I love this easy sugar cookies recipe, especially when I want to do some spur-of-the-moment baking. The cookie dough doesn’t need to be chilled, and the finished cookies stay wonderfully chewy for DAYS.
If you love soft sugar cookies, try my copycat Lofthouse cookies for a frosted, bakery-style treat.
Next to a good snickerdoodle, chewy sugar cookies are a total favorite of mine any day of the week. And unlike, say, cut-out sugar cookies, which are definitely a Christmas staple, I feel like this easy drop sugar cookies recipe is perfect for year-round baking.
I tested SO many versions of these homemade sugar cookies. I’m pretty sure my mother-in-law (who watches the twins while I work) thought I was losing my mind. I’d be all, “Just one more version!” and then a week later there’d still be new batches on the counter. But finally, I found the perfect sugar cookie recipe. Everything about these buttery cookies is just right.
So Many Reasons To Love This Easy Sugar Cookie Recipe
- These cookies are the perfect thickness to have crisp, golden edges without losing their soft centers.
- They’re chewy, buttery sugar cookies without being cakey.
- There’s no need to chill the dough, cut out the cookies, or even press the balls flat. They spread perfectly on their own.
- I’m happy to say these homemade cookies stay soft and chewy for days when stored properly.
- These are delicious baked as-is, rolled in sugar for a crunchy finish, and they’re great for decorating with sugar cookie icing or sprinkles.
- They’re easily adaptable for holidays like Christmas, Easter, and Valentine’s Day. See my favorites in the Variations section later on.
Ingredients Needed
Let’s talk about the key ingredients you’ll need to make chewy classic sugar cookies. See the recipe card for the full recipe with exact measurements.
- Flour – Use a kitchen scale or spoon and level the flour to avoid overmeasuring. See how to measure flour correctly so you don’t end up with too much flour in the dough.
- Baking soda and baking powder – In all my testing, I found that my favorite sugar cookies used a combination of baking soda and baking powder. Cookies made with only baking soda are chewy but thinner (see my coconut sugar cookies). Meanwhile, just baking powder yields a thicker, more cakey cookie. The combination of the two was just right for these bakery-style sugar cookies.
- Butter – I use unsalted butter. Bring the butter to room temperature before you start. If you forget, microwave it for 5 seconds at a time, turning a quarter turn after each interval, just until it’s softened but not melted. You can also slice the butter into thin slices and it’ll come to room temperature much more quickly.
- Granulated sugar and brown sugar – Brown sugar has more moisture than white granulated sugar because it contains molasses. I swapped out two tablespoons of white sugar for brown sugar in this sugar cookie recipe, and the results were fantastic. It makes a much softer and chewier cookie that stays fresh longer. It also adds a touch of extra flavor.
- Egg – Also at room temperature.
- Vanilla extract – Please use pure vanilla extract for your homemade sugar cookies, and not imitation vanilla. You’ll taste the difference.
How to Make Chewy Sugar Cookies
Follow along to make the best soft sugar cookies from scratch. Before you begin, preheat your oven to 350ºF and line your baking sheets, either with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
Whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
Cream the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes).
Mix in the egg and vanilla extract.
Add the dry ingredients and mix to form a thick dough.
Portion the dough into 1 ½ tablespoon-sized balls. Roll the dough balls in sugar.
Bake the cookies at 350ºF for 7-8 minutes, until they’re just set in the centers.
The cookies will look a bit puffed up when they leave the oven…
… And they’ll settle as they cool on the baking sheet.
How Long to Bake Sugar Cookies
Mine baked just enough at 7 minutes, but keep an eye on them to see how they do in your oven. I removed mine when they had spread nicely, looked just done enough without looking undercooked, and the edges weren’t quite golden. Don’t worry if the centers of the cookies are still quite soft; they will firm up as they cool.
Variations and Decorating Ideas
These make great holiday sugar cookies, but they’re also wonderful for everyday baking. Here are some of the many ways I’ve adapted this sugar cookie recipe over the years.
- Frosting: You can make simple decorated sugar cookies with royal icing or use vanilla buttercream frosting to follow my tutorial for rosette cookies.
