In this ultimate guide to Christmas cookies, I’m sharing my best cookie success tips, recommended tools, a free shopping list printable, and top-rated cookie recipes from my website. If you need cookie help or inspiration, this page is for you!
Welcome to my complete cookie guide. There’s enough sugar to last us an entire year!
After years of baking cookies—and writing a cookie cookbook—I have a pretty good understanding of what works and what doesn’t. Let me help you avoid a failed batch of cookies with my highest rated recipes and no-fail success tips. I recommend starting with my beloved Cake Batter Chocolate Chip Cookies—also a reader favorite. 🙂
My Cookie Success Guides
- Cookie help? Here are my top 5 Cookie Baking Tips to improve your next batch
- Royal icing trouble? Here’s my full royal icing tutorial.
- Which tools are best? Here are my 10 best Cookie Baking Tools
- Mailing cookies? Here is the Best Way to Ship Cookies
- Planning ahead? Here is How to Freeze Cookie Dough
- Cookie spreading? Here are my tips for How to Prevent Cookies from Spreading
- Sugar cookie decorating help? Here’s How to Decorate Sugar Cookies
Room Temperature Butter
Most cookie recipes call for room temperature butter. There’s legitimate science behind this, so don’t overlook it. Room temperature butter is cooler than you think, so review my Room Temperature Butter page. And here’s my trick to soften butter quickly.
Let’s talk recipes. Here are 75+ Christmas cookies including classic Christmas cookies, decorated Christmas cookies, allergy-friendly cookies, chocolate, white chocolate, shortbread cookies, and a category for QUICK cookies!
I’m confident you’ll find a cookie to love this holiday season. 🙂
Classic Christmas Cookies
1) Spritz Cookies and Butter Cookies
2) Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
3) Peanut Butter Blossoms and Peanut Butter Cookies
4) Soft Molasses Cookies and Crisp Molasses Cookies
5) Pinwheel Cookies
6) Iced Oatmeal Cookies
7) Raspberry Pistachio Linzer Cookies
8) Snowball Cookies
9) Gingerbread Cookies or try Gingerbread Oatmeal Cookies
10) Christmas Sugar Cookies
11) Snickerdoodles (no dough chilling)
12) Jam Thumbprints from Sally’s Cookie Addiction
13) Cinnamon Spice Palmiers
Super Festive Christmas Cookies
14) Homemade Gingerbread House
15) Drop Style Christmas Cookies and Christmas Cookie Sparkles
16) Andes Mint Cookies
17) Brown Butter Sugar Cookies
18) Easy Cookie Icing for decorating or try classic Royal Icing
19) Red Velvet Kiss Cookies
20) Snowmen Sugar Cookies
21) Chocolate Swirled Meringue Cookies
22) Cake Batter Chocolate Chip Cookies
23) Candy Cane Kiss Cookies
24) Stained Glass Window Cookies
No Chill/Quick Christmas Cookies
25) Christmas Cookies in a Jar
26) Red Velvet Whoopie Pies
27) Peanut Butter Cookie Sandwiches (like Nutter Butters!)
28) Mini M&M Cookies and M&M Cookie Bars
29) Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies
30) Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies (use festive sprinkles!)
31) Peanut Butter Cup Surprise Monster Cookies
32) Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
33) Giant Chocolate Chip Cookies
34) Vanilla Bean Biscotti and Dark Chocolate Orange Biscotti
35) Magic Cookie Bars
Allergy-Friendly Christmas Cookies
36) Lace Cookies (GF and no dough chilling)
37) No-Bake Chocolate Coconut Snowballs (nut free + GF, but make sure oats are certified GF)
38) Coconut Macaroons (nut free + GF)
39) Almond Butter Coconut Macaroons (GF)
40) No-Bake Cookies (make sure oats are certified GF)
41) Flourless Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies (make sure oats are certified GF)
42) French Macarons (GF)
43) Rice Krispie Treats (GF)
44) Chocolate Truffles (GF)
*Here are all of my egg free baking recipes.
