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.
Best Sugar cookie recipe!! 🩷
Great and super easy I don’t like crunchy cookies and these are perfect ! I even added some sweets inside the cookies!! SPOT ON THANK YOU 👩🏼🍳🙏🏼❤️
I’ve made this cookies so many times already but made them recently and they didn’t spread at all and had to bake longer because they weren’t setting. I wonder what happened
No joke, these are the BEST sugar cookies I have ever tried. A couple tips – use a meat/food thermometer on the butter. I didn’t want to wait and keep checking for it to get from fridge temp to 67 degrees, so I threw it in the microwave for 10 second increments as an experiment, and once it hit 65 I went to work. The cookies still came out perfect. The only thing I changed was the cooking duration. First time I made these, I baked for 13 min and they were still pretty raw. I like a soft cookie, but they were not done. The second time I did one tray for 17 minutes with medium sized cookies, and the large cookies I did 20 min. I ended up with 12 cookies and they were PERFECT and very soft and chewy, even the next day. So maybe just cook a little longer if you feel they aren’t done and wait until the edges get slightly tan. I also added 1/4 cup Xmas sprinkles. Thank you for the awesome recipe!!
These cookies came out AMAZING, would it be possible to double the recipe without messing anything up?
I’m so glad! And yes, totally possible to double! It’s a straightforward doubling of all ingredients.
Question, just made the dough and it looks more like cake batter I used 16 table spoons butter an egg and one yolk but it’s not thickening is there anything I can do to remedy this before attempting to bake? I even used a meat thermometer for the butter lol any advice would be awesome promised a disabled friend of mine whose fathers in the hospital that is have cookies for Santa for him by Christmas Eve, I don’t know what to do! Ha
I don’t know what I did to fail this recipe:( The only change I made was I used salted butter because that’s what I had and in turn left the added salt out. My dough was a little stickier than I was expecting but it scooped and rolled out fine. After baking my cookies spread and were so flat
Hi Maddie! Don’t worry, using salted butter and leaving out the added salt wouldn’t cause cookies to spread like that. When cookies bake up very flat, it’s almost always due to butter being too warm or flour measurement issues. These cookies are especially sensitive to butter temperature. It should be cool room temperature (around 67°F), where it gives slightly when pressed but still holds its shape.
A slightly sticky dough can also point to either warm butter or a bit too little flour (which is why we recommend weighing it, if possible). Next time, make sure your butter is at a cool room temperature and double-checking how the flour is measured. You’re so close, one small tweak usually fixes it!
Amazing sugar cookies. I’m VERY picky when it comes to sugar cookies. I’ve tried so many different kinds from friends and family this holiday season and nothing hits. BUT THIS 🙌🏽 will now be a staple cookie in my home!
Do you have any experience making the dough ahead of baking and freezing the dough?
So happy to hear it’s your new go-recipe, Tina! Yes — check out freezing instructions above the recipe here 🙂
Best sugar cookie ever! I saw this online in a feed. My daughter went to college this year and thought a “chewier” recipe might work better for days in travel. Well, I was told to throw out grandma’s recipe. This is hands down the best. No modifications and was strict with the cool butter.
Oh wow, what a compliment! So happy she loved them 🙂
I would like to make these into jumbo bakery sized cookies (100ish grams). Any recommendations? Do you think I would need to modify the recipe at all? Thanks!
You shouldn’t have to make any modifications other than the bake time, since they’ll be considerably larger. Let us know how they turn out, how fun!
Just tried these for the first time and I can hands down say that these are the best chewy sugar cookie ever!!!
These Sugar Cookies are wonderful! This is now the favorite cookie in our household! I did use a medium scoop simply because that is our preferred cookie size. In my oven they took 12 minutes to bake. These cookies have the taste of EVERYTHING one hopes for in a sugar cookie. Absolutely delicious. Thank you, Tessa!