54 Sugar Cookie Recipes That Will Bring Major Wow-Factor
Best Holiday Sugar Cookies
We're in the middle of holiday season—it's time to level up your holiday cookie baking!
While gingerbread cookies, thumbprint cookies and molasses cookies play a pivotal role in holiday baking, we all know that drop-style and rolled sugar cookies are must-have cookie in any true baker's repertoire. They're soft and chewy, can be decorated a million different ways, and are always a hit with kids and adults alike.
Which means that you've got to get your sugar cookie recipes just right!
Related: 200+ Best Christmas Cookies You Just Have to Try
No matter what diet you're on—or what type of cookies you like—sugar cookies are highly versatile and can easily fit any dietary preferences or needs you have. There are gluten-free sugar cookies, low-carb sugar cookies, keto sugar cookies and yes, vegan sugar cookies all included in this list.
Best Holiday Sugar Cookie Recipes
From fancier versions such as Soft Glazed Pumpkin Sugar Cookies, Red Velvet Sugar Cookies and Brown Butter Sugar Cookie Bars with Brown Butter Buttercream, to simpler options such as Basic Sugar Cookies or Brown Sugar Cookies, there's bound to be an option for everyone!
Here are 54 easy sugar cookie recipes to make this holiday season. Browse through them, make sure to pin your favorites and let's get baking today!
Next: 50 Best Sugar Cookie Decorating Ideas
Best Sugar Cookie Recipe (Video):
Parade
Chef Jon Ashton is showing us his tricks to making the best sugar cookies at home, with this easy sugar cookie recipe.
Get the recipe: Best Homemade Sugar Cookie
Parade
These sugar cookies are not too sweet and all dressed up with edible holiday decorations! Nothing says winter better than snowflakes and there’s nothing more delicious than these soft and buttery snowflake sugar cookies.
Get the recipe: Snowflake Sugar Cookies
Parade
These simple sugar cookies can also be baked without sprinkles and then decorated with royal icing.
Get the recipe: Simple Sugar Cookies
Parade
These yuletide pinwheel sugar cookies are definitely festive and perfect for the holidays!
Get the recipe: Yuletide Pinwheel Sugar Cookies
Short Girl Tall Order
Tart and sweet orange is mixed with spicy and fragrant cardamom for an absolutely delicious eggless & dairy-free sugar cookie.
Get the recipe: Vegan Orange Cardamom Sugar Cookies
Averie Cooks
These cookies are tender, moist, and filled with warming spices! If you like the flavor of cinnamon, ginger, soft gingersnaps, or molasses, these warm and comforting cookies will be your new favorites!
Get the recipe: Softbatch Cookie Butter Brown Sugar Cookies
The Food Charlatan
A secret ingredient in this sugar cookies recipe makes these cookies the softest and most flavorful cookies of your life! And they even hold their shape after baking.
Get the recipe: The Softest Sugar Cookies
Dessert for Two
Red velvet sugar cookies are perfect any time of year and take only 20 minutes to make.
Get the recipe: Red Velvet Sugar Cookies
Inquiring Chef
You’ll love these simple, fresh lemon tarts with no finicky crusts. Just bite-sized lemony-goodness with a sweet sugar cookie crust.
Get the recipe: Sugar Cookie Lemon Tarts
The Banana Diaries
Easy and delicious vegan pumpkin sugar cookies with a simple vanilla icing! Completely gluten free and dairy free, these cookies are fun to make and perfect for the holidays!
Get the recipe: Vegan Pumpkin Sugar Cookies
Short Girl Tall Order
With just eight simple ingredients, these matcha cookies are truly an easy and delicious vegan and eggless cookie recipe.
Get the recipe: Vegan Matcha Sugar Cookies
Lauren's Latest
Sugar cookies just got better with a little pumpkin! This recipe creates soft, chewy, lightly spicy glazed pumpkin sugar cookies that are perfect for fall!
Get the recipe: Soft Glazed Pumpkin Sugar Cookies
Chef in Training
These root beer float sugar cookies bring a summertime staple in the form of a cookie. The root beer flavor is subtle, not too powerful, but enough of a flavor to transform a simple sugar cookie into a unique treat.
Get the recipe: Root Beer Float Sugar Cookies
Bake Eat Repeat
These lemon sugar cookies are super soft, and so easy to make. Lemon sugar cookies with soft lemon frosting – they make the perfect treat!