Chocolate Lovers Christmas Cookies
45) Peppermint Mocha Cookies
46) Chocolate Turtle Cookies
47) Brownie Cookies (quick dough chilling)
48) Chocolate Dipped Almond Biscotti (no dough chilling)
49) Butter Cookies with Orange & Chocolate Ganache
50) Mint Chocolate Checkerboard Cookies
51) Dark Chocolate Cranberry Almond Cookies
52) Caramel Stuffed Nutella Cookies
53) Salted Dark Chocolate Cookies
54) Chocolate Sugar Cookies and Chocolate Ginger Cookies
55) Homemade Thin Mint Cookies
56) Chocolate Chip Cookies
57) Double Chocolate Chip Cookies (could use red & green M&Ms instead of chocolate chips)
White Chocolate Lovers Christmas Cookies
58) Peppermint Bark Cookies
59) Peppermint White Chocolate Cookies
60) Holiday Magic 5 Cookies
61) Maple Cinnamon Star Cookies (dipped in white chocolate!)
62) White Chocolate Cranberry Pistachio Cookies
63) White Chocolate Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti (no dough chilling)
64) Coconut Macadamia Nut Cookies (with white chocolate drizzle!)
65) Soft-Baked White Chocolate Chip Molasses Cookies
66) White Chocolate Chip Cherry Oatmeal Cookies
67) Ginger Molasses Cookies from I Heart Naptime (dipped in white chocolate!)
Shortbread/Slice & Bake
68) Santa’s Whiskers Cookies
69) Pecan Shortbread
70) Salted Chocolate Pistachio Shortbread (no dough chilling)
71) Toasted Hazelnut Slice & Bake Cookies
72) Raspberry Almond Thumbprint Cookies
73) Neapolitan Cookies
74) Salted Pistachio Chocolate Chunk Slice & Bake Cookies
75) Cherry Almond Shortbread Cookies
76) Pistachio Cookies
77) Wedge Shortbread Cookies (no dough chilling)
78) Cranberry Orange Cookies
Need Several Batches? How to Maximize Your Time
If you’re anything like me, you want to bake at least 5 different kinds of Christmas cookies at once. In fact, I have a dedicated Holiday Cookie Baking Day every single year. After a few stressful experiences trying to cram a bunch of recipes into 1 day, I found the perfect combination of cookies that maximizes my time.
I’m happy to share my schedule and recipe suggestions with you:
- Make 1 type of decorated cookie. I prefer my gingerbread cookies or Christmas sugar cookies. Make the dough the night before, then bake the cookies first thing in the morning so they are ready to decorate.
- Make a super festive cookie. I suggest my peppermint mocha cookies or Santa’s whiskers cookies. Either dough must chill, so make the dough the night before. The peppermint mocha cookies are one of the most popular cookie recipes on my website.
- Make a bar cookie and bake them as you prepare the next cookie. I suggest my ultimate magic cookie bars, M&M cookie bars, or peanut butter blondies. (Use festive colored M&Ms instead of Reese’s Pieces if desired.)
- Make a no-bake recipe as the bar cookies bake. I suggest my chocolate coconut snowballs, scotcheroos, or no bake cookies.
- Bake the cookies from #2. Decorate the cookies from #1 as #2 bakes.
- Finally, make a no-chill cookie recipe such as spritz cookies (pictured below) or mini M&M cookies. Continue decorating cookies from #1 as these cookies bake, if needed.
Free Printable – Ingredients & Shopping Chart
To make shopping easier, my team and I knew readers would find an ingredient chart helpful when shopping for ingredients. This chart fits 6 recipes—you can list the recipes at the top, then write in the amounts so you can see how many cups, bottles, teaspoons, etc that you need to purchase for each ingredient. You can add extras at the bottom too like candy canes, Hershey Kisses, molasses, etc. (This chart doesn’t include basics like salt, baking soda, and baking powder.)
**Free Baking Ingredients Chart PDF: Sally’s Baking Recipes Ingredients Chart
Here is a photo preview:
Final Cookie Baking Success Tips
- Chill the cookie dough. If the cookie dough is particularly sticky, wet, or greasy– chilling is in its best interest. Chilling cookie dough helps prevent spreading.
- Ditch the specified baking time. I never look at recipe times when I bake cookies. I look at the cookies themselves. The cookies are done when the edges are set and lightly browned.
- One batch at a time. You get the best possible results when the oven only concentrates on that 1 batch. If you need to bake more than one batch at a time, rotate the baking sheets from the top rack to bottom rack a couple times through the baking process to encourage even browning.
Q: Which Christmas cookies are you making this year? You might also enjoy making a masterpiece yule log, too!
