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These Christmas Sugar Cookies are a must during the holidays. This no-chill recipe makes them so easy to make and our royal frosting recipe puts them over the top!
5-Star Reviews ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“Love to make sugar cookies with the family this time of year, favorite Christmas tradition! The cornstarch is amazing, worked like a charm. Thanks. Great recipe!!” – Laurie
“These cookies are the cutest, delicious and fun to decorate. I had my grandkids over for an afternoon and we had so many laughs decorating these cookies. Oh yes, we loved eating our works of art!!! The cookies are sooooo good. Thanks!” – Carol
Our Favorite Christmas Tradition
Baking a big batch of Christmas sugar cookies has become one of our favorite holiday traditions. It doesn’t feel like Christmas until we’ve pulled out the cookie cutters and spent an afternoon decorating with the kids (sprinkles everywhere, kitchen in shambles, and lots of smiles)! I also love turning cookie decorating into a girls’ night with friends, sipping cocoa and creating beautifully detailed designs. I actually find it super therapeutic. It’s a win-win. Nights full of memories that end with delicious cookies to share with friends, family, and neighbors. I know you are going to love these cookies as much as we do, even Santa can’t stop at just one!
🩷 Erica
Table of Contents
- 5-Star Reviews ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- Our Favorite Christmas Tradition
- Christmas Sugar Cookie Ingredients
- Tools You’ll Need
- How to Make Christmas Sugar Cookies (Step-by-Step)
- Rolling and Cutting Tips
- Royal Icing vs. Cream Cheese Frosting
- How to Decorate Christmas Cookies with Royal Icing
- Freezing and Storage
- Frequently Asked Questions
- More Traditional Christmas Cookies
- The Best Christmas Sugar Cookies (No-Chill Recipe)
Christmas Sugar Cookie Ingredients
- For the sugar cookies: All-purpose flour, cornstarch, salt, butter (very cold), sugar, egg, and vanilla and almond extract. (See the full list of ingredients and measurements in the recipe card below)
- Royal icing: powdered sugar, meringue powder, water, and food coloring.
- Optional decorations: sprinkles, sanding sugar, and candies (like Red Hots or M&Ms).
Tools You’ll Need
- Christmas cookie cutters – Candy canes, Santa hats, sleighs, stars, Christmas trees, snowflake, and ornaments are all great cooking cutter shapes to have on hand.
- Icing bags and tips – I used a Wilton #3 round piping tip for the outlines- you can get them on Amazon (here) for about $1 or any craft store.
- Squeeze Bottles – When my kids were little I would use squeeze bottles instead of piping bags so they could help decorate too. It was easier for them to handle and made less of a mess. They are the cheapest at the Dollar Store.
- Gel food coloring
- Toothpicks – These help to fill in the tiny little gaps and smooth over the icing.
How to Make Christmas Sugar Cookies (Step-by-Step)
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
- Whisk together the flour, cornstarch, and a pinch of salt in a medium bowl.
- Cream the cold butter and sugar in a stand mixer until light and fluffy.
- Mix in the egg, vanilla, and almond extract until smooth and well combined.
- Gradually add the dry ingredients, mixing on low speed until the dough comes together in soft crumbles. If it feels too dry, add a tablespoon of water. Press the crumbs together to form a soft ball. It should be soft and pliable.
- Roll the dough out to about ⅜- inch thickness. For the most even and accurate thickness, use a rolling pin with measured guides.
- Cut into shapes with your favorite Christmas cookie cutters and place them on the prepared baking sheet.
- Bake for 10–12 minutes, until the edges are just set. Let the cookies cool completely before decorating with royal icing or frosting.
Rolling and Cutting Tips
Rolled cookies are made by rolling out a firm dough and cutting it into shapes with cookie cutters. This makes for that classic Christmas sugar cookie or gingerbread cookie look. To keep the dough even, use a rolling pin with guide rings so each cookie bakes uniformly. I usually go for a ⅜ inch-thickness. Not too thick, not too thin. For sharp, neat edges, I like to add some cornstarch to the cookie dough. The cornstarch helps the cookies hold their shape beautifully, making them smooth and easy to decorate every time.
Royal Icing vs. Cream Cheese Frosting
When my kids were little, I loved using cream cheese frosting (or vanilla buttercream frosting) on these cookies so they could pile on the sprinkles and candies. It was messy, fun, and delicious! Now that they’re older, they like decorating with royal icing to create smooth, detailed designs. Both options are great: cream cheese frosting gives you a thick, creamy bite, while royal icing dries with a shiny finish that’s perfect for intricate Christmas cookie designs. It really just depends on what you are going for and how detailed you want your designs (and how old your “helpers” are).
