Cookies can bring so much joy with just one bite, and this collection of our best cookie recipes will help you bring joy to special occasions throughout the year. Try our celebratory funfetti cookies or the tea-worthy brown-butter sablés. Savor tried-and-true classics like chocolate chip cookies and thumbprints, and go big with our holiday-geared seasonal cookies. These are our best cookies, from our kitchens to yours.
Lemony Butter Cookies
Diana Chistruga
Use fresh lemons and high-quality butter to make these light, airy, and perfectly sweet-perfectly citrusy cookies.
Thai Tea Crinkle Cookies
Matt Taylor-Gross / Food Styling Ali Domrongchai
It takes just 10 minutes to prep these aromatic Thai tea-infused crinkle cookies from food and travel writer Alexandra Domrongchai.
Chocolate Chunk Cookies with Halvah
Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Emily Nabors Hall / Prop Styling by Shell Royster
2022 F&W Best New Chef Warda Bouguettaya brings us these nutty halvah-studded chocolate chip cookies. Use chocolate fèves for wonderfully melty puddles of chocolate in each cookie.
Vanilla–Brown Butter Sablé Cookies
Pastry chef Natasha Pickowicz makes these butter cookies with a spotlight on vanilla. Use a high-quality vanilla extract, or go the extra mile with fresh-scraped vanilla bean seeds.
Brown Butter and Dark Chocolate Rye Cookies
Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Margaret Monroe Dickey / Prop Styling by Christina Daley
2022 F&W Best New Chef Caroline Schiff brings us these earthy, chocolatey slice-and-bake cookies. To make ahead, you can freeze the dough logs for up to two months before you bake them off.
Double-Chocolate Rye Cookies
Don’t skip the chilling time for these chocolate-rich cookies from Paige Grandjean — it makes the cookies set properly to bake up perfectly in the oven. For more indulgence, serve these with vanilla ice cream sandwiched inside.
Brown Butter-Cardamom Spitzbuben
These adorable Bavarian cookies are ready for the holiday table. Flavors of brown butter and citrusy cardamom come through each fragrant bite.
Chocolate Brownie Cookies
Julia Hartbeck
James Beard Award-winning pastry chef Belinda Leong captures the virtues of both a brownie and a cookie in one rich and chewy treat with crisp edges and a generous smattering of chocolate chips.
Chewy, Fudgy Almond Butter and Palm Sugar Cookies
Christopher Testani / Food Styling by Chelsea Zimmer / Prop Styling by Claire Spollen
Writer and editor Scott Mowbray gets inspiration for these almond butter cookies from the salted peanut butter cookies at New York City’s Ovenly bakery. Palm sugar gives a caramelized, tangy flavor, while almond butter makes for a fudgy texture with crisped edges.
Pumpkin Spice Snickerdoodles
These irresistible cookies from James Beard Award-winning pastry chef Kelly Fields are on our baking lists from October through the New Year — and often much further beyond that. You’ll enjoy loads of warm pumpkin spice in each orange blossom- and vanilla-kissed cookie.
Triple Chocolate-Peppermint Cookies
Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate is the name of the game in these decadent, festive cookies from Linda Levinson Friend. Make the pretty, pink peppermint bark in this recipe for the cookie toppers, or use store-bought to save time.
Brown-Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Browned butter gives would-be traditional chocolate chip cookies a deliciously toasty butterscotch flavor. Soft, melty chocolate chunks dot each sweet, salty, chewy cookie.
Cardamom Shortbread Cookies with Dulce de Leche Peda Filling
Blogger and cookbook author Hetal Vasavada brings us this recipe for celebratory cookies. Each Indian milk fudge-filled spiced cookie sandwich is a display of color and detail, decorated with edible flower petals and gold leaf.
Spiced Banana-Oatmeal Cookies
Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Torie Cox / Prop Styling by Thom Driver
In under an hour, you can enjoy two dozen of these spiced banana cookies from F&W’s Chandra Ram. Cinnamon and cardamom take the lead in creating a floral, warm spice profile.
Marranitos
Linda Xiao / Food Styling by Margaret Monroe Dickey / Prop Styling by Christina Daley
These pig-shaped chewy cookies with a zippy ginger flavor come to us from recipe developer and cookbook author Andrea Nguyen. Robust flavors from molasses and ample fall spices give these cookies a wonderful warmth.
Giant Chocolate Cookie with Cacao Nibs and Flaky Salt
Cocoa, bittersweet chocolate, and cacao nibs go into this giant, festive cookie. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt for an elegant garnish, or perhaps decorate it with candied cranberries for a holiday finish.
Sorrel Thumbprints
Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Margaret Monroe Dickey / Prop Styling by Thom Driver
Ramin Ganeshram turns the beloved holiday drink, sorrel, into a bite-size thumbprint cookie made with a hibiscus liqueur and West Indian spices like nutmeg, allspice, and cloves.