What a fabulous list!!!!! Thank you so much for all your time and effort to make your blog so easy and accessible….Your are in my top two favorite bloggers….I also love your savory dishes, but my holiday baking recipes are all yours!!!! I just discovered your ultimate 7 layer cookies…..you are killing me. Anyway, thank you for the list and for the handy ingredient shopping guide. FYI your sweet and spicy honey chex mix was a gift request from my son this year…..Have a wonderful Christmas and holiday season! Thank you again…(I am attempting star bread soon too! My daughter makes it a lot. She has challenged me.)
Thank you for putting all of this together. The categories are helpful and the printable shopping list is fantastic! I saw one on the FB group page and wanted to make one, but now your team has taken the work out of it for me.
I really enjoyed cookie palooza.
Merry Christmas to all!
The ingredients chart is so great! I’m always doing something similar when I plan my cookies. And the plan for maximizing time is genius. Thanks Hilari and Sally 🙂
So, I’m baking
– your toasted hazelnut slice and bake cookies
– cut-out sugar cookies from my mother’s recipe
– something called “kransekagestaenger” – a danish cookie with lemon and cardamom, vanilla flavoured crescent cookies (“Vanillekipferl”)
– macaroons with coconut and lime
– triple ginger cookies (there’s fresh, candied and ground ginger inside – a true ginger lover’s cookie!)
– and, of course, the holiday edition of your magic 5 cookies.
I definitely need a plan to pull this off 😉 so thanks for helping me with that. Also, I have my kids to help me – they finally are of an age that they’re actually helping when joining me in the kitchen.
Happy baking, everyone!
I have already made three separate batches of your Seriously Soft Molasses Cookies! To die for!
So many new, delicious looking cookies this year!! I always start planning and baking Christmas cookies in november, but I already know I’ll bake some of your new recipes next year!
This year, I’m baking:
– chewy oatmeal m&m cookies with red and green m&m’s and festive sprinkles
– decorated gingerbread cookies
– meringue cookies with green food coloring, shaped like wreaths and christmas trees
– cinnamon sugar sprinkled pie crust cutouts (from your buttery flaky pie crust!)
– death by chocolate peanut butter chip cookies, but I swapped the pb chips for green mint chips!
– maple walnut slice ‘n bake cookies from Sally’s Cookie Addiction
– raspberry jam thumbprints
Thank you for all of your recipes and freezing instructions as well. They make the process so much easier!!
This is an amazing post, Sally!!! It covers pretty much everything related to Christmas cookies…..or any cookies! I’ve already made some of your Christmas Cookies in a Jar to gift to others (and made the cookies myself too 😉 ) and your Snickerdoodles and I’m hoping to make your Chocolate Crinkle Cookies, Iced Oatmeal Cookies, Chocolate Peanut Butter No Bake Cookies (LOVE these……I always eat way too many when I make them!), Lace Cookies, and definitely more that I haven’t decided on yet 😀 So many to choose from on your blog!
P.S. The shopping list is so cute, but so practical as well – thank you! Hilari did a great job 😉
Thank you!!!! I can see lots more cookies in my future
The chart is a super idea, too!! I may adapt this into a spreadsheet to help me with my math.
Hi Sally! My granddaughter was the gingerbread man in her kindergarten play, so I made your gingerbread cookie recipe. Every one loved it and they literally said “this is the best gingerbread cookie I’ve ever eaten”.
Lastly, are you taking a well deserved break from blogging during the holidays? I miss you!
So sweet!! 🙂 I love the gingerbread cookie recipe too.
I’ve actually posted several new posts since this one! Are you signed up for my email updates? Every time I publish an article or recipe, you’ll get an instant alert. It’s free!
Hi Sally, I’m getting ready to head home for the holidays… One of our favorite traditions is making cookies and other baked treats as a family. This year, we have the added fun of my niece being old enough to start helping – she’s a year and a half!
Do you have any recommendations? I’m particularly looking for cookies with simple, hands on steps that would be good for tiny hands, and be more than just dumping in the ingredients. I already know she can help with sugar cookies (pressing down the cookie cutter, sprinkles on top of icing…), but are there others that would be equally fun for her?
Thanks in advance!
Hi Kristen! This question is so special for me because my daughter is only a few months younger than your niece. So sweet! Here are my suggestions:
– She may enjoy pressing the doughs into the loaf pan when making neapolitan cookies
– Rolling the dough into balls and pressing the peanut butter cup on top of my peanut butter cup cookies
– Same thing with these peanut butter blossoms!
– These mini M&M cookies are ‘just her size” 🙂
– These chocolate coconut snowballs are fun to shape and there’s no baking involved.
