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These are a pastry chef’s recipes for the 24 Best Christmas Cookies for a festive holiday season. Bake your favorites and find a few new recipes to delight your family and friends this year! This list of recipes is grouped by texture and shape so you can bake a variety of flavors and textures for gifts, parties and Santa.
These are the 24 Best Christmas cookie recipes! Find a variety of crunchy cookies, chewy cookies, shaped and rolled cookies and other fun, festive cookies to delight everyone. Select one from each category for a perfectly varied cookie tray or make one cookie for the 24 days of Christmas!
If you want more Christmas cookie recipes, try these easy Christmas cookie recipes, traditional Christmas cookies, or satisfy that chocolate craving with these 16 chocolate Christmas cookie recipes!
Why these are the Best Christmas Cookies
- Professional quality recipes. These recipes are all created or perfected by a professional pastry chef for the best texture and flavor.
- Variety of flavors and textures. The best cookie platters and boxes include a variety of flavors and textures to surprise and delight the recipient. Choose a few chewy cookies and several crunchy cookies in a variety of flavors for the best mix.
- Divided into categories for easy selection. We’ve done (almost) all the work for you by subdividing all the cookies into categories. You can easily select a few from each for a perfectly varied cookie tray!
Frequently Asked Questions
When baking cookies for a Christmas party I choose cookies with different flavors and textures. I like to bake a few chewy cookies, some crunchy cookies and then a few that are unexpected, like nut roll cookies! I make sure each flavor is different so that there will be something for everyone. Also consider preparation time, and the fact that choosing some crunchy cookies {like snowball cookies} that improve with time will take away some stress from the day of your party!
The majority of cookies can stay at room temperature for 3 to 5 days, so don’t stress about Christmas cookies sitting out at a party. Only cookies that include perishable items like homemade lemon curd should be refrigerated after several hours.
I like to arrange Christmas cookies on a range of platters at varying heights. Try placing a variety on a cake stand while others are on decorate plates on the table. The varying heights add visual interest. It is also ideal to consider the appearance of the cookies before baking. Select cookies that are different colors, shapes and sizes for the prettiest display.
The 24 Best Christmas Cookies
There are thousands of Christmas cookies to choose from, including more than 100 Christmas cookie recipes by Chef Lindsey, but these are the best. They were chosen for their variety of flavors, textures and preparation. You will find a great selection of chewy cookies, crunchy cookies, bar cookies and some fun, festive cookies as well.
The Best Chewy Christmas Cookies
These are the best chewy Christmas cookies in a variety of flavors! Choose a few to delight guests and family alike. You’ll find traditional cookies like soft gingerbread boys alongside some unexpected additions. Powder them with powdered sugar, seas salt, or sprinkles for a fun finish!
This is my family recipe for the best gingerbread cookies that I have adapted over time. It makes soft, chewy and perfectly spiced cut-out cookies! They are amazing decorated with a simple icing or raisins, and the cookie cutters can be any shape you desire. This will soon be one of your favorite Christmas cookie recipes too!
Soft Gingerbread Cookies
Soft cherry cookies are chewy with a little crunch from the pecans. A flavorful cream cheese cookie is rolled in pecans (or any nut you want) and then baked. Before cooking, a maraschino cherry is pressed on top for a festive, sweet finish. These were one of my favorite childhood Christmas cookies!
Cherry Cookies
These chewy molasses cookies are big, soft molasses sugar cookies. The dough is rolled in extra sugar before baking, which makes them a little crunchy on the outside and beautifully glittery! This was my grandmother’s secret recipe for the best molasses cookie.
Chewy Molasses Cookies
These date pinwheels are a sweet, chewy old fashioned cookie. The brown sugar dough complements the date filling for the perfect bite. Depending on the size of the pinwheel, the recipe easily makes over a hundred cookies! The dough can easily be prepared ahead of time for an impressive freshly baked cookie.
Old Fashioned Date Pinwheels
These cheesecake stuffed red velvet crinkle cookies are homemade red velvet crinkle cookies stuffed with an easy cheesecake filling. Each bite will taste like the best red velvet cake in cookie form!
Cheesecake Stuffed Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies
These browned butter cardamom snickerdoodles have all the flavor of the best snickerdoodle recipe but with a lightly spiced cookie dough. The combination of the browned butter, cardamom and cinnamon sugar make these the best snickerdoodles ever.
Browned Butter Cardamom Snickerdoodles
The Best Crunchy Christmas Cookies
Every cookie tray needs at least one crunchy cookie. I love to choose at least two: one shortbread cookie like these Scottish shortbread and one sandy textured cookie like snowball cookies!
Get your rolling pin, stand mixer and parchment paper ready because these crunchy Moravian Christmas Cookies are worth the effort. A molasses spice cookie dough is rolled paper thin and then baked until crispy. Enjoy these cookies alongside other spiced cookies like cardamom snowballs for a festive treat.
Moravian Christmas Cookies
This Traditional Scottish Shortbread is perfection. I’ll give you all the tips for making perfectly shaped shortbread cookies with a tender, buttery texture! These can be made a week in advance and also ship very well.
