Everyone needs an Easy Sugar Cookies Recipe! These are literally melt-in-your-mouth delicious and our go-to sugar cookie dough. It is perfect for decorating Christmas sugar cookies.
We love festive holiday treats like melt-in-your-mouth Snowball Cookies, soft Chocolate Chip Cookies, and of course Baklava. These beautifully decorated sugar cookies are a beautiful addition to the Christmas cookie platter.
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My name is Natalya and I run a food blog Momsdish. I love simple dishes that use minimal ingredients. During the holidays, I love baking but I hate making messes. This recipe for sugar cookies gives me the best of both worlds — perfect cookies and an easy clean-up. I’m so excited to share this recipe with you!
Sugar Cookies
Whether you are planning a cookie making party for the holidays or whipping up a batch for a friend’s birthday, you need a sugar cookie recipe that you can rely on. These cookies taste amazing, keep their shape and are perfect for eating plain or decorated with frosting and sprinkles. Let’s get started!
Tips For The Best Sugar Cookies:
Sugar cookies may seem simple, but there are a lot of bad recipes out there! After much trial and error, I feel confident that I have mastered the art of the sugar cookie. Here are all the best tips and tricks I have gathered throughout the years:
Rolling Out Sugar Cookies Dough
Roll your dough out directly on a silicone baking mat or piece of parchment paper so you do not have to transfer your delicate shapes onto a baking sheet later. You can cut your shapes out right atop the mat and make your life a bit easier.
How Thick Should Sugar Cookies be Rolled Out?
Roll your dough out to about ¼-inch thick. This is the sweet spot. You’ll have cookies thick enough to keep their shape, while also thin enough to promote even baking.
Avoid Crumbly Dough
Crumbly dough makes for misshapen cookies that are prone to uneven baking. To prevent this, don’t overmix your dough. You want the dough to be as smooth as possible. However, if you do get a crumbly texture, add ½ tbsp of water, or milk to the batter and incorporate it until it remoistens the dough.
Avoid Overbaking
10 minutes might seem like a very short baking time for cookies. But, trust me, do not overbake them! At around 10 minutes, the edges of the cookies should just start to turn golden brown. This is the time to pull them! If you continue baking, you risk compromising that signature tenderness of a perfect sugar cookie.
Storing Sugar Cookies
The great part about this recipe is that it can be made a couple of days in advance and the cookies will still retain their freshness. Below, I will share how you should store them and also how you can freeze your dough or baked cookies for later munching!
Storing Cookies at Room Temperature:
Store baked sugar cookies on the counter in an airtight container. They will keep for up to a week. Remember, if you have decorated your cookies, it is best to store them between layers of parchment paper to prevent sticking and/or destroying your designs.
Freezing Baked Sugar Cookies:
To freeze baked sugar cookies, first, make sure that you allow them to cool completely. Then, stack the cookies in an airtight container between layers of parchment paper. Freeze cookies for up to 2 months. When you are ready to eat them, allow them to thaw in the fridge overnight.
How to Freeze Sugar Cookie Dough:
To freeze your sugar cookie dough, roll it into a ball or a log. Wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and store it in an airtight container or freezer bag. The dough will keep for up to 2 months before you need to use it. When you are ready to bake, allow the dough to thaw in the refrigerator overnight. Then, make sure it reaches room temperature before you shape your cookies and bake them.
How to Make Sugar Cookies
- First, you will combine your flour, baking powder and salt together in a small bowl and set the dry mixture aside.
- Using a stand-up or handheld mixer, beat your butter, sugar and vanilla extract together until smooth and creamy.
- Slowly beat flour into the butter mixer until it is fully incorporated.
- Divide the dough into two equal parts and roll out each piece to ¼-inch thickness.
- Use a cookie cutter to cut out your favorite shapes or freeze your dough for later use.
- Bake the cookies and allow them to cool.
- Decorate the cookies as you please or gobble them up plain!
How to Decorate Sugar Cookies:
To decorate sugar cookies, you can make your own homemade royal icing which makes a great sugar cookie icing, add food coloring, then pipe it on with a squeeze bottle or little zip bags (handy and inexpensive for cookie decorating parties), or you can purchase an icing decorating kit with pre-made frostings in a variety of colors which makes it really easy. Don’t forget the Christmas sprinkles and crushed candy canes.
More Holiday Cookie Recipes
These are our best-loved (and reviewed) Christmas cookies to fill up your holiday cookie platters. These are well-loved by all ages and you’re sure to find some new favorites in this list. Looking for more Christmas recipes and inspiration? Check out our Christmas archives here.
- Almond Snowball Cookies
- Meringue Shell Cookies
- Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
- Soft Gingerbread Cookies
- Madeleine Cookies
- Meringue Shell Cookies
Easy Sugar Cookies Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg, (large)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 cups all-purpose flour, (measured correctly)
- 1 Tbsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 °F with a rack in the center. Whisk together flour with baking powder and salt in a small bowl and set aside.
