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
Butter questions
- It is most important to note that the butter does not have to be at room temperature. We do not recommend rock-hard butter but allow the butter to sit on the countertop for 10-15 minutes while you assemble your ingredients.
- If you can press your finger into the butter and you can easily make a deep indent then the butter is too soft.
- You should be able to press the butter and make a small fingerprint.
- A tip for mixing butter is to cut it into cubes (or just small pats) before creaming with the sugar.
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 it 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!).
- You could also try our Three Ingredient Chocolate Glaze
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. (PLEASE NOTE there is 1 egg in this recipe.)
- 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.
2,506 Comments on “Best Sugar Cookie Recipe EVER”
I haven’t made sugar cookies in over 20 years. The reason is it was a disaster. Nothing rolled out right when I finally got a cookie from the countertop to the cookie sheet it was distorted. Cookie swelled and stuck together. Just a plain old mess. I lost a bet with my husband so I had to make sugar cookies this Christmas. Your recipe is amazing. Only did the dough come together well it rolled out easily came off the countertop and onto the cookie sheets easily onto the cooling parchment. Let the decorating commence. Thank you for making this recipe available
Thank you so so much!
I started using this recipe a few years ago, and I’ve never looked back! Absolutely perfect sugar cookies. I use vanilla instead of almond, and add a glace icing. The only problem is that I can’t stop eating them! Thanks for the amazing recipe 🙂
I have been using this recipe for a couple of years now and it never fails me!! Cookies are always perfect and addictive when eating! I tend to use extra flour when rolling out and bake them for 8 minutes on 180 in a fan assisted oven (I’m in the UK). All in all, a fantastic recipe and I will keep baking these for years to come! Thank you for sharing 🙂
This is my go to sugar cookie recipe. I’m getting ready to make some Christmas cookies and was wondering if I could use margarine instead of butter?
Katrina, you have made me famous for my sugar cookies because of YOUR recipe! This is the ONLY recipe for sugar cookies anyone ever needs! The touch of almond is spot on! I also prefer mine thick, I usually only get a max of 10-12 cookies per batch…eek! Anyway, just wanted to say Thank You for sharing this gem with all of us!
I’ve made this cookie recipe for the last two years and I’m already looking forward to this year’s batch! The recipe does not disappoint – it’s simple to follow, doubles easily, and bakes into beautifully even cookies that maintain their edges and hold up well for royal icing. And you’re going to want to double it! I make these in large batches for holiday gifting. I’ve stored them in the freezer both undecorated and iced and they thaw well. I also mail them to family members. Each year I try a little something different – last year it was cardamom spiced cookies with an orange icing. This year I think I’m going for a boozy frosting. Really, it’s the perfect all purpose cutout cookie recipe!
Does this require cold butter or softened? Thanks!
Soft
“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…
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.”
its really good and tasty its just hard to make i love them
Hello,
Love this recepe!!! Can I bake cookies ahead and then freeze. Can’t decorate/eat them all right away. Have you ever froze them then thawed and decorated?
Yes these are great to feeeze and then decorate later.
The dough kept falling apart. It was very hard to cut out and transfer to the pan without it falling apart. Not sure what I did wrong. Other than I used a hand mixer because I don’t own a big one. Haven’t tasted them yet so we will see……
I’m planning on trying to make this recipe in the next couple days. I am not a baker and keep questioning should the butter be softened? I’m not sure if I missed it somewhere in the blog or not. I don’t see where it says to have softened butter?
“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…
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.”
For cookies, nearly always you’ll use softened butter.
Hi there! These are my go to sugar cookies, they are amazing and easy! Would you happen to know if adding food colouring to the dough would cause problems with the mixture? Not a baker lol
Yes you can add food colour to dough. Or just add it to your royal icing. Just don’t add too much or it will make the dough too wet. Try a gel based colour instead of the water base.
Hi! These look great! Wondering if I can decorate with the sprinkles before baking?
Thank you.
https://pin.it/688uSpJ
I made these yesterday and they were the best sugar cookie I have ever made . I deleted all my others . This is a keeper. Thank you.
Way too dry. Hard to work with while rolling them out because they kept breaking. Even after baking, they were way too fragile. And not that sweet. Not my favorite recipe.
Sugar cookies aren’t usually overly sweet as you decorate with royal icing which is very sweet. The two make a wonderful balance.
I make these every year with the Royal icing for Christmas and its a huge hit!
I usually double the recipe and hold back 1 cup of flour, then when kneading add it gradually until the texture feels right. I also use salted butter and omit the added salt with no issues.