- Sprinkles: If you’re looking to make sugar cookies for a holiday or an event, these cookies would be great rolled in sprinkles instead of sugar. See my Christmas sprinkle cookies. Use any color you like!
- Christmas: Make peppermint sugar cookies or turn these into Grinch cookies with green food coloring and red heart sprinkles.
- More flavors: Try my chocolate sugar cookies, strawberry sprinkle cookies, and lemon sugar cookies for fun flavor variations.
Tips for Chewy Sugar Cookies
- Make sure your butter is at the right temperature. Room temperature can be a little misleading if your house is too warm or too cool. Your butter shouldn’t be so soft that your finger goes right through it if you press on it, but it should also be able to make an imprint. If it won’t, or it barely does, it’s likely still too cold.
- Be sure to use just two tablespoons of brown sugar. It adds just enough additional moisture to the cookies to help them spread correctly and stay soft and chewy for days!
- Avoid overmeasuring. Measure the flour correctly using the spoon-and-level method or a digital kitchen scale for accuracy. Don’t scoop directly from the bag. You’ll end up adding too much, which makes the cookies dry.
- Don’t over-mix the dough after you add the flour. It can over-develop the gluten and cause the cookies not to spread as nicely or to be tough.
- Make sure your cookie dough balls are 1 ½ tablespoons each, or you’ll want to adjust the baking time. I also found this size to be just right for a perfect spread.
How to Store and Freeze
- Counter: Store these cookies on the counter in an airtight container for up to 4 days.
- Fridge: If you want to extend their shelf life, you can pop the container in the fridge. The cookies will keep in the fridge for up to 7 days.
- Freezer: These cookies freeze nicely too! Just let the baked cookies come to room temperature, then pack them in a Ziploc bag and freeze them. Thaw them in the fridge or on the counter when you’re ready to eat them.
More Classic Cookie Recipes
Easy Sugar Cookies
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Ingredients
- 2 ¾ cups (358g) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (224g) unsalted butter (room temperature)
- 1 cup + 2 tbsp (233g) granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons (28g) light brown sugar (packed)
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ¼ cup (52g) granulated sugar (additional for rolling)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside.
- Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a medium sized bowl and set aside.
- Cream the butter and sugars together in a large mixer bowl on medium speed until light in color and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. You should be able to see the change in color happen and know it’s ready.
- Add the egg and mix until well combined.
- Add the vanilla extract and mix until well combined.
- Add the dry ingredients and mix until the dough is well combined. It will be thick and shouldn’t be sticky. Do not over mix. Once it’s well combined, use a rubber spatula to help it come together to form a more cohesive ball.
- Create 1 ½ tablespoon sized balls of cookie dough. Gently roll into a ball, then roll each ball in the additional sugar to coat. Set the balls on the baking sheet.
- Bake cookies for 7-8 minutes. The cookies will spread and the centers will look soft, but should look done. Remove just before the edges begin to turn golden. Don’t over bake. The cookies will be a little puffy when you take them out of the oven but will fall a bit as they cool.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool on baking sheets for 4-5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
The nutrition facts provided are calculated using a third-party tool and are estimates only. Actual nutritional content may vary based on the ingredients and brands you use, as well as portion sizes. For accurate results, please consult a registered dietitian or nutritionist.
Categories:
Christmas, Cookies, Easter, Holidays, Recipes, Recipes with video, Sweets and Treats, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day,
Loved the cookies! Easy to make and came out just like the pictures. I used 1/2 tsp of almond extract and reduced the vanilla to 1 1/2 tsp simply because I like almond in sugar cookies. I didn’t roll in sugar because I wanted to put some frosting on them. Plan on giving then away so wanted to make them a little more decorative. Thank u for the recipe!
So glad you enjoyed them!
Excellent recipe! They didn’t fall very much but the flavor and texture was perfect. I’m glad I took your advice and spooned the flour – makes a world of difference.
So glad you enjoyed them!
I had some similar issues as others. My cookies didn’t spread much and took longer than 7-8 mins to cook. They took about 11 minutes to bake through, and that made the bottoms more well done than I would’ve liked.
