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,
This recipe looks delicious. I am planning on making a spiraled cooking for Christmas (with plain, green, a red “layers”). I usually use a recipe for cutout sugar cookies when I do this, but I love the idea of the cookies being softer and chewier. Do you think this recipe would work for that, or do you think the extra working in of the food coloring and rolling out the layers would make it too tough? Thanks!
Gosh, hard to say. I’m not sure that the cookies would work as well. Because you slice and bake a spiral cookie like that, they may spread a good bit more. I’m just not sure without trying it.
These cookies are amazing! I did have the sane problem with mine nit spreading but I didn’t weigh my flour, but I didn’t mind, easy fix to flatten them. I will make these again my family LOVED these cookies.
Can you use self-rising flour with this recipe? If you don’t have plain flour? Also I only have salted butter? I want to make these now. Please telling me how?
You can use salted butter, you will just want to leave out the additional salt. But self raising flour would give you a different result. I’m not exactly sure how much leavener is in the flour so it would be hard to tell you how to adjust for it.
I just made these the other day & for some reason my cookies came out very flat which made them bake too close to each other . They tasted great , they were just flat as paper. Do you know why they came out flat ? I followed the recipe
It’s really hard to say. It could be not enough flour or too much butter, etc. If you made the cookie balls larger than 1.5 tablespoons they can also spread too much. It’s hard to say for sure without seeing everything but hopefully that helps.
I’ve just made this recipe and i have a couple of suggestions. First, these cookies are amazingly wonderful. Could you perhaps say what size grade the egg you use is? For example, i used a jumbo egg (thought i picked up some medium sized ones but alas). Perhaps that accounts for some difference in recipe results. For example i had to use about a tbsp more flour to make the right dough texture. Also, i wasn’t sure at first how large to make the raw cookie balls before baking. One place says 1.5 tbsp and one place says 1.5 inches. I have never really been good at sizing the raw cookie but i think those are vastly different measurements. My first batch was 4 cookies that are huge and took about 15 minutes to bake…though they did work fine other than that. The second batch i used a bit more than half the raw dough per cookie and those seem to be sized correctly, though i did still bake them about 9 minutes. I love the shimmery sugared surface and the delightful texture. I also added 1 tsp cinnamon, 2/3 tsp nutmeg and 1/2 tsp ground cloves, and its amazing. Enjoy and thanks so much.
I’m sorry, I thought egg size was in there but I’ve updated it. It should be a large egg, which is pretty standard.
Number 7 says 1.5 tablespoons, which is the correct size. Where do you see 1.5 inches?
I’m glad you enjoyed them!
So glad you’re enjoying this recipe Lindsay! Your husband is lucky to have a wife who preps extra for him
Could you please tell he how much 1 cup of butter is in grams.
Thank you
224g
Today I baked these cookies for the first time. The granbabes are2 1/2 & 4 out. To save time and messy clean up I peeped all of ingredients. Yummy & fun
i’m confused. I followed the recipe to the letter and still ended up with sticky dough at the end. I even got rid of my first batch thinking I did It wrong, tried again and ended up with the same result.
tastes good though, I just don’t understand how I screwed up an extremely straightforward recipe.
It’s hard for me to see if you actually did something wrong or not. The dough can be a little bit sticky so it may have been OK.
Tried twice with no success. I think we are missing milk.
Nope! There is not any milk needed in this recipe. If your dough was dry it is because you added too much flour or not enough of something else.
I baked these cookies for the first time. They came out so delicious! I added some white chocolate morsels which just complimented the cookie. I am baking a batch today for a Christmas party. Don’t think you can just eat one 😀
I’m so glad you enjoyed them! The white chocolate chips sound great!
Is there anyway you can make a video making this recipe?
I have one on YouTube actually. You can find it here – https://youtu.be/txw2zaUW9UA
Lindsay, I had my doubts but these sugar cookies are the best sugar cookies I haver had. My play niece and I made them along with traditional sugar cookies and chocolate chip with M&Ms, I kept eating these. They didn’t spread out that well but i didn’t read the part that said stir the flour and then measure it. I’ll try it again but these are a winner my friend!!
Wonderful! I’m so glad you enjoyed them!
Outstanding sugar cookie recipe! I ran out of vanilla at 1.5 teaspoons so used 0.5 teaspoons of almond extract, really tasty and not overwhelming almond. Stayed soft and the brown sugar gives them a lovely depth of flavor. Rolled in colored sugars, jimmies, etc., for holiday and so easy and pretty. Thank you!!!
Awesome! I’m so glad you enjoyed them!
What is the size of the finished cookie (diameter)? I’m trying to decide if these are large enough for a second grade class to decorate or if they are too small.
I’d say they are between two and 3 inches wide.
Do you include the 1/4 cup sugar at the bottom or is that for rolling?
The fourth cup of sugar listed at the bottom of the ingredients is for rolling, as indicated in the parentheses. The sugar listed higher up in the ingredients goes in the cookies.
Hi, I’m 9 years old and when I get older I hope to be a professional baker. Today I made these cookies with my mom and they were fantastic!!! We followed the recipe exactly including weighing the flour with a scale.
So glad you enjoyed them!