My daughters have been baking and eating my sugar cookie recipes for over 25 years and said when I made these they were truly the best ones I ever made 🙂 wow that says something about this recipe for sure . Thanks Katerina for sharing this wonderful recipe !
By far the BEST Rolled Sugar Cookie I’ve ever made. I’ve been baking 50+ years and have tried so many recipes only to be disappointed. THIS. This recipe is absolutely perfect. No chilling, rolls out like a dream, bakes like a dream, and TASTE delicious. I’m going to wear this recipe out! First time I made it, I doubled and it made about 37 large cookies. Thank You!
Hi. I plan on trying your recipe today, could I use icing sugar to roll out cookies instead of flour??
Ty
Yes definitely!
Hey there! just a question in terms of storage – how long do these cookies taste fresh for and how should i store them with fondant ??
Can the cookies be frosted the next day?
Yes absolutely
After scouring the net for hours looking for a sugar cookie I came across this recipe that says no chilling needed. My first thought was “yeah right!” I’ve made tens of dozens of recipes in the past and ALL of them the dough had to be chilled to handle it. Well, skeptic that I am I made the dough and measured everything precisely as instructed. And the dough was too crumbly, so I wet my hands and kept turning the dough and wetting again and turning some more and next thing I knew, I had a perfect dough in my hands. I rolled out small portions, into about 1/4″ thick and made my cutouts. Popped them in the oven and 9 minutes later the edges were just browned. Took em out cooled them off…..now for the taste test. Let me just say, sugar cookies are hard to get right. They are usually too sugary, or taste like flour. Or just bland and have no taste. These however. Were crisp and slightly chewy. Perfect crumble. Held up to having A TON of Katrina’s Kitchen Sugar Cookie Frosting piped on em. Absolute win. Great tasting cookie. This is my new go to recipe!! Thank you Katrina for your recipe! It will be put into use ALOT!!!
This might be my favorite comment ever! Thank you for making my cookies.
After scouring the net for hours looking for a sugar cookie I came across this recipe that says no chilling needed. My first thought was “yeah right!” I’ve made tens of dozens of recipes in the past and ALL of them the dough had to be chilled to handle it. Well, skeptic that I am I made the dough and measured everything precisely as instructed. And the dough was too crumbly, so I wet my hands and kept turning the dough and wetting again and turning some more and next thing I knew, I had a perfect dough in my hands. I rolled out small portions, into about 1/4″ thick and made my cutouts. Popped them in the oven and 9 minutes later the edges were just browned. Took em out cooled them off…..now for the taste test. Let me just say, sugar cookies are hard to get right. They are usually too sugary, or taste like flour. Or just bland and have no taste. These however. Were crisp and slightly chewy. Perfect crumble. Held up to having A TON of Katrina’s Kitchen Sugar Cookie Frosting piped on em. Absolute win. Great tasting cookie. This is my new go to recipe!! Thank you Katrina for your recipe! It will be put into use ALOT!!!
This recipe is terrible. I had to put in an extra
1/2 cup of water just to get it to stick together.
I’m really struggling to envision what went wrong to need a half cup of water…? I hope you find a recipe that works for you though.
What on earth? I’ve been making these for several years now and the only issue I have ever had is having to add a little more flour or wet my hands to add to the dough. Did you maybe not sift or weigh your flour? If you just scoop and dump then you end up with far more flour than the recipe calls for. That’s with any baking recipe though.
Measuring error is my guess…
Great simple recipe! Yummy too.
Thanks for this! These cookies were easy to make, tasted great and did not stick when rolling out the dough. No need to try other recipes-this one’s it!
My family and I these cookies! I’m making a cookie cake with this recipe and have used up most of the dough for the round cookie (8 round) had some dough left spare to make 6 cookies on the side. How long do you recommend baking the cake for
(I like it soft and chewy vs on the harder side)
Hi Katrina, thank you for your great recipe.
I usually use 2 yolks for 200gr unsalted butter, its good until now.
Just only 1 egg, well save alot of money buying eggs (lol)
Oops. Previous comment mentioned I had to add 110g extra. In case you can’t read my mind, I meant flour. 110g extra of flour. So 470g flour. Sorry.
Hello. Thank you for sharing your recipe. I made it today (I’m a weigher) but had a bit of an issue with the dough. It was waaaaaaaaay too soft. Ended up adding an extra 110g and it was still really soft. The cookies baked up okay but I couldn’t transfer the cut outs to the baking tray individually, I had to cut the parchment that I’d rolled out, and get them on the tray like that. Did I do something wrong, or do you think the fact that it’s quite humid here (I’m in aus) at the moment, caused my butter to soften too much? Anyways, regardless, they taste good, so mission complete. Just wondered if anyone else had any trouble with flour ratio too. Thanks again.