Ovens really can vary. I’ve had several and have seen the differences. If the cookies didn’t spread and remained thick, that could be why they took longer to bake. As far as not spreading, it could be your oven or it could be that an ingredient wasn’t measured properly, typically it’s the flour. You could check out my post on how to properly measure flour or (if you don’t think that’s the issue), you could try these cookie sheets. They do a great job and help with spread. I hope that helps!
I’ve never had the bakery sugar cookies because I’m allergic to wheat, so I had to adjust the recipe to uses gf flour and they turned out tasty. I had to play around with the flour quantity. I used the full amount of gf flour by weight suggested for wheat flour and added 40g of almond flour. I can see tweaking it a little more next time I bake, but these were tasty as it. I used Cup4Cup gf flour blend, I would imagine a different blend would need adapting as well. Good luck. Thanks for the recipe. I still look at wheat ones, I often find that wheat recipes that are adapted better than gf ones.
The worst sugar cookie recipe known to man. 8 minutes is nowhere near long enough to bake the cookies. They were absolutely raw and mushy.
That seems a bit dramatic. This recipe has hundreds of amazing reviews. It sounds like you simply needed to bake the cookies a touch longer, which happens since ovens can vary.
You are aware that the baking times in ANY recipe may vary based on your oven, altitude, etc. and YOU as the baker should use common sense to know if they need a little longer before taking them out….?! Seriously
These cookies are so soft and delicious. Taking them to work tomorrow and I. Sure they’ll be gobbled up%
Glad you enjoyed them!
Hello, I am wanting to try out this recipe. For the flour do you recommend spoon and level? Thank you in advance.
I actually have a post about measuring flour. I prefer using a food scale, because it’s most accurate. But without a food scale, spoon and level is best.
Delish! This will be my new go-to recipe for soft sugar cookies. I had some leftover butter buttercream frosting from a cake I made so I skipped the rolling them in sugar and frosted them instead. SOOOO GOOOOD
I’m so glad you enjoyed them!
My dough is really crumbly and dry… can I save it?
You could try adding a touch of milk.
They came out amazing! This is about my tenth time using this recipe and it comes out great every time. This recipe is so easy to follow.
Awesome! So glad you enjoy them!
Love it
I’m intending to decorate sugar cookies, but I just genuinely prefer soft and chewy sugar cookies. Could I roll the dough out and use shaped cutters like with harder sugar cookies?
These cookies spread in the oven, so they aren’t ideal for cutouts. I do have a soft cut out cookie recipe, if you’d like to check that out.
Been using this recipe for a while now!! A really perfect base recipe for lots of cookies. I add an extra half stick of butter to make them soft and use cinnamon, ginger, and a tiny bit of cayenne throughout to make what I call “ginger-doodles”.
I’m so glad you enjoy them!
OMG! I needed a sugar cookie recipe for my son’s birthday party this weekend. He has a friend with a peanut allergy. I chilled the dough overnight so I could bake before the party, which I think because of this, it took over 10 mins. But my other said, “why did you make sugar cookies? No one eats sugar cookies.” After they came out of the oven and cooled, he tried them and ate 2 of them and said, “these are the best cookies you have ever made.” They ended up being a huge hit at the party! So soft and so chewy! Thanks! The whole batch was eaten and it’s been requested that I make more!
Wonderful! So glad to hear that!
This is the only sugar cookie recipe I use I absolutely LOVEE this recipe
Awesome! So glad to hear that!
Just made these with my daughters and realized we added too much flour. Thought the recipe meant 2 cups plus 3/4 cup. But I’m assuming it means 1.5 cups (3/4 +3/4). Very confusing.
No, it’s 2 cups plus 3/4 cup. It’s standard to write 2 3/4 cups, just like math and fractions. It wouldn’t make sense to write two 3/4 cups and make people do the math.
Since you thought you added too much flour but really didn’t, how did the cookies turn out
Not the person you replied to but when I made my first batch it was crumbly like sand and I had to squish the dough to make cookies 🥴 I’ve read some comments that say to just use 2 cups of flour so I’m going to try that
Yea, it definitely sounds like the flour was over-measured. You can certainly reduce the flour, but a food scale will be most accurate and takes the guessing out of it. They often carry them at grocery stores, Walmart, etc. – and it makes such a difference.