How to Decorate Christmas Cookies with Royal Icing
- First, you need to make your royal icing and flood icing in all the colors you want to decorate with. Place the “outline” icing in a piping bag with a #3 round tip and outline the cookies.
- Fill in the outlines on the cookies with the “flood” icing.
- Use a toothpick to fill in any little gaps (see pictures above to get an idea of how this is done). You can do the swirl designs by adding dots or lines of different colors over your base color and swirling with a toothpick (see the ornament cookie in the image below).
- Add sprinkles for more dimension and design. Be creative and have fun!
Freezing and Storage
One of the best things about these Christmas Sugar Cookies is that you can make them ahead of time. Once decorated, they’ll stay fresh in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days or chilled in the fridge for 5-7 days. For longer storage, freeze the cookies before frosting by laying them flat until solid, then layer them in a freezer-safe container with wax paper between each layer. You can also freeze frosted cookies, just be sure the icing is completely set before stacking. They’ll keep in the freezer for a month or two before losing freshness.
Frequently Asked Questions
You can make them up to a month or two in advance and freeze them! Keep them in an air-tight container or in a freezer-safe zip-top bag.
Not with this recipe! Follow this recipe exactly for clean, crisp edges without chilling the dough.
About ¼ to ⅜ inch is ideal. I like my cookies on the thicker side so I usually go with ⅜ inch. That thickness gives enough structure to hold the shape while still baking through nicely.
Read more: The BEST Christmas Cookies – Quick and Easy Recipes
More Traditional Christmas Cookies
Here are some more of our favorites to make this time of year:
Elf Cookies
Andes Mint Cookies
Chocolatce Marshmallow Cookies
Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies
Chocolate Orange Cookies
Now that you’ve got all the tips and tricks for making Christmas Sugar Cookies, it’s time to get baking and decorating. Trust me, with a little practice, you’ll be amazed at the beautiful cookies you can create. Don’t forget to tag us on Instagram @favoritefamilyrecipes to show us your beautiful creations! 🎄🎅🏻⭐️
The Best Christmas Sugar Cookies (No-Chill Recipe)
Video
Ingredients
- 3 cups flour
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup butter, (1 cup = 2 sticks) keep the butter COLD until ready to use
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- royal icing, see recipe links below
- Christmas sprinkles
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350-degrees. In a medium-sized bowl, combine flour, cornstarch, and salt. Stir until well combined.
- Cut COLD butter into cubes (they don't need to be perfect) and add to the bowl of a stand mixer (or in a large mixing bowl if you are using a hand mixer). Add sugar and mix together until smooth and fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl if needed.
- Add 1 egg, vanilla extract, and almond extract and mix until well combined. Add the flour/cornstarch mixture in and mix on low speed until crumbles form (if you are at a higher elevation and the crumbles seem a little too dry you can add a tablespoon or two of water, not too much though, you want it to be crumbly, not sticky).
- Remove crumbles from mixer and knead into a ball.
- Place between two pieces of parchment paper and roll out to about 3/8-1/2" thickness (however thick you want the cookies to be is how thick you want to roll it out– these cookies aren't going to rise very much, if at all).
- Use Christmas cookie cutters to cut shapes out of the dough.
- Place cookies on a baking sheet lined with a baking mat or parchment paper.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes. Allow to cool COMPLETELY before icing with royal icing or cream cheese frosting, (see links below for icing/frosting recipes)
Notes
- Try our Royal Icing Recipe and Flood Icing Recipe by clicking the link (This is the icing we used in the pictures above. Royal icing is ideal for beautiful, detailed decorating.)
- Or try our Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe (Cream cheese frosting is great for those who care less about the fancy decorating and instead prefer thick, creamy frosting that you can eat by the spoonful. Also easier to decorate with kids.)
- Store these cookies for up to a month in the freezer. When ready to eat, bring to a cold temperature – not all the way to room temperature. They are best eaten cold.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Absolutely delish recipe. We did a double batch and they were gone in days.
Absolutely LOVED the taste and softness of these cookies. I did need to add a little water to the dough as the crumbles appeared a bit dry. Cookies cut clean and baked nicely with the notated time.
So glad you liked them! You did the right thing, altitude and humidity always plays a role when baking so it’s a good idea to go by touch!
OMG Randi, mine taste like short bread and are very dry, as well, and this is after I added several TSBP of water AND several TBSP of butter! I will be using a different recipe next time : (
Mine taste like shortbread cookies (but maybe a little more dry).
Is that the flavor they’re supposed to have?
I followed the recipe to the letter… should they taste “dry”?
(I haven’t done the icing yet)
where are the amounts for flour Durham etc, ???? we have the ingredients but not the amounts of each???
