Best Sugar Cookie Recipe EVER
This is the BEST sugar cookie recipe– no chilling the dough, cookies keep their shape when baked, soft and flavorful, perfect for decorating.
Every year millions of people print this Best Sugar Cookie Recipe EVER from In Katrina’s Kitchen. I have been using this recipe for over 25 years, and it has never failed me.
The texture is medium-soft, but you can bake them longer if you prefer a crisp cookie. This cookie is my absolute favorite, and I have spent many years perfecting it for friends and family.
Why is This the BEST Sugar Cookie Recipe?
The dough comes together quickly with simple pantry ingredients.
It does NOT need to be chilled.
The recipe can be doubled easily.
Cookies hold their shape with very little expanding when baked.
Baked cookies freeze well.
The recipe I am giving you makes a large batch of dough because I like to bake many cookies. Also, I like to roll and cut my cookies fairly thick…to hold a lot of frosting.
Incorporating the last cup of flour may look dry and look crumbly. Turn out the dough onto your countertop and work with wet hands and/or more flour until the dough is smooth and ready to roll.
Most asked Q and A about this Recipe
The dough is sticky and/or crumbly. What can I do?
- The final dough really comes together and has a texture close to Play-Doh. Wet your hands if you need to. Turn out the dough onto a floured surface. Don’t be afraid to use more flour and incorporate it in while you are “kneading” it into a smooth ball.
- Forget everything you know about sugar cookie dough. Don’t be afraid of sprinkling more flour as you roll it out. Use the scraps! Mix them back into the unused dough and keep going.
Can I chill the dough? I want to chill the dough. Actually, I need to make these 3 days in advance, is that okay?
- If you need to make the dough in advance, you can chill it. Wrap it tightly with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator.
- Bring the dough to room temperature before rolling and cutting. You may need to use more flour on the countertop.
The cookies look under-baked. Can I bake them longer?
- I almost always suggest pulling out these cookies and the 8-9 minute mark for large cookie cutters, and 6-8 minutes for small cookie cutters. They will continue baking on the cookie sheet for a few minutes while they cool and set.
- After cooling for about 5 minutes, I use a spatula to transfer them to a wire rack.
Can I omit the almond extract?
- You can omit the almond extract.
- If not using almond extract, replace it with an equal amount of pure vanilla extract.
- You can use any of your favorite flavorings in this cookie. I have used peppermint, maple, and lemon with great success.
How Do I Make these Cookies Gluten-Free?
- To make these the best gluten-free Sugar Cookie, swap out the flour for your favorite gluten-free 1:1 flour.
- I use King Arthur Flour Measure for Measure Flour
What is your favorite Christmas Cookie Frosting Recipe?
- I’m happy you asked! I like a soft, sweet frosting. Here is my favorite Christmas Cookie Frosting.
- Click here for my Small Batch Royal Icing recipe (it dries smooth and hard and is perfect for holding together gingerbread houses, too!).
I hope you love this Best Sugar Cookie recipe as much as our family does! Merry Christmas!
Best Sugar Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 Cup unsalted butter, 226 grams
- 1 Cup granulated white sugar, 200 grams
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 1 egg
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 cups all purpose flour, 360 grams
Instructions
- PREHEAT oven to 350° F.
- In the bowl of your mixer, CREAM butter and sugar until smooth, at least 3 minutes
- BEAT in extracts and egg.
- In a separate bowl, COMBINE baking powder and salt with flour and add a little at a time to the wet ingredients.
- IMPORTANT NOTE: If the dough looks crumbly keep mixing for 30 seconds to 1 minute longer. The dough should be pulling away from the sides of the mixer.
- If the dough still looks too dry or stiff for your mixer, turn out the dough onto a countertop surface, flour surface as needed. Wet your hands and finish off kneading the dough by hand.
- DO NOT CHILL THE DOUGH. Divide into workable batches (2-3 chunks), roll out onto a floured surface, and cut. You want these cookies to be on the thicker side (closer to 1/4 inch rather than 1/8).
