Soft and chewy oatmeal scotchies are cinnamon-spiced, sweetened with brown sugar, packed with oats, and loaded with butterscotch chips. With crisp edges and chewy centers, every bite is buttery, delicious, and packed with texture.
Butterscotch chips or butterscotch morsels, whatever you call them, are an oatmeal cookie’s best friend. Dare I say these two are even better friends than oatmeal cookies and raisins? And you know how I feel about oatmeal raisin cookies!
These Are the Best Oatmeal Scotchies And Here’s Why
Butterscotch brings you right back to childhood eating butterscotch candies at grandma’s kitchen table. Pair that with cinnamon and these cookies scream nostalgia. Not only are they nostalgic, they’re:
- Soft and chewy in the center
- Slightly crisp on the edges
- Loaded with oats for mega texture
- Studded with butterscotch morsels
- Cinnamon spiced
- Just like grandma’s
- No crazy ingredients or mixing techniques
I plead my case. Oatmeal scotchies rule.
Best Ingredients to Use in Oatmeal Scotchies
- Flour: All-purpose flour is the structure of the cookies.
- Baking Soda: Baking soda helps the cookies rise.
- Cinnamon: Cinnamon and butterscotch are a winning flavor combination. You’ll love the sweet cinnamon spice in each bite.
- Salt: Salt adds flavor.
- Butter: We use 1 cup of room temperature butter in this cookie recipe. Make sure your butter is at proper room temperatureโif it’s too warm, your cookies will overspread. Here are my tips and tricks for how to prevent cookies from spreading. See the picture below for properly softened butter. It’s actually cool to touch, not warm. When you press it, your finger will make an indent. For even more information, here’s an in-depth post about room temperature butter. Worth the read!
- Sugar: Sugar is not only used for sweetness, but also for providing structure and tenderness. We use both brown sugar and white granulated sugar in this recipe. I like to use more brown sugar than white sugar because (1) brown sugar has incredible flavor and (2) brown sugar contains more moisture than white, which produces a softer cookie. I use the higher brown sugar to white sugar ratio in my chocolate chip cookies, too.
- Eggs: 2 eggs help bind everything together.
- Molasses: Molasses is my secret ingredient! Just 1 scant Tablespoon of molasses in oatmeal cookies enhances all the wonderful flavors of buttery sweet oatmeal butterscotch cookies.
- Vanilla Extract: Pure vanilla extract adds flavor.
- Oats: There are a ton of oats in this recipe. Whole old-fashioned oats provide a fabulously chewy texture.
- Butterscotch Morsels: Butterscotch morsels are a little smaller than chocolate chips, so you can really pack them into each cookie. I actually counted 20 of them in 1 single cookie. And that’s not an exaggeration!
Room temperature butter is about 65ยฐF (18ยฐC), which is likely cooler than your kitchen. So if your cookies are spreading too much, you’re probably softening your butter too much. Good rule of thumb: set your butter out on the counter 1 hour before you begin. If it gets too soft (use your finger to test), place back in the refrigerator for 10 minutes. Don’t sabotage your efforts; make sure your butter is the correct consistency before you begin.
By the way, here’s my trick to soften butter quickly.
Overview: How to Make Oatmeal Scotchies
These soft and chewy oatmeal scotchies start from my base oatmeal cookie recipe. We use the same base recipe for oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, magic 5 cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, and many more. It’s an oatmeal cookie recipe I’ve been playing around with for years and I love creating new variations! What’s even better? They come together quickly and easily.
- Whisk the dry ingredients together, beat the wet ingredients together, then combine both. Mix in the oats and butterscotch morsels. This is a super sticky and thick cookie dough. Cover the dough and chill it in the refrigerator for at least 45 minutes, an important step for this cookie dough. When you’re ready to bake the cookies, scoop about 3 Tablespoons of cookie dough per cookie and form into balls. Here is the large cookie scoop I love and highly recommend for this sticky dough. Bake the cookies until they’re lightly browned on the sides. While the cookies are still warm, I like to press a few more butterscotch morsels into the topsโthis is only for looks!