Get the recipe: Lemon Sugar Cookies
The Recipe Critic
Delicious chewy sugar cookie bars made with brown butter. This adds such amazing flavor and the salted caramel buttercream on top is the best part!
Get the recipe: Brown Butter Sugar Cookie Bars with Samated Caramel Buttercream
Meaningful Eats
The best almond flour sugar cookies! Soft in the middle and crispy on the edges. Easy to roll out and perfect for cut-outs!
Get the recipe: Almond Flour Sugar Cookies
OMG Chocolate Desserts
This basic sugar cookie recipe is classic, and it’s my favorite go-to dessert recipe. These easy, soft sugar cookies go amazingly with Nutella, frosting, and pretty much everything else!
Get the recipe: Basic Sugar Cookies
The Coconut Mama
These coconut flour sugar cookies are perfectly crispy and sweet. You would never think they are made from coconut flour.
Get the recipe: Coconut Flour Sugar Cookies
Self-Proclaimed Foodie
Birthday sugar cookies are the softest homemade sugar cookies covered in fun sprinkles that taste like a perfect birthday cake!
Get the recipe: Birthday Cake Sugar Cookies
Dear Crissy
Soft maple sugar cookies are perfect for the holidays or any time you’re craving a sweet sugar cookie that literally melts in your mouth.
Get the recipe: Soft Maple Sugar Cookies
Andie Mitchell
An easy and delicious slice-and-bake sugar cookie recipe!
Get the recipe: Easy Slice-and-Bake Sugar Cookies
sugar cookie dough
Sugar cookie dough without the eggs, so it is meant for eating!! Satisfy your sweet tooth in about 5 minutes with this recipe!
Get the recipe: Egg-Free Sugar Cookie Dough
Veronika's Kitchen
Donut sugar cookies topped with icing and sprinkles are the best recipe for soft cut out sugar cookies made from scratch!
Get the recipe: Donut Sugar Cookies
The Candid Appetite
Feel like a kid again with these super easy to make Circus Animal Sugar Cookies! Homemade sprinkled sugar cookies topped with frosted animal cookies!
Get the recipe: Circus Animal Sugar Cookies
Call Me PMC
Dark chocolate brown sugar cookies have the perfect chewy texture on the inside with just a bit of crisp on the outside.
Get the recipe: Dark Chocolate Brown Sugar Cookies
40 Aprons
These Lofthouse-style paleo cookies are easy to cut with cookie cutters, so you can have paleo shaped cookies for every holiday!
Get the recipe: Lofthouse-Style Paleo Sugar Cookies
Chef in Training
These will be some of the best pumpkin cookies you ever try! The frosting on top is out of this world and the perfect compliment to these delicious cookies!
Get the recipe: Soft Pumpkin Sugar Cookies with Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting
How to This and That
These keto fathead sugar cookies use a low carb dough and are perfect for the holidays!
Get the recipe: Keto Fathead Sugar Cookies
Dinner then Dessert
Brown sugar cookies made with dark brown sugar and butter are sweet, soft, chewy, and the perfect spin on the traditional cookie ready in under 30 minutes!
Get the recipe: Brown Sugar Cookies
Oh Sweet Basil
These copycat Lofthouse sugar cookies have a delicious buttery vanilla flavor, delicate crumb, and melt in your mouth. Then they’re topped with creamy frosting & tons of sprinkles.
Get the recipe: Copycat Lofthouse Sugar Cookies
Pretty.Simple.Sweet
Super soft sugar cookies with a delicate vanilla flavor and texture. They’re so good that you’ll want to eat them all as soon as they’re out of the oven. You’ve been warned!
Get the recipe: Pillowy Soft Sugar Cookies
Simply So Good
Sour cream sugar cookies are so tender and soft. This cake-like cookie is made rich with sour cream and butter and will so become a family favorite.
Get the recipe: Sour Cream Sugar Cookies
Love Bakes Good Cakes
Soft sugar cookies are perfect for the holiday season, birthdays, or any time you want a sweet treat!
Get the recipe: Perfect Sugar Cookies
Stress Baking
These maple sugar cookies are soft cut-out sugar cookies with crisp, defined edges that are loaded with maple syrup flavor – no chilling required, and ready in about 30 minutes!
Get the recipe: Maple Sugar Cookies
I Heart Naptime
This recipe for cinnamon roll cookies is simple to make and will have you looking like a total baking rock star. You won’t believe how delicious these cookies are!