- Bake at 350 for 6-8 minutes. Let cool on the cookie sheet until firm enough to transfer to a cooling rack.
Notes
Nutrition
Troubleshooting Best Sugar Cookie Recipe
Scooping and dumping your flour may be the problem! Even with level scooping measurements can vary. Try getting a digital kitchen scale and adding your ingredients by weight.
If your cookies seem to consistently need a longer or shorter baking time consider calibrating your oven with an oven thermometer.
Bake with a silicone mat or parchment paper.
Invest in a small metal cookie spatula to transfer cookies.
If left on the counter top for about an hour your butter should be the right consistency- a finger pressed onto the butter will make a slight indent but not sink down into it. (Read more about room temperature butter in this post about XL Bakery Style Cookies.)
Whenever a recipe calls for room temperature butter you should use room temperature eggs. To take the chill off of eggs I place them in a shallow bowl of warm (not hot) water for 2-3 minutes. You can then crack them for use in your recipe.
Looking for more Christmas Cookies?
Try my Christmas Cookie archive for some of the most adorable and delicious Christmas cookies.
Some of my favorites are Grinch Cookies and Ugly Christmas Sweater Sugar Cookie Bars.
For something different, try Christmas Tree Meringue Cookies.
1,237 Comments on “Best Sugar Cookie Recipe EVER”
I halved this recipe because I didn’t want all those cookies hanging around. They are really good cookie but wasn’t sure if I should’ve softened my butter or not. I did soften it a bit in the microwave for 12 sec. Maybe it was just supposed to be room temperature. Anyway batter was great but after cutting it with the cookie cutter I couldn’t pick them up. They had gotten too soft. Luckily they were cut on top of aluminum foil so I just transferred but had to scrap away the uncut parts to roll out again into handmade shapes.
This recipe made the perfect Christmas cookies. They kept their cut out shape perfectly while staying soft and tasted very good! Will definitely make again next Christmas.
I’ve made these for a few years now, and they are my tried and true “go to” recipe when I need quick, perfect, and delicious sugar cookies! Just made this yesterday when I learned I had an hour before an unexpected guest dropped by to our Christmas campfire. The cookies turned out great and looked beautiful…. I’m sorry to say I cannot say the same for my kitchen. Since we were outside- the state of my kitchen shall remain my little secret -lol!
These came out really good! Thanks for sharing. I want to share a picture. Some reason I can’t sad face.
These cookies are wonderful! They are everything as stated. The cookie itself isn’t overly sweet so these are perfect for decorating with royal icing. Thank you for an awesome recipe!
Hi, can I just use normal butter like clover instead if Unsalted butter? X
I always do because I never have unsalted on hand! Comes out great still.
These were great !!
Last min I don’t have to three day chilled dough?
I want make sugar cookies tomorrow.
I was so excited when I put these cookies in the oven, the cookies kept their shape and when I made the dough it was super soft! But when I took a bite…… it tasted like freaking pizza! It didn’t taste nothing like a cookie or dessert.
this recipe is wonderful!!! at first i thought it wouldn’t turn out the way i wanted it to since it did not go in the fridge. although, i was wrong! the dough was kinda crumbly at first, but then i used cookie cutters and they stayed in their shapes. i would recommend maybe thickening the cookie dough if you are using cutters, because the thicker the cookies were, the better they cooked and tasted. would 100% recommend!
Can I not use almond extract
I’m TERRIBLE at baking, but these cookies were perfect!!! Thank you for your recipe!!
Best sugar recipe I’ve tried. Thanks for sharing.
These truly ARE the best! I honestly didn’t expect these to be so easy AND tasty AND not “spread”. They’re amazing.
Amazing!! 🎅🎅🎄🎄❤❤❤
Gave this three stars for short list of ingredients and simplicity of prep.
I wanted to like this recipe but can’t. Not sure what i did wrong. followed everything to a T. No subs, no additions.
it was too crumbly and dry and just wouldn’t hold together.
