This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure policy.
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.
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.
Absolutely amazing cookies, A great recipe, and the cookies turned out so well too, just like your photos. Definitely a recipe to repeat.
I tested versions with cream cheese, but found they became too claggy. I also tested smaller sized cookies, but found they didn’t stay as soft and chewy in the center.
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.
Recipe Ingredients
All-purpose flour – Make sure to weigh your flour accurately. This is KEY. 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! I prefer the taste of sea salt over table salt, but you can use that too. Don’t use kosher salt, it won’t dissolve as readily and you might end up with salty pockets.
Unsalted butter – It’s important that your butter is at a cool room temperature (around 67°F), otherwise your cookies may spread. If using salted butter, reduce the salt added to 1/4 teaspoon.
Granulated sugar – The star ingredient! Don’t reduce the sugar – find out why here and peek the Sprinkle of Science section 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. Feel free to experiment with other extracts!
How to Make Sugar Cookies (Step-by-Step)
Cream butter & sugar. Use butter at a cool room temperature (about 67°F) and beat with the paddle attachment (not the whisk) until lighter in color and larger in volume.
Add egg, egg yolk, and vanilla. Room temperature eggs will incorporate more easily. Beat very well until thoroughly combined, scraping down the sides & bottom of bowl and paddle as needed.
Add dry ingredients. Don’t overmix, this will create stronger gluten networks and may result in tough cookies.
Scoop into balls. A spring-loaded scoop makes quick and efficient work of this.
Roll in sugar. Don’t skip this step, it’s key to those crackly, sparkly tops! Only skip if you plan to frost the cookies.
Flatten slightly. Gently press down each cookie dough scoop with the bottom of a measuring cup or your palm. This ensures proper spread.
Bake. At 350°F for just 10-12 minutes. Don’t overbake! The cookies should be set at the edges but look just slightly ‘wet’ on top. They’ll continue cooking from the heat of the pan.
Let cool. For the chewiest texture and best flavor, allow the cookies to cool completely before enjoying.
Keys to SOFT Cookies
- Do not over-measure your flour. For best results, use a kitchen scale (I promise you this is a game-changer). If you don’t have one, use the spoon-and-level method. Too much flour is the #1 cause of dry crumbly cookies that don’t spread properly.
- 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.
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.
Sprinkle of Science (open me!)
If your cookies spread too much, it may be the temperature of your butter. Many home bakers allow their butter to get too warm, soft, and even greasy before creaming. This leads to excess spreading, which can even can occur even after you’ve chilled the cookie dough! Butter is an emulsion of water and fat and once it breaks by getting too warm, it can wreak havoc. Learn more about butter temperatures on my Instagram here!
In experimenting with sugar ratios for this recipe, I found that reducing the sugar led to cookies that didn’t spread and were dry, crumbly, bland, and staled much faster. Adding too much extra sugar led to cookies that over-spread and were overly sweet.
Learn more about the science of sugar in baking here.
For cookies that stay soft but develop enough flavor, 350°F proved the best baking temperature in my testing. Any hotter, and the cookies became too crisp and hard. Any cooler, and the cookies had underdeveloped flavor and were more delicate. Not all ovens are accurate, so check yours with an oven thermometer to make sure!
Storage & Make ahead
How to Store to Keep Cookies Soft: Store 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.
Freeze: Freeze the uncoated, pre-portioned balls of cookie dough in a freezer-safe container, tightly wrapped in plastic wrap, or in a Ziploc bag up to 6 weeks. Allow them to thaw overnight in the fridge or for 30-60 minutes at room temperature for best results, then bake as directed below.
Email This Recipe
Enter your email, and we’ll send it to your inbox.
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, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Avoid dark-colored baking sheets, which may cause too much browning.
- 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, about 3 minutes. The mixture should increase in volume and become paler in color.
- 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 until just combined. Don't overmix.
- 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 edges are set and very lightly brown, but the centers still look soft or 'wet'. Do not wait for the centers to brown unless you want a crisper texture.
- 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.
Notes
Frequently Asked Questions
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, reduce the amount of added salt in the recipe 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).
I made this with chocolate chips in them and they turned out amazing! thank you so much for this wonderful recipe!
I added M&M’s before baking. Huge hit! Wonderful recipe.