If you scroll down to the bottom of the page you will see the recipe card with amounts!
Do you live at a higher elevation? Sometimes if we are baking these at high elevation we have to add a little water to the dough.
FYI when you double the recipe the butter quantity is wrong. It’s four sticks.
Thanks for letting us know – I have changed the wording to clear that up.
can you use confectioners sugar in place of the granulated sugar?
Thank you for your response.
What colors did you use to get the pale and dark greens here?
We usually mix up our own colors with a combination of colors. Our favorite brands are Americolor (found on Amazon) and Sunny Side Up Bakery (found at Hobby Lobby).
These are by far the best sugar cookies I have ever made. Thank you so much for sharing!!
Thanks for a great family friendly recipe.
This recipe replaced an old time recipe!!
Melt in your mouth.
Everyone loves them
Ideal to bake with the kids, they are easy and a favourite of the whole family ♥
Love to make sugar cookies with the family this time of year, favorite Christmas tradition! The cornstarch is amazing, worked like a charm. Thanks. Great recipe!!
Christmas Classic and a GOTTA HAVE it each year. However, mine never are decorated as lovely as these!
This is my favorite!!
These cookies are the cutest, delicious and fun to decorate. I had my grandkids over for an afternoon and we had so many laughs decorating these cookies. Oh yes, we loved eating our works of art!!! The cookies are sooooo good. Thanks
These ARE the best sugar cookies ever. Takes a bit of time to make and decorate, but when I am done, I am pleased with my accomplishment. Tastes really good too!
I am so happy to have found this recipe for sugar cookies! My twin grandbabies are just the right age to make cookies this year with their grammy! It was so much fun! They loved the cookies!!!!
Favorite Christmas cookie recipe!❤️❤️
Can’t go wrong with a good sugar cookie recipe & this one is flawless! Easy, yummy..hits ALL the marks
this is a great recipe, only thing is i can’t stop making different colored royal icing! Y’all need to give this cookie recipe a try, very good !
WOW! Your cookies look amazing, just beautiful!! I’m saving this recipe. Any ideas to decorate without frosting/icing?
You can add food coloring to the dough and add shapes of dough to the top of the cookies. This is an article from Wilton that shows you how to do it. I hope this helps: https://www.wilton.com/how-to-color-cookie-dough/WLTECH-201.html
Awesome recipe and easy to make!!! Glad I found this recipe as my other one I used was too complicated. Thanks for saving Christmas!
These look delicious! The directions make it sound so easy. I will have to give these a try!
Can’t go wrong with a classic! So delish!!
These are my favorite cookies because you can creates many designs with cookie cutter and royal icing. So much fun!
My daughter and I have been looking for a “go-to” sugar cookie recipe and this is it!!! Yummy and easy are two of my favorite words! Thank you…you are making me better in the kitchen!❤️
I made these on the first snow of the year…they were fun to make and my kids gobbled them up as soon as they finished decorating them!
These cookies are the best Delicious!
Christmas isn’t complete without sugar cookies. This is a wonderful recipe.
Kids love to help decorate these. It’s fun to see their creations.
So beautiful and delicious the frosting was out of this world thank you ever so much😁
Wow these really were truly delicious and so cute and pretty frosting was sooo good
I love making cookies with my grandchildren. Watching them create their own designs and seeing their faces. Best time of years
Love this recipe! So yummy for the tummy 😋 Thank you!! 🥰
These are good and easy. I don’t frost them, too much sugar for my tastes.
Great recipe and so fun to make with the grandkids
There’s nothing better than a good sugar cookie and this is it. Your instructions and tutorial are the best that I’ve ever read. Thank you for this kind opportunity!
These sound wonderful . Easy to make.
Sugar cookies always make me think of my grandmother and these cookies are the best.
I lost my Christmas cookbook that was filled with recipes passed down all the way from my grand mamares and great aunts, grandmothers, aunts and my mom. Mist of the recipes I could get back but could get the sugar cookie recipe of my Granny’s so I tried your. I must confess your recipe tasted better. I love this site for discovering more exciting recipes.
I love this recipe! It takes me back to being a kid during the Holidays and baking cookies with my Mom and Aunties.
Turned out beautiful. Reminds me of Christmas cookie baking with my mom and grandmother!!! Such good memories revisited.
Sugar cookies are so hard to get just right. This is the perfect recipe!
So easy and soooo good. fun family activity.
this are a favorite christmas cookie and lots of fun to make with the kids and decorate as well.
One of my favorite holiday cookies. Perfect with hot cocoa.
Can’t seem to get the butter and sugar smooth and fluffy with the butter so cold. Any tips?
What are you using to mix it? Are you using a stand mixer or a hand mixer?