More Favorite Cookie Recipes
- Peanut Butter Cookies
- Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
- White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
- Sugar Cookies
- Soft & Thick Monster Cookies
Soft & Chewy Oatmeal Scotchies
- Prep Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes (includes dough chilling)
- Cook Time: 14 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour, 40 minutes
- Yield: 20-22 cookies
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
These soft & chewy oatmeal scotchies cookies are loaded with butterscotch chips in every bite. The centers are chewy and soft, the edges are crisp, and every bite is buttery delicious!
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/2 cups (188g) all-purpose flourย (spooned & leveled)
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (16 Tbsp; 226g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 cup (200g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 Tablespoon (15ml) unsulphured or dark molasses (do not use blackstrap; I prefer Grandma’s brand)
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 3 cups (255g) old-fashioned whole rolled oats
- 2ย cups (280g) butterscotch morsels
Instructions
- Whiskย the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- In a large bowl using a hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together on medium-high speed until combined and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs, molasses, and vanilla and beat on high speed until combined, about 1 minute.ย Scrape down the sides and up the bottom of the bowl and beat again as needed to combine.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix on low until combined. With the mixer running on low speed, beat in the oats and butterscotch morsels. Dough will be thick and sticky.ย Cover and chill the dough for at least 45 minutes in the refrigerator (and up to 4 days). If chilling for longer than a few hours, allow to sit at room temperature for at leastย 30ย minutes before rolling and baking because the dough will be quite hard.
- Preheat oven to 350ยฐF (177ยฐC). Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside.
- Scoop cookie dough (here’s the large cookie scoop I love), about 3 Tablespoonsย of dough per cookie, and place 4 inches apart on the baking sheets. Bake for 13-14ย minutes or until lightly browned on the sides. The centers will look very soft.
- Remove from the oven and allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. While the cookies are still warm, I like to press a few more butterscotch morsels into the topsโthis is only for looks!
- Cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: You can make the cookie dough and chill it in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Allow to come to room temperature then continue with step 4. Baked cookies freeze well for up to 3 months. Unbaked cookie dough balls freeze well for up to 3 months. Bake frozen cookie dough balls for an extra minute, no need to thaw. Here are my tips and tricks for how to freeze cookie dough.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Baking Sheet | Silicone Baking Mat or Parchment Paper | Large Cookie Scoopย | Cooling Rack
- Molasses: 1 Tablespoon of molasses helps give these cookies incredible flavor. Be sure to use unsulphured or dark molasses (do not use blackstrap; I prefer Grandma’s brand). If you don’t have any, simply leave it out. Do not replace with anything else.
- Brown Sugar: I prefer using dark brown sugar in oatmeal scotchies.
- Be sure to check out my top 5 cookie baking tips AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking tools.
Reader Comments and Reviews
These oatmeal scotchies were sooo good!! They looked and smelled delicious. I left them in the oven a minute or two longer to get toasty and they remained chewy! My family and I finished them fast! I think this is an underrated cookie recipe. Try this recipe if you want too taste a sweeter version of an oatmeal cookie.
These are the best cookies Iโve ever made. Perfect texture, chewy, and full of flavor.
No other oatmeal cookies recipe is needed at our house anymore! I canโt keep the cookie jar stocked. Bake exactly to the recipe and instructions and you wonโt be disappointed
I’ve made a LOT of Sally recipes and I just got a new oven with a convection setting. I’ve read online about the conversion, but I was just curious if you ever use convection for cooking?
Hi Leigh, All of the recipes on this site are written for conventional settings. Convection ovens are fantastic for cooking and roasting. If you have the choice, we recommend conventional settings when baking cakes, breads, etc. The flow of air from convection heat can cause baked goods to rise and bake unevenly and it also pulls moisture out of the oven. If you do use convection settings for baking, lower your temperature by 25 degrees F and keep in mind that things may still take less time to bake.
