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! I am obsessed with this recipe. It’s an absolute hit in our home. But, would it work to switch butter out for vegetable oil? Currently out of butter and on a very very tight budget.
So glad you love the recipe! 🙂 We haven’t tested this swap, but it’s important to know that butter plays a big role here. It adds a lot of flavor, and the creaming process (butter + sugar) is key to the cookies’ chewy texture. Oil behaves differently since it’s 100% fat, so the cookies will likely spread more and have a different texture. If you’d like to experiment, a general rule of thumb is to use about 3/4 the amount of oil in place of butter. I’d also recommend chilling the dough before baking, which can help control some of the spreading. Just expect the flavor and texture to be different.
So perfect! Always the best cookies!
This recipe is a keeper forever!
Thank you!
Hi! I’d like to use this recipe but was hoping to roll out the dough and cut them into shapes with cookie cutters. Would I need to make any adjustments to the recipe for this? Thanks so much!
Hi Polly! This recipe was designed as a drop-style cookie, not a roll-out cookie. You can find our Cut-Out Sugar Cookie recipe here 🙂
Would it be possible to make these flavored? For instance, a lemon sugar cookie?
Sure! You could try swapping in some fresh lemon juice for the vanilla extract and add 1-2 tablespoons lemon zest. You could even make a lemon glaze for the top! See our Glazed Lemon Cookies for a recipe 🙂 Let us know how they turn out!
Firstly, great sugar cookie recipe. It was simple to do and resulted in a soft, chewy cookie with a great flavor and texture. I didn’t get the “crinkly top” you described but it was still delicious.
Secondly, I would be interested in your original recipe where you said you used cream cheese. What changes did you make? I assume you substituted butter for the original cream cheese? Unfortunately I’m just a cook, not a chef. I prefer to follow a recipe as opposed to creating something new.
This is the only sugar coolie recipe I have tried and I feel like it is the only one I will ever need! Love all the extra tips above and beyond.
Hey, just wondering – could I not add the eggs? I had a recipe earlier which were brown sugar cookies and they didn’t require eggs. So if I ran out, would it be ok if I made these cookies without eggs?
I wouldn’t – the egg + egg yolk adds richness and chewiness to the texture. Without them, they’ll taste completely different! I’d recommend searching for an eggless sugar cookie recipe if you don’t have any, then try our recipe once you do for the best results 🙂
Have you ever made this as a cookie cake? Would you spread out the dough into the pan and let it sit for 24 hrs and then bake for the regular amount of time?
We haven’t made this one as a cookie cake, but we did turn it into Sugar Cookie Bars here! You’ll see the ingredient ratios are a bit different, which produced slightly taller, soft, thick, and chewy bars. I’d recommend following that recipe instead 🙂
These cookies are okay but they’re too soft.
They are supposed to be soft
Good flavor but….waaaay undercooked
I put back in at 375° for 2-3 min
Agree 100%
Too soft to hold in hand
Falls apart
Try making the size of the cookie smaller. I do about the size of your typical bouncy ball and cook for 10 mins and they are perfect every time. Soft but they don’t fall apart
These cookies are fantastic and very forgiving! I live in So Calif so my room temperature butter was too warm but they still came out with a perfect spread. I wanted to take a picture before they disappeared but I am too late. I will be making these again.
Without question the best sugar cookies recipe I have ever made.
If you are going to frost these should you still roll them in sugar?
Hi Ronda! We like rolling them in sugar even if they’ll be frosted because it assists with their chewy texture and crackly tops. But feel free to experiment with a few not rolled in sugar to see which way you prefer 🙂