Have never made sugar cookies before and i bake cakes, pies, cookies once or twice a month. i’ve never had a recipe fail like this one.
i even tried chilling the dough for a bit. no go.
sorry.
Why does mine feel like dough but look sugary ???
Does the egg and butter need to be at room temperature?
This is the third time I’ve made this recipe. The cookies turn out perfect every single time. I have seen a few people post about it being crumbly—knead it by hand for 30sec to a minute and the dough with come together. You can also wet your hands to add just a bit of moisture back to the dough. Seriously, these are some of the best sugar cookies! Thank you!
Thank you for this recipe. My 7yo was determined to make cut-out cookies. The dough was easy to make, roll, and cut. The shape maintained well after baking and had a great flavor. This will be my go-to recipe in the future.
Never mind… I literally tried what you said in the recipe: wet my hands put it on my counter and started rolling it with my rolling pin and it came together! I’m looking forward to seeing how they taste. The looks were definitely deceiving, I thought for sure it was going to be too dry to pull together
I have made these for the past 3 years and they always come out perfectly!
Awesome batter never found one so easy an good. Thank you for your post
How do you fix if it’s too dry?
Helllpppp!!!! I’m making this right now and it’s sooo crumbly ! I followed the recipe but I’m not sure why it won’t pull together! What should I add? I feel I need more liquid!?
how many eggs???
1 egg
so crumbly, wouldn’t stick together and not soft enough. probably calls for way to much flour
i had the same problem.
Tried this recipe and it was a hit. Instructions were easy to follow
I had to make more
That my daughter and friends at work said it was delicious
These truly are the best. I needed a recipe that would yield a decent amount of cookies, then I doubled the batch. It was exhausting but I spent an entire day rolling, cutting, baking, and frosting these to gift out to family and friends…they could not get enough. I made 90+ cookies and it still wasn’t enough. I myself couldn’t stop eating them that I had to make a third batch the next day. The tip about baking them for a short time, then letting them sit 5 minutes yields the softest of cookies. The flavor was perfect too, my great grandmother always put almond in her sugar cookies, so I was happy to see that in the recipe. I made a traditional royal icing, I had some fun there and made different flavors: cinnamon, lemon, and vanilla butternut. I added sprinkles to color code the flavors and it took these cookies to the next level. This is now my go to recipe for sugar cookies, so thank you. Also, I may have been forced to split half the butter for margarine on the third batch and they still turned out perfectly!
First time making sugar cookies from scratch and I’m so happy to have found this recipe!! The directions were so easy to follow and the cookies cut out perfectly!!
OMG! i just want to thank you for your AWESOME cookie recipe! I have struggled with other sugar cookie recipes chilling the dough and driving me crazy as the dough is hard to work with, not even mentioning living in Australia the heat at Christmas just works against making sugar cookies. But no more! your dough came together with ease and so beautiful to work with, honestly was so stoked how easy it was, the icing on the cookie was how dam delish this are! LOVE LOVE LOVE them! thank you for sharing, i will be making them ever year now and look forward to sharing them with my family. Merry Christmas!
This recipe was quick easy and amazing! I followed the recipe to the T and placed the dough between two pieces of wax paper and rolled them out perfectly with no additional flour needed then what I used to make the dough! The flavor was perfect and everyone loved these cookies!!
cool
I do not enjoy baking but had to bring cookies to a kids Christmas party. I found these and made them and they were a hit! They were so good the the moms saved some with plans of decorating more the next day with the children and ended up eating them with their coffee. I had to leave the kitchen because I couldn’t stop eating them. They were perfect.
These really are the best cookies and so easy to roll out and cut. I almost decided not to make sugar cookies this year but then remembered how well this recipe worked for me last Easter.
LOVE this recipe. I just took the cookies out of the oven and they are beautiful. I am new to sugar cookies and was afraid it to be lots of work. This recipe and tips sure made it a fun adventure. Can’t wait to make the icing and finish them up.