How many cookies does this recipe usually yield? I couldn’t find the answer
This recipe yields 16 large cookies! If you tap the “See Recipe” button at the top of the page, it’ll take you directly to the recipe. The yield is just above where the prep, cook, and total times are listed 🙂
I’m finding it difficult to find a short and sweet version of baking things. For these sugar cookies, in particular, there was way too much reading and not enough info on the actual recipe, I.e, it doesn’t say how much of each ingredient to use
Hi Mel! Feel free to use the “See Recipe” button just under the title of the recipe on our site to skip past Tessa’s baking science tips and get right to the recipe 🙂 Here’s a direct link, which includes the full written out ingredient list and instructions. Enjoy!
Im not very good at baking or following instructions, but I made these and came out with results better then any online recipe I’ve tried!
So happy to hear that, Ava! 🙂
I’m only 14 and have tried many cookie recipes but all of them have never worked for me and quite frankly don’t taste great. However, this cookie recipe was extremely easy to follow and the results were amazing!! My family said I should open shop 🙂 Jokes aside, I would 100% recommend this recipe to someone who enjoys baking or even just wants to try something new! 🙂
So happy to hear how much you loved them, Aminah! Thanks for sharing!
Keep up the good work! Sound like a chef in the making!
These were great. I can’t wait to make them again!
Made these cookies multiple times! Recipe is wonderful and like many, involved using 2 sticks of butter, I’m going to try substituting 1 of them with Canola oil this time and see what happens I guess! I am definitely chilling the dough a bit beforehand. Do you think the cooking time will be affected at all?
Recipe still turned out fantastic using half canola oil, half butter. Cookies were super moist and chewy too..zested in a little lemon too! Thanks for such a great recipe- lots of flexibility!
We haven’t tried that so I can’t say for sure!
The warning to chill the dough came at the end of the recipe in an asterisk and even after chilling they still pancaked. Possibly partly my fault but I’m just frustrated at the lack of detail surrounding that part of making the cookies. Really disappointed.
Sorry to hear your cookies turned out flat, Lucy! This recipe doesn’t require a chilling period, but we noted it just in case someone lives in a warmer climate and typically experiences issues with warm cookie dough. If you use cool room temperature butter, which is about 67°F, and weigh your flour, you shouldn’t experience issues with pancake cookies. Check out this comparison photo here, which shows the difference between too warm of butter and just right. I really hope you give this recipe another try! Please let me know if I can assist further.
I love this recipe!! So easy and efficient- I don’t have an electric mixers so when mixing with hand I cooled the dough for about 30-1hr and it was the perfect consistency! Definitely a 5 star recipe perfect for any occasion and baking fun with the family!
Question: I make a multi-layer brookie bar that uses refrigerated pre-packaged sugar cookie dough for to the bottom most layer, and it has worked fine to this point. However, I was thinking of making my own sugar cookie dough this time and using your recipe to make the brookie base layer for my 8 X 8 inch pan – do you see any problem with this?
We haven’t tried that, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work! Let us know how it goes if you give it a try 🙂
I just tried the recipe myself and am very confused how it would turn out noticeably liquidy to the point of being bin worthy. I don’t know your level of experience so forgive me if any of these ideas are obvious but a few things that might have caused it:
Did you definitely get the full 2.5 cups of flour? I use a digital scale and do it by weight, not volume because flour compacts so you could scoop 2.5 cups 10 different times and get 10 different actual amounts. And did you get the full 1.25 cups of sugar?
How long did your butter sit out before you mixed it in? You would definitely want it to still hold it’s shape and take some definite pressure to dent it with a finger, not complete mush like some dessert recipes.
Lastly, how long did your total prep time take from start to having them fully ready to go into the oven? If it took much longer than 10-15 minutes, they may have just gotten far too warm just from being out in room temp air, or if you really handled them a lot while balling them up, just the heat from your hands is plenty to melt that butter more than it can handle. Not sure what point in the process you made it to before tossing them, but if you were able to actually form the balls and get them on a sheet, I’d just pop them in the freezer for 5 minutes (but like a real 5 minutes, not 5 minutes that turns into 15 because you’re cleaning up or walk away and forget them.)
Only other problem I can think of is too many eggs/egg whites but that seems like a harder mistake to make than not enough flour or butter that is too warm.
If you’re in doubt about any of these points, I’d definitely say it’s worth another try at it because mine came out quite nicely.