when I try to make some!
Hi Ray, yes. That’s correct. One whole egg plus one egg yolk (you can save the white for tomorrow’s breakfast scramble or omelette!).
Oh soooo good! I made them within 20 minutes and that’s with the bake time. Amazingly delicious! Thank you for sharing.
Over a decade or so ago I had come up with the perfect sugar cookie recipe. Unfortunately I lost that recipe and have been searching high and low for the base of the recipe. How I came up with mine what by using a basic sugar cookie recipe and adding other ingredients to it. This recipe is the closest that I remember to it. I am making them today for my father in law and husband for Father’s day. It’s been about 15 yrs since we have celebrated a holiday with them and this recipe I think will be the perfect ice breaker and to remind them I am still that same girl they once knew all those years ago. Thank you for sharing it with all of us.
Aw, I love that! I’ll be sure to relay your story to Tessa, she’ll be thrilled to hear this! Thanks so much for sharing, Amanda. I hope they were a huge hit!
I love these, they were delicious and easy to make. Brought them to school and my friends loved them
Just pulled the last batch out, best sugar cookie recipe I’ve tried so far. If you only have dark then throw a layer of aluminum foil over it, rub some cold butter on it to cover it, throw it in the oven for a minute while it preheats just to get the but liquid. Take it out and let it cool until you throw the cookies on. No burnt bottom, no stick bottom, just like pancakes you know they’re ready when the edge starts to brown. The tinfoil adds a couple minutes to the bake time.
Can I replace the butter with coconut oil? My son is allergic to milk protein
Hi Maria! We haven’t tested this recipe using coconut oil, but the end result would be slightly different in appearance and texture. You’re welcome to give it a try! Let us know how it goes if you do.
Different cookie, but we do have a Chocolate Chip Cookie that uses coconut oil if you’re interested 🙂
Could I take smaller scoops for more cookies and smaller? Also could I swap out fine sea salt for table salt?
Hi Bella! Yes, you can use a smaller scoop to make more cookies, just reduce the baking time by a couple of minutes 🙂 We prefer baking with sea salt instead of table salt as table salt is actually a lot saltier in flavor! Learn more in our Salt 101 article here. I hope that helps!
Easy to make
I’ve already made it like five times and it is really easy. I’m nine years old and I can do this really easily without an adult. My mom sometimes watches over me just in case she helps me put the cookies in the oven. This is the recipe I go to every time I want to make cookies.
I am looking for a an amazing sugar cookie recipe and it sounds like your recipe will work great. My question is: do you think I can use this recipe to make cookie cut outs? A friend of mine just got his doctorate and I want to make him some cookies shaped like doctoral tam and grad robes. Do you think this recipe will work for this task.
Thank you so much!
Tanya
Hi Tanya! I wouldn’t recommend using this recipe for cut-out cookies, as it is designed to spread and create a soft and chewy drop cookie. However, check out Tessa’s amazing and easy Cut Out Sugar Cookie Recipe here. Hopefully that helps, and please let us know what you think if you give either recipe a try! 🙂
amazing!!!!!!!!!
These were exactly the texture I was craving. I subbed 1/4 cup or flour for icing sugar. The cookies were spot on. Great easy recipe