chewy sugar cookies
These soft chewy sugar cookies have a crunchy sugared exterior and a perfectly chewy interior! No fancy steps & only 1 hour chilling stand between you and the best sugar cookies.
These easy soft and chewy sugar cookies are anything but plain. Perfectly crisp on the outside, chewy in the centers with the sweet flavor of vanilla throughout and a crunchy sugar topping, I dare you to eat just one.
While you’re baking, you should absolutely join me in a sugar cookie marathon! Let’s bake lemon cookies and cut out sugar cookies too! All chewy, soft and fantastic in their own way. I also love these frosted sugar cookies. They are cakey and epicly delicious!
Table of contents
Why This is My Favorite Sugar Cookie Recipe
- It’s EASY. This is always my goal when developing recipes — to find that perfect balance between a functional recipe and an easy one. I think we’ve nailed it here.
- The perfect texture. Crunchy sugar topping with a soft, chewy inside! Trust me when I say, it’s pure cookie bliss.
- Very short chilling required. I also love that we only need to refrigerate the dough for 1 hour, as opposed to overnight or even longer in some cases. To me, I just can’t wait that long for a cookie, ya know?
Tips for Baking the Best Sugar Cookies
- Always use the scoop-and-sweep method when measuring your dry ingredients! We want the ingredient amounts to be as accurate as possible here so the end result is the cookie of our wildest dreams.
- Use a cookie scoop to help shape the cookies and to scoop out the correct amount. I love to use this cookie scoop when making these cookies.
- Don’t overbake the cookies! We bake these cookies until they’re just barely baked through, even a little underbaked in the centers, so that as they cool they finish baking but retain that glorious chew. This is also why we let the cookies cool directly on the baking sheet for a few minutes — the residual heat from the baking sheet continues to lightly bake the cookies, but they’ll also firm up a bit more so you can transfer them more easily to a cooling rack.
How to Make Chewy Sugar Cookies
Before I get into the whys of what makes these chewy sugar cookies so awesome, let’s talk about the hows — as in, how to make the best sugar cookies of your life.
There are a few factors here that make these cookies extra chewy: we refrigerate the dough for 1 hour, which will help keep the cookies from spreading too quickly in the oven. Along with that, we roll the dough into fairly large balls, which also helps them bake a little more slowly in the oven, thereby ensuring that chewy center.
There are a lot of factors at play when it comes to making the chewiest cookies possible, but I’ve found in the case of these sugar cookies that the ingredients and ratios here yield a cookie with a sweet, delicate sugar-vanilla flavor with a perfectly crisp edge and chewy center.
That’s it! Now go forth, bake the best chewy sugar cookies of your life, and treat yo self this Valentine’s Day.
P.S. Need a last-minute dinner idea for tonight? Might I suggest this Creamy Rigatoni with Sausage and Fennel, or this Saffron Risotto with Shrimp and Pistachios? Both go really well with sugar cookies, just sayin’.
If you enjoyed this recipe, please leave a star rating and let me know how it goes in the comments below! I love hearing from you and your comments make my day!
Chewy Sugar Cookies
Description
Ingredients
- 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
- 2 cups granulated sugar divided
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- Sparkling sugar for topping (optional)
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt until well combined.
- In a separate large bowl (using an electric hand mixer) or in the bowl of a stand mixer with paddle attachment, cream butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar on medium speed 3-4 minutes until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla.
- Slowly stir in dry ingredients just until a dough forms. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate dough 1 hour.
- Heat oven to 350F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Add remaining 1/2 cup sugar to a small bowl. Scoop and roll chilled dough into balls about 1 to 1 1/2 inches in diameter (about 1-2 tablespoons each). Roll each dough ball in sugar, then transfer to cookie sheet, spacing cookies about 2 inches apart (the dough balls might not all fit on one sheet; refrigerate whatever doesn’t fit until you’re ready to bake the second batch).
- Bake 9-11 minutes until cookies are just set in the centers and lightly golden on the edges. Remove cookies from oven; immediately sprinkle tops with sparkling sugar, if desired. Cool 5 minutes on baking sheet, then carefully transfer with a spatula to cooling rack to cool completely.
Notes
- Store in an airtight container at room temperature up to 5 days.
- Freeze fully baked and cooled cookies in an airtight container up to 3 months.
- You can store cookie dough in the refrigerator up to 24 hours before baking.
Hi Stephanie! Excited to try these and I love the feature to double the recipe. When I use that feature though it doesn’t adjust the instructions for the sugar, divided. If I double the sugar to 4 cups do I still reserve the same amount of 1/2 cup for rolling or would I reserve more (1 cup or 3/4 cup?).
Thanks so much!!
Ashley, If you double the recipe, you should also double the amount reserved for rolling, since you’ll have twice as much dough to work with. Hope that helps!!
I made these last week and I am making them again today. They are that good!
Amy, So glad! Thank you for the review + rating!
I did everything wrong and it still turned out delicious! Admittedly not a baker, I did a lot of things wrong here. Didn’t even let it chill the full hour. Forced some of the dough into cookie molds. Don’t have a cookie scooper. Topped some with Hershey Kisses. No matter what I did I couldn’t mess it up. Did everything in small batches so there would not be any major disasters. Highly recommend this recipe!
This is the best sugar cookie recipe I’ve ever tried! They’re insanely delicious, and they convert well to gluten-free and dairy-free. I crave them constantly!
Isabel, Thank you so much! Good to know it works well GF/DF!
These sugar cookies were absolutely perfect. Loved the flavor, texture and taste. SO good!