Thank you for wasting my time, money and effort on this. Made dozens of varieties of cookies before, and yet either your recipe or instructions are very poor as they were followed to the letter and you end up with crumbly unusable dough. Really disappointing DO NOT recommend making these.
I’m confused. It says 3cup (360g) flour. I randomly decided to weigh the flour and used my 1 cup measuring cup to scoop into the bowl. I had 2 flat cups of flour and that measures 326g. So i went ahead and measured 3 cups of flour and it’s 472 grams. Which do I use?🙈
Oh wow. I just left a comment about this too. I always weigh my ingredients, as US ‘cups’ are different to Aus, and my dough was way too wet, so I ended up adding extra flour, totalling 470g. So very similar to your weighing of 3 cups. Mine turned out okay using 470, so I’d say go with that.
Could you use peppermint extract? Or would you not taste it? Don’t know anything about baking😂
Hello, is there any adjustment for high altitude? I live at 7000 ft. These look and sound delicious!
My cookies taste amazing but they spread quite a bit. Why do they look really yellow?
I will never bake another sugar cookie again. My family loves these.
Amazing recipe. Tastes great and is very easy and quick.
Love these cookies. My husband who never liked sugar cookies keeps asking me to make them. So easy. Thanks for this recipe..
One egg? It’s listed in the instructions but not the ingredient list. Thanks!
It’s there! 1 egg
I see it now… 🤦🏼♀️😆 It’s possible I’m losing my mind, I swear it wasn’t there before, I checked like 5 times!!
I just checked 5 times too lol! Whew!
These are great, thanks for sharing!! I didn’t have almond extract so I used extra vanilla and some cinnamon for extra flavor. These are so simple, how are they the good??
I agree. This is the best sugar cookie recipe, especially for baking with kids. It is so easy to work with and is sturdy in kid and adult hands. I re-roll the scraps into more cookies and it turns out just fine. Love it and I keep coming back to it. Once I found this recipe, I pretty much stopped looking.
I’ve tried a few cookie sugar recipes but this is definitely the best and was pleased it had metric measurements. The dough was quite sticky but once I’d kneaded it with quite a bit of flour it was easy to work with. Once baked the cookies looked great and tasted delicious, just have to ice them now but would definitely recommend this recipe.
And another question please:
Do i have to make separate icings for outlining the cookie and then filling the inside shape?
Yes. One should be a thicker consistency for outline and the other slightly more watery for filling.
Hi,
My concern is that, my cookies loose its shape while cooking, it spreads, can you tell me its cream cheese in dough or baking powder that causes it?
There isn’t cream cheese in this recipe. You need to “cream” the butter and sugar which refers to the mixing method. If your cookies lose their shape too much, try chilling your dough after it’s cut before you bake it.
I am trying out the recipe as we speak with the 3 cups of flour according to what you published they make up to 36 cookies there is no way there’s 36 cookies in the cutter that I have isn’t very big just curious your thoughts hope I didn’t do anything wrong
OK I have to renege, there was not 36 but I believe they were pretty close it just didn’t seem like there was much in the batter plus I roll them pretty thin
I’m in the midst of trying your ”Best Sugar Cookie” recipe which I printed. On the printout, it says 3 cups of flour (or 360gr). Using my scale, my 360 gr of Robin Hood Gluten Free All Purpose Flour is actually 2 cups. So maybe add a caveat for weight when using gluten free. I think we should look at volume of flour as opposed to weight? I used 505 gr and that was 3 cups.
Good point! I use cup-for-cup gluten free flour so it measures the same. I assume that most people who bake gluten-free are best familiar with their product preferences.
How would you alter for elevation? I live in Flagstaff at 7,000 feet! Thanks for any advice I’m advance!
I have zero experience with high altitude baking! I hope you can find an expert!
Wow thought these looked nice and made them with green food coloring, so happy we did. Amazing 10/10, the almond extract brings great flavor
This was one of the best recipes!! The cookies arnt hard they are super soft and so easy and fun to make
:)))
Loving this recipe!! My cookies came out perfect at 7 minutes and didn’t expand at all! My dough wasn’t dry at all.. I actually had to add more flour.. but I’m thinking that might be because I forgot to soften my butter so I softened it in the microwave. Still turned out great! This will definitely be my go to cut out recipe from now on!
Love the recipe! Can you tell me how long the cookies are good for?
How long do these cookies keep edible for?