16 Festive Christmas Cookie Recipes to Make This Holiday

Christmas cookies are a sweet holiday tradition, and if you're looking for new recipes to add to your rotation, we have plenty. For the chocolate lovers, we've got chocolate pretzel crinkle cookies and triple-chocolate peppermint cookies, and for those who like spice in their cookies, show-stopping brown butter-cardamom spitzbuben. There are also triple-ginger rye cookies, walnut crescents, and s'mores (yes, s'mores!) linzer cookies. Read on for even more Christmas cookie recipes.

Basler Leckerli

These spiced cookie bars are an essential part of a German Christmas. They are an excellent make-ahead sweet; in fact, they get more tender and flavorful the longer they sit.

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Sugar-Crusted Chocolate Cookies

This is Jacques Torres's recipe for sablés, a classic French butter cookie with a sandy, crumbly texture (sablé means "sandy") — though this fabulously dense version is actually more like shortbread.

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Cardamom Thumbprints

Adding cardamom to these crispy cookies gives them a subtle spiced flavor. You can fill the thumb print with other jams or with chocolate.

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Linzer Cookies with Spiced Jam

Kevin Sbraga adds anise and coriander to the raspberry jam that he spreads between the hazelnut cookies (which are spiced with cinnamon and cloves).

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Cashew Snowballs

You can substitute pecans, walnuts, or macadamias for the cashews used here.

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Gingerbread Cookies

These gingerbread cookies use butter instead of shortening and corn syrup, and get finished with royal icing for decoration.

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Chocolate Pretzel Crinkle Cookies

By substituting the flour with Glutino pretzels, this version of the holiday staple is not only gluten-free but also perfectly salty-sweet with the best-ever chewy center.

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Triple-Ginger Rye Cookies

Hearty rye flour paired with three types of ginger — powdered, candied, and fresh — lends an earthy, lightly spicy flavor to these delicious holiday cookies.

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Rum Balls

These lightly boozy balls come together in about 30 minutes. But while you can eat them soon after they're made, they taste best the day after.

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Key Lime Macarons

These tangy, one-bite sandwich cookies from Uyen Nguyen get a surprise pop of flavor courtesy of fennel seeds.

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Gluten-Free Cacao Nib Meringues

Made with chocolate, cacao nibs, and cocoa powder, these intensely flavored meringues have a delicate, crispy exterior with a soft, chewy, marshmallow-like interior.

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Walnut Crescents

These crumbly and buttery walnut crescents from Nadine Redzepi are super simple. If you're not a walnut fan, you can use pecans or hazelnuts instead.

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Brown Butter-Cardamom Spitzbuben

German for "cheeky boys," these Bavarian cookies will be the star of your holiday cookie platter. Brown butter and cardamom make this simple cookie into a fragrant treat. Take the time to freshly grind the cardamom — its robust, citrusy flavor is worth it. You can use round or fluted cutters to cut out the cookies and any shape that takes your fancy for the center.

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Triple Chocolate–Peppermint Cookies

The peppermint bark in these cookies is simple to make and adds a beautiful pop of color and flavor in each cookie, though store-bought bark will work well here, too.

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S'mores Linzer Cookies

Linzer cookies are descendants of the linzertorte, named for the Austrian city of Linz. Swapping graham flour and hazelnut meal for the all-purpose flour and almond meal gives these linzer-inspired cookies the flavor of s'mores.

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Tortellini Dolci al Forno (Emilian Fruit-Stuffed Christmas Cookies)

Not to be confused with the pasta of the same name, these classic Emilian Christmas cookies are made from a tender, flaky dough filled with a sweet-tart trio of fruit: cherry preserves, rich saba (cooked-down grape must), and candied citron.

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