Get the recipe: Cinnamon Roll Sugar Cookies
Homemade Hooplah
The perfect soft and chewy sugar cookies: just the right amount of softness with a tiny bit of chewiness and a buttery vanilla taste. Simple and easy recipe.
Get the recipe: Soft and Chewy Sugar Cookies
Julie's Eats and Treats
Chewy, soft sugar cookies are the perfect treat for any occasion. This no-chill dough recipe is super easy and results in the perfect drop sugar cookie.
Get the recipe: Soft Sugar Cookies
Bakery Style Sugar Cookies
These bakery-style sugar cookies are thick, lightly crisp around the edges, but oh, so soft and chewy in the middle.
Get the recipe: Bakery-Style Sugar Cookies
Lemons and Zest
These lemon sugar cookies are soft and chewy and with the perfect amount of citrus to bring sunshine to your day.
Get the recipe: Lemon Sugar Cookies
The Gold Lining Girl
Soft, puffy, melt-in-your-mouth Amish sugar cookies! This sugar cookie recipe could not be easier and they’re made with common pantry ingredients!
Get the recipe: Amish Sugar Cookies
A Latte Food
These soft baked cutout sugar cookies are made with homemade frosting and are such a simple classic christmas cookie recipe.
Get the recipe: Soft Baked Cutout Sugar Cookies
Cheneé Today
Peppermint white chocolate sugar cookies for a sparkling holiday treat!
Get the recipe: Peppermint Sugar Cookies
Family Cookie Recipes
All butter sugar cookies are soft and sweet cookies topped with a buttery vanilla frosting. Easy sugar cookie recipe made with simple pantry ingredients that yields about a dozen cookies.
Get the recipe: Butter Sugar Cookies
Kleinworth & Co.
These soft and chewy 4-Ingredient Sugar Cookies are made without eggs or cake mix and don’t require chilling or rolling. So simple, so good! Perfect for a quick and easy dessert!
Get the recipe: 4-Ingredient Sugar Cookies
Cloudy Kitchen
This funfetti sugar cookie recipe is soft and chewy, bakes up puffy, and is super easy to make with a delicious vanilla bean flavour. The cookies are filled with rainbow sprinkles for a fun and easy take on the classic sugar cookie.
Get the recipe: Funfetti Sugar Cookies
Beyond the Butter
These chocolate cut out sugar cookies put a fun spin on the classic we all know and love! They're super soft, chocolatey, and hold their shape well.
Get the recipe: Super Soft Chocolate Cut Out Sugar Cookies
Wholesome Yum
Low carb keto sugar cookies with coconut flour are perfect for any holiday! This 20-minute keto sugar cookie recipe has sugar-free options for sprinkles and frosting, too.
Get the recipe: Keto Sugar Cookies
Tastes of Lizzy T
Soft, chewy cream cheese sugar cookies. This easy cut out sugar cookie recipe stays soft because of cream cheese.
Get the recipe: Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies
Cookies and Cups
This easy sugar cookie recipe is the only one I use – especially for holidays like Christmas! I’ve been baking these cookies for years – the recipe is simple and the dough is perfect for cut-out cookie decorating.
Get the recipe: Easy Sugar Cookies
Just So Tasty
Save time this holiday season with this easy Christmas sugar cookie bars. They’re extra soft with a thick layer of frosting, and way less work than sugar cookies!
Get the recipe: Christmas Sugar Cookie Bars
The Slow Roasted Italian
Cookie bites are tiny versions of our best sugar cookie recipe that are just as soft and tender. Make these mini sugar cookies today in just 30 minutes!
Get the recipe: Sugar Cookie Bites
Six Sisters' Stuff
These frosted sugar cookie bars are soft, chewy and topped with homemade buttercream frosting and sprinkles. These cookie bars are made in a sheet pan and can easily feed a crowd.
Get the recipe: Frosted Sugar Cookie Bars
Tastes of Lizzy T
These frosted eggnog cookies are made with a soft sugar cookie recipe that’s spiked with eggnog, and have a gorgeous swirl of eggnog frosting on top.
Get the recipe: Frosted Eggnog Cookies
Life Love Sugar
These decadent chocolate sugar cookies are supremely soft and chewy! They don’t need to be chilled before baking and they stay soft for days!
Get the recipe: Chocolate Sugar Cookies
