I Tested Our 5 Most Popular Sugar Cookie Recipes—This Is the One You Need

The holidays are officially upon us. While there is technically never a bad time to make sugar cookies, now is arguably the perfect time to find the best recipe and make it your own. There are multitudes of sugar cookie recipes out there, so to save you a little time and stress, I tested the five most popular ones from Allrecipes community members. Here’s what I learned.

In Search of the Perfect Sugar Cookie

What really makes a sugar cookie stand out above the rest? The perfect cookie holds its own without adornment and gets bonus points for adaptability and/or frostability. The ideal recipe results in a cookie with crispy edges, a chewy center, and flawless flavor balance. The ingredients and methodology are simple, but require attention to detail in order to achieve these standards. 

Meet the Contestants

How I Judged the Recipes

I considered three key factors when judging each recipe: 

• Texture: There are actually two categories when it comes to sugar cookie consistency, and both have their place in our lineup. For balled or scooped cookies, the texture must be crisp around the edges with a tender, chewy center (bonus points for a crackly top). The second category belongs to the rolled sugar cookie, where the ideal specimen has a smooth top for decorating with a rich, buttery interior. 
• Flavor: Recipes with simple ingredients require extra precision when it comes to perfecting the flavor profile. My biggest requirement, especially in sweets, is salt. Salt is essential as it serves to both balance and accentuate the ingredients around it. A cookie recipe without salt is like watching Bob Ross on a black and white TV. Next, let’s talk about vanilla. I find that imitation vanilla extract is wonderful, nostalgic, and easy to find. Pure vanilla extract will heighten the vanilla flavor a bit more than imitation vanilla. If you are feeling fancy, and really want to pull out all the stops, vanilla beans or vanilla bean pastes will elevate and round out your sugar cookies in an entirely different way. All of this depends on your personal preference and all of them have a place in my kitchen cabinet. 
• Workability: Sugar cookies often need to be rested in the fridge, rolled out, and baked later. A few of the recipes that I tested are scooped and shaped right out of the mixing bowl, which is so convenient. I judged the workability of each recipe based on the ease of the recipe instructions and the level of difficulty each dough presented during rolling or shaping. A crumbly dough tends to suggest a dry outcome, while a silky dough generally results in a more tender cookie. 

The Results

Best For Decorating: The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies

• The Recipe: The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies by J. Saunders 
• Average Rating: 4.5 stars
• Rave Review: “These ARE the best! I didn’t change the recipe at all. I didn’t have any problems at all with the dough being sticky. It was the smoothest, most cooperative cookie dough I’ve ever worked with.” —Allrecipes member CRYSTALJJP

Of the five recipes I tested, this is hands-down the best for decorating. The author calls simply for butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, baking powder, and salt. The dough requires a minimum rest in the fridge of an hour.  These cookies roll out beautifully and maintain their shapes during the baking process, which makes them so versatile. They also ranked high in both flavor and texture categories. 

Best Last-Minute Cookies: Easy Sugar Cookies

• The Recipe: Easy Sugar Cookies by Stephanie
• Average Rating: 4.5 stars
• Rave Review: “I know this will sound melodramatic, but I’ve been looking for a good sugar cookie recipe my whole life. I had accepted the fact that I would never find it when I tried this recipe. The cookies baked up crispy and buttery, just the right amount of sweetness, chewy for days.” —Allrecipes member ILOVEFOOD!

Stephanie’s recipe is as easy as they come. Softened butter and sugar are creamed together with an egg and a dash of vanilla. Fold in the dry ingredients, and you’re more than halfway there. This recipe goes straight from the mixing bowl to the oven with no required rest in the fridge. The cookies bake up crisp on the outside with a chewy interior. This is 100 percent the recipe to use when you need sugar cookies … and you need them 10 minutes ago. My only real gripe with this recipe is that it does not include any salt. 

Most Versatile: Cracked Sugar Cookies

• The Recipe: Cracked Sugar Cookies by Pam
• Average Rating: 4.7 stars
• Rave Review: “ I made this recipe exactly as written. I doubled the batch and used an ice cream scoop to make bigger cookies for a fundraiser. They are crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. They are the new favorite!🥰” —Allrecipes member Diane S. Hast

Pam’s recipe calls for creaming softened butter and sugar before adding egg yolks and folding in dry ingredients. This is another quick recipe that requires no rest in the fridge after mixing. The dough is scooped and rolled into balls before baking for 10 minutes. The result is a supremely soft and chewy cookie with that coveted crackly top. While these cookies are great on their own, the recipe lends itself to adaptability. A little nutmeg and cinnamon turn these right into snickerdoodles. The texture, while not ideal for cookie cutters, is great for frosting and decorating.

Best Supermarket Dupe: Thick Cut-Outs

• The Recipe: Thick Cut-Outs by Margo
• Average Rating: 4.6 stars
• Rave Review: “I love these cookies! I have made this recipe for years now and it is my go to no-fail recipe when baking cut-outs. 10 years now and it has seen me through every Holiday!” —Allrecipes member Angela Petersen Sherbert

Margo’s recipe includes eggs, egg yolks, and a tablespoon of baking powder. All of this leavening results in a tall and cake-like cookie with an airy interior. This outcome is reminiscent of the frosted sugar cookies that have been so popular in grocery stores over the past several years. This is the ideal recipe for either replicating these cookies at home or for making black and white cookies.

I tested this recipe with a variety of cookie cutters—while they mostly maintained their shapes, they’re a little goofy-looking due to the amount of puffiness and height gained in the oven. I found the dough to be an absolute delight to work with: It’s smooth and silky and doesn’t break or tear easily. The flavor is nice and benefits from the addition of frosting. 

Best Overall: Chewy Sugar Cookies

• The Recipe: Chewy Sugar Cookies by Cindy Catudal Shank
• Average Rating: 4.3 stars
• Rave Review: “I’ve been baking these cookies for about 7 years. Now my grandson and I bake them together. They’re his very favorite cookie. Who knew a sugar cookie could be so delicious?!” —Allrecipes member Melanie Simpson

This recipe was a complete surprise to me—and the favorite among my kids. The recipe calls for margarine instead of butter, which made me a bit dubious, but the results were fantastic. Margarine and sugar are beaten together until creamy, followed by eggs and vanilla. Dry ingredients are folded in, just until the mixture comes together. The dough goes for a brief rest in the fridge before walnut-sized balls are scooped and rolled in a bit of granulated sugar.

Not only were these cookies great right out of the oven, but they maintained their flavor and texture for several days in a box on the countertop. This recipe managed to challenge my loyalty to butter, which is not something I’ve ever publicly admitted. I have bookmarked this recipe to make again very soon.