Easter M&M Cookies

Easter M&M Cookies are thick, chewy, and loaded with bursts of peanut butter M&M in every bite. A combination of cake and all-purpose flour plus a mandatory dough chill gives these cookies their signature soft, thick texture.

These cookies came from wanting something festive for Easter without sacrificing the thick, chewy texture I hold all chocolate chip cookies to. The Easter Egg peanut butter M&Ms are what sparked the recipe, but it works equally well with standard peanut butter M&Ms year-round.

If you prefer a buttery, shorter texture in your mix-in cookies, my Chocolate Chip Shortbread Cookies take a completely different approach and are worth keeping in your back pocket alongside this one. Or you can make these brown butter chocolate chip cookies and add the M&M’s!

Ingredients & Substitutions

• All-Purpose Flour and Cake Flour: The two-flour combination is what keeps these cookies thick and tender rather than tough.
• Baking Soda and Baking Powder
• Kosher Salt
• Unsalted Butter: Butter provides richness and tenderness while building structure during creaming.
• Dark Brown Sugar: Dark brown sugar adds moisture, chewiness, and a deeper molasses flavor that complements both the chocolate and the peanut butter candy. You can use light brown sugar if that’s what you have.
• Granulated Sugar: Granulated sugar helps the cookies spread slightly and crisp at the edges. The balance of white and dark brown sugars creates that classic contrast of slightly firm rims and a soft, chewy center.
• Vanilla Extract: Vanilla rounds out the sweetness from the sugars and candies and reinforces the cookie’s overall flavor.
• Eggs
• Mini Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips: Mini chips distribute chocolate more evenly throughout the dough, so every bite has chocolate without competing with the larger M&Ms. Their smaller size also helps the cookies hold together around the bulkier candy pieces.
• Peanut Butter M&Ms: Peanut butter M&Ms provide pockets of salty-sweet peanut butter flavor and a bit of crunch from the candy shell, which stays intact through baking. Reserve some for pressing onto the dough balls before they go in the oven so the finished cookies look loaded and the M&Ms stay visible. If you love that peanut butter and chocolate combination in a bar format, my peanut butter cup blondies use the same flavor pairing in a completely different texture.

See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.

Variations on These Easter M&M Cookies

• Skillet Cookie! Press the cookie dough into your skillet and bake! Follow the baking instructions in this pizookie recipe!
• Different M&M Varieties. Swap the peanut butter M&Ms for any seasonal or specialty M&M variety that appeals to you, keeping the quantity the same. They are doing so many things with M&M’s these days; try the caramel, dark chocolate or pretzel ones!
• Mix-In Swap for an Entirely Different Cookie. If you want to take this dough in a completely different direction, my white chocolate cranberry cookies use a similar base with a different mix-in combination that works beautifully for cooler months or holiday baking. Try any combination of chocolate, dried fruit, or nuts you desire.

Professional Tips

• Scale your cookies for even baking. Use a kitchen scale to divide the cookie dough to ensure they all bake at the same time.
• Do not skip the dough chill. Two hours is the minimum; overnight produces noticeably chewier, thicker cookies. Fat that is fully firm before the cookies hit the oven slows the spread, which is what keeps these large cookies from flattening out.
• Add flour gradually and stop mixing the moment it disappears. With two types of flour going into a heavy dough, overmixing after the flour is added develops gluten and makes the cookies tough. Add the flour in several additions on low speed, then fold in the M&Ms and chocolate chips by hand or on the lowest setting to keep the dough tender, just like when making my thick chocolate chip cookies.

How to Make Easter M&M Cookies

Start by getting your dry ingredients ready before you cream the butter, so the dough comes together without interruption.

Step 1: Prep your pans and preheat the oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 375°F conventional or 350°F convection (with fan).

Step 2: Whisk the dry ingredients. Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl and whisk until evenly blended. This takes about 30 seconds and ensures the leavening is distributed before it ever touches the butter. Set the bowl aside.

Step 3: Cream the butter and sugars. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and both sugars together until the mixture is light, fluffy, and noticeably pale. This takes 3 to 5 minutes on medium speed and is worth the full time.

I would not recommend using a hand mixer or making this batter by hand — a stand mixer provides the structure and aeration that make these cookies thick and chewy rather than flat and dense.

Step 4: Add the eggs and vanilla. Add the eggs and vanilla to the creamed butter and beat until well incorporated. The mixture will look silky and slightly increased in volume. Scrape down the sides of the bowl so nothing is left unmixed at the bottom.

Step 5: Add the flour gradually. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture in five additions, letting each one mostly disappear before adding the next. Adding it all at once causes the flour to puff up and the dough to overmix before everything is combined. Stop mixing the moment the last addition is barely visible.

Step 6: Fold in the M&Ms and mini chocolate chips. Add the peanut butter M&Ms and mini chocolate chips and stir them in by hand or on the lowest mixer speed just until evenly distributed. I made these extra large to accommodate the peanut butter M&Ms, which means you want them dispersed throughout rather than clustered.

Step 7: Chill the dough. Transfer the dough to the refrigerator and chill for at least 2 hours, or overnight.

Cold dough spreads more slowly in the oven, giving you a thicker, chewier cookie. You can skip this step, but your cookies will spread more, and the texture will be noticeably different. Overnight chilling produces the best result, or you could freeze them!

Step 8: Portion the dough. Roll the dough into balls roughly the size of a golf ball, about 70g. Place them about 1 inch apart on the prepared baking sheets.

Step 9: Bake until the edges are set. Bake at 375°F for 9 to 10 minutes. The edges should look set and just barely golden while the centers still look soft and matte. The residual heat from the pan will carry the centers to the right texture as the cookies cool on the sheet. Start checking at 9 minutes, since oven variation can shift the window quickly at this size.

Step 10: Cool on the pan. Let the cookies rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. They will look fragile straight from the oven, and that is completely normal. Those few minutes on the hot pan are what finish the set in the center without drying out the edges.

Recipe FAQs

Before You Go

If these peanut butter M&M chocolate chip cookies made it onto your list, I think you will keep coming back to them every spring and honestly, well beyond. Browse more ideas in Cookie Recipes or make these chocolate pudding cookies next!