Scottish Shortbread Recipe
These crunchy old fashioned peanut butter cookies can be ready in 20 minutes! The dough requires no chilling and they bake up perfectly every time. You will love this nostalgic peanut butter cookie. If you like these, you’d be really into my peanut butter blossoms which are topped with a chocolate kiss!
Old Fashioned Peanut Butter Cookies
Crunchy, crispy, sweet lace cookies are an old-fashioned Christmas cookie staple. They are delicate oatmeal cookie that tastes like caramel. They melt on your tongue for the perfect bite.
Lace Cookies
These tender, crumbly chocolate chip shortbread cookies taste like chocolate chip cookies with the texture of classic shortbread! Serve these with an array of cookies or make a shortbread assortment with chocolate shortbread cookies and these cranberry orange shortbread cookies.
Chocolate Chip Shortbread Cookies
These peppermint checkerboard cookies are delicious cookies in a fun and festive checkerboard pattern. An easy to follow tutorial shows you how you can make your own! After assembling, it’s a simple slice and bake situation.
Peppermint Checkerboard Cookies
Shaped Christmas Cookies
These festive fun Christmas cookies will mix up the textures and flavors in any box, tin or platter! They are as beautiful as they are delicious. Many are some of our most popular recipes!
This kolacky cookie recipe will knock your socks off! It is a traditional Hungarian Christmas cookie recipe and has hundreds of comments and reviews. It is one of the most popular posts all year round alongside Hungarian nut roll cookies. I suggest making both. Tis the season!
Apricot Kolacky Cookie (Kiffles)
This is my recipe for linzer cookies. I have made tens of thousands of these cookies over the years as a professional pastry chef and people can’t get enough! The dough is a brown sugar almond dough flavored with a hint of cinnamon and vanilla extract.
Linzer Cookies
This is my great-grandmother’s recipe for pecan tassies and they are phenomenal! Truly the best you’ll ever have. Your family will love them so much, you’ll probably want to whip up a batch of these chocolate pecan tassies too!
Pecan Tassies
Do not under estimate the power of bite-sized mini apple pies! These are even easier than apple hand pies and they are made in mini muffin tins with an easy, press-in cream cheese crust. To make them even easier you could make a batch of my easy apple compote to fill them, or chop up a jar of apple pie filling!
Mini Apple Pies
These cranberry orange shortbread cookies are one of my favorites! I have made tens of thousands for my bakery and they are one of our customers’ favorite cookies. The dough is an easy brown sugar dough flavored with orange zest. I like to bake them soft, but they are also delightful when crunchy.
Cranberry Orange Shortbread Cookies
Fun & Festive Holiday Cookies
The holidays are about having fun! These cookies are fun to make, delightful to eat and wonderful to share! If you want to make something different this year, try one of these fun, festive Holiday cookies!
These simple fruitcake cookies have all the flavors of fruit cake in cookie form! They are easily customizable based on your dried fruit and nut preferences. I iced them with an easy brandy cream cheese frosting but a simple donut glaze would also work and lock in the moisture for longer.
Simple Fruitcake Cookies
These cranberry thumbprint cookies have a buttery shortbread cookie filled with a cranberry jam. I like to bake these thumbprint cookies so they are soft and chewy but they can also be baked more like traditional shortbread to be crumbly.
Holiday Thumbprint Cookies
Make these easy Christmas crinkle cookies in under 20 minutes with a box of cake mix and a few other pantry staples. I’ve flavored them with almond extract and colored them with red and green food coloring for an extra festive Christmas sugar cookies vibe.
Christmas Crinkle Cookies
These delicate spritz cookies are flavored with vanilla extract and lemon zest. They can be piped like I did here or pressed through a cookie press! You can also mold the dough and shape into snowmen or candy canes.
Holiday Spritz Cookies
The Best Bar Cookies
Bar cookies are a great way to make a lot of Christmas cookies quickly! Simple bake, cool and slice! Plus there are so many wonderful varieties to choose from. If these don’t satiate your craving, then check out all of our brownies and bar recipes!
These pecan pie bars have a cult-like following! They have an easy pecan shortbread crust and a gooey pecan pie filling. It is essentially a bar version of the best pecan pie!
Pecan Pie Bars
Gather your ingredients and preheat your ovens because you are going to want to make these chewy ginger bars right now! They have a gingerbread base with a candied ginger crumble topping. It is like these soft gingerbread cookies and cranberry jam bars combined into one delicious holiday bar.
Chewy Ginger Bars
My favorite browned butter blondies, salted caramel sauce, salty pretzels and cashews come together in these caramel pretzel blondies. They truly are one of the best blondies you’ll ever have.
Cashew Caramel Pretzel Blondies
Classic 7 layer bars are a staple in my house for Christmas. They are easy, flavorful and fun to make! Layers of graham cracker crust, butterscotch and chocolate chips, walnuts and coconut make for the perfect bite.
7 Layer Bars (Magic Bars)
These easy chocolate peppermint brownies have peppermint extract in the batter and crushed peppermint candies over top an easy chocolate drizzle. They have all the peppermint flavor you want in chewy, rich chocolate brownies.
thick + fudgy dark chocolate peppermint mocha brownies
Before You Go
I hope you enjoyed our Best Christmas cookie recipes. You might also enjoy these easy Christmas cookies, chocolate Christmas cookies or peruse all our Christmas cookie recipes!