Cardamom–Poppy Seed Cookies
These crispy-thin cookies come to us from acclaimed photographer and former chef Simon Bajada. Orange zest and poppy seeds complement sweet, floral notes of cardamom.
Zoë’s Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies
Food & Wine / Photo by Brie Goldman / Food Styling by Lauren McAnelly / Prop Styling by Alexandria Juhl
Baking pro Zoë Francois’ idea of perfect is four-inch, chocolate-packed cookies with golden crisp edges and chewy interiors.
Crunchy Peanut Butter Cookies
Southern cook Elizabeth Woodson makes these peanut buttery cookies without any flour. They’re nutty, crowd-pleasing cookies that take less than 30 minutes to make.
Shortbread Cookies
Matt Taylor-Gross / Food Styling by Debbie Wee
F&W’s Chandra Ram brings us these classically crumbly, buttery shortbread cookies. Enjoy them any time of the day, any day of the year. Dress them up with white glaze and red and green sprinkles for a holiday-season variation.
Oatmeal Cookies
Matt Taylor-Gross / Food Styling by Ali Domrongchai
Tina Ujlaki soaks raisins in vanilla to add flavor to these classic cookies that are ready in half an hour.
Salted Tahini-Chocolate Shortbread
F&W’s Anna Theoktisto’s buttery cookies have a nutty, salty edge not typically found in shortbread cookies. They are wonderfully tender and look beautiful.
Cake Cookies
Jordan Provost / Food Styling by Thu Buser
F&W’s Sean Flynn shares his family tradition with this recipe for soft, cake-like cookies with fudgy frosting and chocolate sprinkles.
Gluten-Free Cacao Nib Meringues
Charlie Trotter’s meringues contain chocolate, cacao nibs, and cocoa for a rich flavor. These perfectly crisp-chewy cookies are best enjoyed the day of.
Tortellini Dolci al Forno (Emilian Fruit-Stuffed Christmas Cookies)
Alicia Lini, a fourth-generation Italian winemaker, brings us these stuffed Christmas cookies with a tender dough and a filling of tart, wintry fruits.
Alfajores Chilenitos (Chilean Dulce de Leche Sandwich Cookies)
Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Julian Hensarling / Prop Styling by Risha Carnes
Award-winning baker and cookbook author Bryan Ford sandwiches sweet and silky dulce de leche between shortbread-style cookies for this popular South American treat.
Chocolate Pretzel Crinkle Cookies
If you love pretzels and want a not-too-sweet cookie, these cookies are for you. Glutino gluten-free pretzels replace flour for the ultimate chewy crinkle texture — and coincidentally make the cookies gluten-free.
S’mores Linzer Cookies
These Linzer-inspired cookies use graham flour and hazelnut meal and feature marshmallow creme centers with a chocolate drizzle.
Lemon-Tahini Cookies
Ideal for a cookie swap, this recipe will yield about 30 not-too-sweet lemony, nutty cookies. You can also freeze the dough up to three weeks in advance — perfect for make-ahead holidays.
Chocolate Ganache Sandwich Cookies
2021 F&W Best New Chef Paola Velez fills crisp, buttery cookies with rich, fluffy milk chocolate ganache in an hour and a half.
Triple Ginger Rye Cookies
This cookie recipe features molasses, three forms of ginger, and rye flour, and it yields four dozen cookies — more than enough to bring to the holiday bash.
Lemon-Buckwheat Shortbread
For a robust, nutty flavor, use freshly milled buckwheat flour in these lemony shortbread cookies from 2017 F&W Best New Chef Nina Compton.
Toffee-Apricot Oat Cookies
Salt-tinged toffee, super-sweet milk chocolate, and tart dried apricots create a balanced melange of rich flavors in these crisp-chewy oat cookies from Nicole Krasinski and Kathleen Kwuan.
Funfetti Cookies
These funfetti cookies are full of colorful sprinkles that children and children-at-heart will adore. They’re perfect for any festive occasion and can be used as the cookies in your very own ice cream sandwich.
Negroni Cookies
Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Margaret Monroe Dickey / Prop Styling by Thom Driver
Orange-infused sugar goes into the dough of these Negroni-inspired cookies from Angela Garbacz; it’s also used to roll the dough balls in before baking. Sparkling sugar gives them a dazzling finishing touch.
Butterscotch Chocolate Sandwich Cookies
A homemade butterscotch fills these chocolate sandwich cookies from former senior test kitchen editor Grace Parisi.
Cardamom Thumbprints
These gem-like cookies can be made in under an hour. They feature a hint of floral, spiced cardamom and are made with a blend of equal parts almond flour and all-purpose flour.
Spiced Gingerbread Cookies
Tender, cake-like, and just firm enough to decorate, these sweet-spiced cookies from baker Julianne Jones make a delightful addition to any holiday dessert table.
Matcha Tea Cake Cookies
These tender, moist cookies feature matcha for a tea-like flavor and greenish tinge. A blend of vanilla and almond extracts adds a complexity of warm, nutty flavors.
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