– She may enjoy pressing the shortbread cookies cookie dough into the cake pans or even helping dunking the cookies in chocolate
– My last suggestion– she can help roll the cookie dough from these sprinkle slice and bake cookies into logs. Or help dip the baked cookies in white chocolate and definitely help decorate with sprinkles on top. 🙂
I made the spritz cookies, gingerbread cookies, decorated sugar cookies iced oatmeal cookies, and chocolate cupcakes. The first three are in my annual list because they are so good and turn out perfectly every time! The last two are new but will be added to the list!
I love how your site is designed, with the “Jump to Recipe” button (for easy reference on future visits to the recipe) and the “Print Recipe” button. It is so well-thought out!
I truly appreciate all your tips and instructions. I’ve never had a fail!
Happy holidays!
I’m making loads of different cookies and things for christmas gifts this year, the 23rd and 24th of December will be full of baking! Peppermint creams in the shapes of polar bears, snickerdoodles, soft gingerbread, sugar cookies shaped as christmas trees and dipped in chocolate with some crushed candy canes, cheese puff pastry stars, cheese scones, reindeer chocolate bark, pain au chocolat, white chocolate and nutella pinwheels and meringue snowmen, i’m going to be a busy bee!
Wowww!!! Tons of cookie recipe i love cookies. Gonna try to make the brownie walnut chocolate chunk cookies. This is soooo amazing!!! Thank you for sharing this recipes sally
I’ve made your Neapolitan cookies and the sugar funfetti ones with Christmas sprinkles today! So good! I also made a delicious soft ginger molasses cookie for a work cookie swap this week. I’ll finish my cookie baking next week with my sisters… I want to try the mocha peppermint and spritz cookies you posted!
Hi Sally, I just made the neapolitan cookies: Delicious and Beautiful! I dipped the ends in chocolate and then sprinkled with chocolate sprinkles.
Oh, Sally, thank you so very much for your generosity. Very much appreciated.
Awesome! Thanks so much for collecting all these!
Thanks so much for the link Sally! This is an amazing collection!
I’ve made Southern tea cakes and your molasses ginger white chocolate chip cookies so far. Planning on fruitcake cookies and your peppermint mocha cookies this coming week, plus pretzels dipped in chocolate. We have a bathroom being remodeled, so I have a construction crew to share with…which is great, so we don’t eat them all! 🙂
So far I’ve made chocolate cut-out cookies and cranberry 7-layer cookies, plus some vegan fudge that did not set up 🙁 I’m also thinking about cranberry ginger shortbread, pecan pie bars, cappuccino brownies or fruitcake.
Thanks so much for the list! I will look it over and see which ones I want to make…and then make sure I can get the ingredients!
So thankful for your recipes and blog, Sally! I look forward to reading through new recipes or blog posts each week. When I follow your recipes, my treats always turn out just right!
For the holidays, I’m planning to make white chocolate peppermint cookies (my favorite from last year), snickerdoodles topped with Christmas sprinkles, a savory rugelach, and neopolitan cookies!
We are making your ginger pistachio cookies from your cookbook, the new sprinkle drop sugar cookies off your website, and chocolate peppermint thumbprints from Cook’s Illustrated cookie book. Yay for Christmas baking!
Oh Sally, what would I do without you? I woke up thinking about what one other Christmas cookie I wanted to add to my repertoire this year and I find your post in my inbox answering my question. What timing! Thanks for your wonderful list!
Sally, you are amazing….this list makes cookie baking decisions so much easier as always YOU ROCK!
I started with your chocolate crinkles. We are building gingerbread houses next weekend, and I’ll finish up with sugar cookie cutouts and gingerbread men. I spend January baking all the cookies that wouldn’t fit in my December line up:)
Thanks Sally!
The lace cookies were so easy, and they will be a perfect dessert for dinner party guests tomorrow. We look forward to making several other recipes over the holidays. Your tutorials and hints are excellent. Thank you!
Thank you for sharing your gift and love of baking with all! Sharing your gift is the best gift to receive!
Sally just made 4 of your new recipes last night with the stuffed brownie one yet to do. I could bake them all !! I hope you have the best Christmas with your family, love and blessings to you all!!
Thank you for the way you formatted this amazing cookie list by title and hyperlink instead of scrolling through each recipe individually as other sites do. It made it much easier to access the recipes I wanted though all of them sound delicious!
YES! I do that a lot– just wrap the dough in plastic wrap. Saves room!