I followed this recipe exactly as written but unfortunately my cookies spread way to much and were very gooey in the center. I added more flour and lowered my oven temp to 350 degrees and they came out great. The flavor of these cookies are excellent!
Oh, these are some tasty bad boys! I cannot tell a lie. My bag of butterscotch morsels seemed a little shy of 2 cups, so I added some Heath Bar bits….pushed the whole batch over the top. Yum!
I love this recipe; thank you, Sally! The molasses is a game-changer. Only one ingredient could possibly improve it: I like to add zest of one orange. What do you think? Cheers for oatmeal & butterscotch!
Sounds delicious, MaryL!
Do you have to use the molasses or could I replace it with something else
You can leave it out if needed, Mary!
Thanks for the recipe. I bake a lot for my coworkers and had a request for these. She said her mama would be proud. Thanks for helping me give her a bit of nostalgia!
how many cals would you estimate each cookie being?
Hi Natalie, We donโt usually include nutrition information as it can vary between different brands of the same ingredients. Plus, many recipes have ingredient substitutions or optional ingredients listed. However, there are many handy online calculators where you can plug in and customize your exact ingredients/brands. Readers have found this one especially helpful: https://www.verywellfit.com/recipe-nutrition-analyzer-4157076
Hi, I’d like to make these this weekend but I always have trouble with old-fashioned whole rolled oats. It is like they don’t cook and are still dry and flaky. Is it something I’m doing wrong or should I just go with the 5 min. oatmeal or instant instead?
Hi Kris, whole oats are best here, as quick oats will absorb too much liquid which dries out the cookies. Could it be an issue with your flour? How are you measuring? Be sure to spoon and level (or use a kitchen scale) to ensure the flour isn’t over measured, which can significantly dry out cookies. Hope these are a hit!
Hey Sally, I just wanted to say I love your recipes! You’re my most recommended recipe page.
This particular recipe has me concerned. You used to have this one, but without molasses and with ground flax. I remember you noted that the flax was not optional, it was imperative to the texture of the cookies. I think it was called peanut butter honey oatmeal scotchies and the cookies came out not soft and chewy, but with a firm texture and slight crunch. It was my favorite recipe. I know it’s not this same one because I do not use molasses. Is there any way I can get the original recipe? Or if you can point me to the updated name? Thank you.
Hi Nissa, we recently removed that older recipe from our site. If you email us at sally@sallysbakingaddiction.com, weโd be happy to share a copy with you. Thank you!
Perfection! Made these for a dessert potluck at work, and they were gone within minutes. Followed recipe exactly. Cookies are larger than they appear in photos (made 21). Will definitely make these again. 3/3 on Sallyโs oatmeal cookie recipes (also love gingersnap oatmeal and pumpkin oatmeal)!
These cookies turned out amazing! I didnโt have any issues with overspreading, and I didnโt even refrigerate the dough. The only change I made was substituting 1/2 cup of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour, keeping the total flour amount the same. I almost skipped this recipe because of the comments about overspreading, but Iโm so glad I gave it a try!
Can you substitute with whole wheat flour, and then would you recommend using less?
Hi Annie, we don’t recommend it, because the cookies would be very dense and have a heartier flavor.
I want to make these but use less sugar. What would happen if I only used one cup of brown sugar? Is there another ingredient I could use to add the texture?
Hi Tracy! We don’t recommend reducing the sugar as, like you said, it will change the texture of the cookies as well as the flavor.
I would like to make these for somebody who is both gluten-free and dairy free including butter. I made them gluten-free many times and itโs been delicious. Would Crisco be an OK substitute for butter? If not, what would you use?
Hi Lisa, we haven’t tested this recipe that way, but if I were to try it, I think I would use one of the nondairy butter alternatives you can find in the grocery store next to the butter, such as Earth Balance vegan buttery sticks, or Country Crock plant butter. That will give you more of the buttery flavor that you want in these cookies. Please let us know how they turn out!
Did you substitute gluten free flour at the same amount? I am a newbie to needing gluten and dairy free.
Thank you!