- Using a stand-up or handheld mixer, beat the butter together with sugar. To the mixture add vanilla extract and egg and beat to combine.
- To the butter mixture, add flour in 3 parts until fully incorporated.
- Divide the dough into two equal parts. On a lightly floured surface, roll into ¼-inch thickness. Use a cookie cutter to cut out your favorite shapes.
- Bake cookies on a parchment or silicone-lined baking sheet at 350˚F for 10 minutes, or until the edges are just beginning to turn golden.
- Let the cookies cool for about 5 minutes on the baking sheet before moving them to a wire rack to cool completely and decorating with cookie icing.
Nutrition Per Serving
If you make this recipe, I’d love to see pics of your creations on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter! Hashtag them #natashaskitchen
Natalya Drozhzhin
Hi! I'm Natasha Kravchuk. Here you'll find delicious, trusted recipes with easy step-by-step photos and videos. 
Hi! Can this dough be converted into rolled balls instead of rolling out with a rolling pin?
You can, but they will not flatten and you may need to adjust the baking time.
If you want to just put sprinkles or colored sugar on them should you do that before or after baking?
Hi Sami! I have not tried baking these with sprinkles, so I don’t know which sprinkles are best to use and how they will hold up in the high heat. I don’t know how the sprinkles would adhere to these once they are baked without applying frosting.
Hi Natasha! Your recipes are always fantastic. I was wondering if these cookies can be frozen.
Hi Jennifer. They sure can! See my notes above in the blog post on how to store these in the freezer.
Hi! I haven’t tried this recipe but plan to. Could I sub honey for the sugar?
I haven’t tested that but I think it could work. If you experiment, let me know how you liked the recipe
I made these and they were delicious!
Can I use this same recipe and add cocoa powder to make them chocolate? Have you tried it? Or do you have a recipe for cut-out chocolate sugar cookies?
I’m glad you love it! I have not tested this recipe by adding cocoa powder so I cannot really advise. If you do an experimet, we’d love to know how it goes!
Oh wow! This is a wonderful cookie recipe! So easy to make. Making this for Christmas. I just made very very small modifications but nothing changed. So soft, yummy! Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!
Cookies came out delicious! Thank you for sharing!
I don’t bake very well…. I’ve made these twice and they’ve come out awesome. Can’t even say first time was beginners luck!
Great job! Keep up the amazing work, Patricia!
Is it better to chill the cutout shapes before baking to help the cookie hold the shape?
Hi Mary, you could if you’d like, but there is very little to no spread with this cookie recipe so chilling is not required, they hold their shape very well.
Cookies came out wonderfully!!! These are light, airy, and tasty. My fist time making shaped sugar cookies. My shapes did hold well, but some cookies came out flat and even and some of them came out kind of puffy. What did I do wrong?
Hi Emily! It’s hard to say exactly workout being there. Some common causes are uneven heat distribution (hot and cold spots in the oven) causing uneven baking. I highly recommend investing in an Internal oven thermometer (Amazon affiliate link) to check and see how your oven is heating. It may help to rotate the pans every now and then during the baking process. Be sure to space your cookies so there is room for air to circulate in between, you don’t want to over crowd the pan. Lastly, cream/beat the butter and sugar well in step 2 to ensure even distribution of fat/sugar in the cookie batter. It will look chunky and gritty if it’s under-mixed. I hope that helps.
Great recipe was so easy and came together perfect I added a touch of peppermint so delicious thanks for the recipe
Merry Christmas
Hi Tammie, I am so happy to hear that. Merry Christmas!
Do you have to use a standup mixer? All I have is a handheld mixer.
Hi Bethany, yes, this will work with a handheld mixed. See this note in the recipe: “Using a stand-up or handheld mixer” I hope this helps! Merry Christmas!
Hi. I am gonna be doing these with my kids. Can self rising flour be used? Hope you can answer soon
Hi Annette, I have only tested these with all purpose flour. Generally, for many recipes, you can substitute self-rising flour with little other adjustments. However, for sugar cookies, you’ll want to use just all purpose flour.
Hi Natasha! Do you have an icing recipe for these cookies that you love? I have read and re-read your recipe and I don’t see anything specific (besides the Amazon links). Thank you!
Hi Lauren! I do not, I used premade Royal icing.
Hi
I just wanted to say Thank you for sharing your recipe!
I think it’s sad that some people can’t appreciate recipes and just cut them down. Sugar cookies are so good, but you need to frost them to get the full flavorful results. Most that cut down recipes make errors with their ingredients, I admit I have been guilty at that myself, but I learned from my mistakes and try the recipe again, it usually works. Nobody is perfect, so don’t cut down recipes that people take their time sharing with us. Plus, everyone’s taste buds are different so keep that in mind. Be Thankful!
Thank you again.
Merry Christmas!
Thank you for your kind works, Tammy! Happy Holidays.
OMG they really are easy to make, making for two young girls to decorate