Love Love Love this recipe! Just made them and they couldn’t be any more perfect! Tossing the old recipe i had!
After suffering through all the fancy Christmas cookie recipe ridiculousness, I knew the minute I hit your page ladies that this was the recipe I need. Thank you!
Can you just use sugar crystals on cookies before baking in place of frosting?
We haven’t tried that, but I think it would be good!
TRULY the BEST COOKIE RECIPE EVER! Ever since using this recipe, our cookies come out wonderful, delicious and they keep their shape so that we can decorate. Thank you for giving us wonderful family memories every Christmas; this recipe is a game changer!
Thanks for the tip about higher elevations! Made these in Calgary, AB, Canada, (1045 masl) and added 1 tbs of water – they turned out fabulous! Will definitely be making them again!
I made these last year and gave them out to my family and friends along with several other baked goodies. These were by far the biggest hit! And so beautiful! I couldn’t believe how pretty they came out on my first try, even without piping bags! Although I regretted that choice and will definitely use them this year. Cannot recommend this recipe enough! So simple and delicious.
Are these cookies soft or crunchy?
They should be soft! If they turn out crunchy they are over-baked.
thank you for this great Christmas Cookie recipe! I can’t wait to try it out!!
I have never had any luck with other sugar cookies recipes keeping the shape once baked. They always spread into blobs. Do you have any advice or tips?
Keeping the dough cold is super important to the cookies keeping their shape. I would recommend putting the cookies back in the freezer for a few minutes right before you bake them. If your kitchen is warm, sometimes handling the dough to get it in the right shape and onto the cookie sheet can warm it up too much. One last tip – instead of greasing your cookie sheet, use a silicon baking mat or parchment paper instead. I hope this helps! Happy Holidays!
I do not see anywhere in the instructions that we are supposed to chill the dough first, how long are we supposed to chill it before we cut the cookies out?
Thanks for catching that. I got this recipe mixed up with another. I have edited the comment for clarity.
I’m still not clear if we’re supposed to chill the dough before rolling it out.
You don’t have to chill the dough before rolling it out!
What if I do not have almond extract, can I just omit that, or should I add more vanilla extract in?
You can omit the almond extract, that should be fine!
Do you use plain flour, or self rising.
We use all-purpose flour!
Has anyone tried recipe with a cookie stamp?
To be honest, I haven’t baked the cookies yet. But I just have to say, you have the most beautiful, well organized, informative web site ever! Kudos to your web master! Can’t wait to jump in and bake! The recipe rating is an estimate since I haven’t actually baked them yet. But based on my experience, it looks great!
Delicious
Very tender cookies, good plain, but frosting added takes it to the top level.
Thanks for sharing
How long ahead of time can you make the royal icing? How long does it keep? Hours days? Also, I’m going to make these for some teachers how far in advance would you say I can bake the cookies and frost later?
Royal icing lasts about 2-3 days in the fridge. As far as the cookies, you can make them up to 3 months in advance if you store them in the freezer.
Can I use unsalted butter in this recipe ?
Sure!
I’ve not had a lot of success decorating Christmas cookies so I’m going to use all your tips!
I’ve never made sugar cookies from scratch before but your recipe has inspired me to try! I love all of the decoration ideas too! 🙂
Oh wow, these Christmas cookies are so cute! Definitely the recipe to keep handy for these holidays! 🙂
These look so cute and festive! I know my nieces will love making these with me, they look like such a fun activity to do with kids!
I think I’m a thick cream chees frosting ‘you can eat by the spoonful’ gal. YUM! Love all your tips and thanks for including two different icing options! This post is a great holiday resource!
Can you freeze the cookie dough until ready to bake?
Sure! Just thaw it before baking.
No cream in ingredients, no amount. Then in directions it says add sugar and cream.
When we say cream in that instruction we are referring to “creaming” the butter and sugar together. Creaming means to mix it together until it is light and fluffy. Sorry for the confusion!
Finally a dough that isn’t so sticky it’s impossible to use! These came out wonderful. They taste great too; perfect amount of sweetness. Rolling between parchment paper is great tip. This will be my go-to recipe for Christmas sugar cookies.
I’m in the midst of making them too. What cream? How much
When we say cream in that instruction we are referring to “creaming” the butter and sugar together. Creaming means to mix it together until it is light and fluffy. Sorry for the confusion!
Thank you!!!!! You make my life better by sharing your gift of making the kind of food that is so ☆FUN to make and wonderful to eat 🙂 merry christmas!
Thank you so much for your kind review! We are so glad you love our recipes!
Hi what type of flour is used self raising or plain ? Also what is corn starch thank you
Plain, all-purpose flour! And cornstarch is the starch derived from corn kernels. You can find it in the baking aisle!