These cookies turned out perfect! Iโve been on a mission to improve my childhood favorite cookie since trying the recipe on the butterscotch morsel package last year. Iโve tried a few recipes that varied slightly including this one, but have been battling the spread even using Sallyโs techniques. This time, I was very careful with the butter temperature and making sure it was creamed properly. I roughly ground 1 cup of the 3 cups of oats. I chilled for a little more than 24 hours. For baking, I used parchment paper instead of the silicone mat.
I used the recipe on back of Nestleโs Butterscotch Bits. Followed to a T! After scraping off petrified flat cookie brittle and cleaning the kitchen I will use your recipe. Quite different. #1-Forget the package instructions! Grease those pans good! This way you wonโt need a hammer and chisel to get them out! Let you know but this recipe looks good. Son-in-lawโs favorite cookie & I make them for his birthday (today)!
Didnโt turn out soft and chewy. They were thin, lacy, crispy. All the correct ingredients were included, oven temp was correct, I tried different pan types. Any tips or insight? Thanks
Hi Elizabeth, happy to help troubleshoot. It sounds like your cookies overspread. We have a list of tips here to prevent cookies from overspreading. I hope these help for next time, and thank you for trying this recipe!
Could you substitute the molasses with honey?!
Hi Pamela, If you donโt have any molasses, simply leave it out. Do not replace with anything else.
My family loves this recipe- they are delicious. But. It spreads. No matter what I do. I weigh all my ingredients so itโs not that. I chill my dough for 45 mins or 1 day. I have fancy cooking pans and cheap ones- doesnโt matter. Weโve come to terms with it because they are so good. But. It seems like itโs a theme with these cookies, looking at other reviews.
Hi Leanne, Flat cookies are usually caused by butter that is too warm or under measuring flour, even if they are sufficiently chilled. This post on how to prevent cookies from spreading will also be a helpful resource. If you’ve tried all of these tips and they still spread, you can try adding an additional 2-3 TBS of flour to your cookie dough next time. Thank you for giving these cookies a try!
I just tried these and they spread badly. Brown edges and doughy middles and totally flat. Even taking the pan of cookie dough balls straight from fridge to oven. I donโt have this issue with other recipes. I follow all Sallyโs tips and always weigh my flour. I thought maybe they are just too big so I made the last batch smaller, but still flat as pancakes. So disappointing. It seems like a whole cup of butter is a lot. But not everyone had this issue. Iโm just lost.
I just made them and had the same problem! Followed everything exactly so not sure why this happened.
These cookies are absolutely amazing. Followed the recipe as written and they came out perfectly! Will definitely use again!!
I used honey in place of molasses and not quite as many chips and they turned out perfectly. Love this recipe!
I made these and loved them! I’ve been looking for a oatmeal with apricot cookie recipe. I like the idea of substituting apricots into this recipe versus your oatmeal raisin recipe. Your thoughts?
Hi Carol, that should be fine in our Oatmeal Raisin Cookies.
I did this! I aided apricots and tart cherries instead of butterscotch chips. They were perfect!
Tasted fine but mine were too spread out. Must have done something wrong! No idea why but back to My old recession maybe less chewy but don’t spread so much.
Can I bake these all in a cookie sheet as a pan cookies
Hi Holley, you can turn this cookie recipe into a cookie bar recipe! This cookie dough should fit into a 9ร13-inch baking pan or for much thicker cookie bars, use a 9-inch square pan. Same temperature, weโre unsure of the exact bake time though. Hope you enjoy them!
If you want to make a bar cookie, I highly recommend Sally’s Salted Butterscotch Blondie recipe. Though cut them small as they are incredibly rich.
I have a full bag of butterscotch chips and about a half bag of chocolate chips. Could I add the chocolates to the butterscotch chips so I can use up the chocolate chips? Thank you.
Yes, absolutely.
Thank you!
I feel validated that other had the same issue! Cookies spread SO much after being chilled overnight, raw center and edges over baked. This blog has so many great and reliable recipes, but unfortunately this ainโt one of them.