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My favorite oatmeal cookies recipe that’s perfectly soft and chewy, easy to make, and full of the best oatmeal cinnamon flavors. Feel free to add raisins, chocolate chips or nuts too if you would like!
How do you like your oatmeal cookies?! ♡
After five years together, I just recently learned that my husband is pro-chocolate-chips in his oatmeal cookies and — lol — apparently strongly opposed to raisins. Whereas I am the exact opposite and consider oatmeal and raisins the perfect match made in cookie heaven, and would rather just make classic chocolate chip cookies if I’m craving chocolate. Growing up, my mom was always a fan of adding butterscotch chips to hers. My best friend loves oatmeal cookies made with a generous sprinkling of nuts, while her husband prefers his cookies plain. And my 11-year-old next door neighbor recently told me he has concluded that M&Ms in cookies are, without a doubt, the coolest.
Pretty sure that everyone has an opinion when it comes to what add-ins (or lack thereof) constitute the best oatmeal cookies. 😉 But hey, the good news is that I’m here today with my favorite base oatmeal cookie recipe that can be customized pretty much however you’d like! It’s quick and easy to make, perfectly soft and chewy, and perfectly balanced with the most delicious cinnamon-y flavors. And it will work with whatever raisins, baking chips, nuts, candies or other fun ingredients you’d like to add in.
So grab those old-fashioned oats and let’s bake up a batch together!
Oatmeal Cookie Ingredients:
First, a few notes about the oatmeal cookie ingredients that you will need to make this recipe:
- Butter: I used unsalted butter, but if you only have salted on hand, just decrease the amount of salt in the recipe by 1/4 teaspoon.
- Light brown sugar: This recipe is sweetened with light brown sugar, which needs to be firmly packed into the measuring cup when you are measuring it out.
- Egg: To bind all of our ingredients together.
- Vanilla extract: Be sure to use pure vanilla extract for optimum flavor.
- Oats: This recipe calls for old-fashioned oats (also known as rolled oats), which will make the cookies nice and chewy.
- Flour: I’ve only tested this recipe with all-purpose flour, but it may work with some alternate kinds of flour as well.
- Cinnamon: I love my oatmeal cookies nice and cinnamon-y, but feel free to add in any other warming spices that you like as well.
- Sea salt: I prefer to use fine sea salt in my cooking. But if you only have iodized (table) salt on hand, just note that you will need to use slightly less since its flavor is stronger. I also like to sprinkle the cookies with a pinch of flaky sea salt after they have baked.
- Baking soda: To help our cookies rise.
- Optional add-ins: Feel free to add in some raisins (or dried cranberries or other chopped dried fruit), baking chips (chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, toffee chips, etc), and/or chopped nuts (pecans, walnuts, etc) too if you would like.
Tips For How To Make Oatmeal Cookies:
Full recipe is included below, but here are a few tips for how to make the best oatmeal cookies!
- Use old-fashioned oats. Double-check that you didn’t accidentally buy quick oats or instant oats. Old-fashioned oats (also known as rolled oats) will give these a better, chewier, texture and cook in the correct amount of time.
- Start with room-temperature butter. In order for the butter to properly cream with the sugars, it’s important that your butter be room temperature (not melted, not hard and cold) when starting the recipe.
- Correctly measure the flour. If you are measuring flour by volume (with a measuring cup instead of a scale), avoid scooping the measuring cup directly into the bag of flour to measure it, since this tends to pack in excess flour. Instead, fluff the flour in the bag briefly with a fork, then lightly spoon it into your measuring cup and level it out with a knife.
- Chill the dough. In order for these cookies not to flatten too much in the oven, it helps to refrigerate the dough until it is chilled. You can either refrigerate the entire batch of dough and wait an hour or two until is it chilled. Or for a speedier method, you can go ahead and roll out however many dough balls you would like to bake and refrigerate them on the parchment-covered baking sheet for about 15-20 minutes until they are chilled.
- Customize your add-ins however you’d like. Everyone has their own opinion about exactly what should go in an oatmeal cookie. So see options below for fun ways that you can customize yours exactly as you’d like!
Oatmeal Cookie Variations:
Here are a few options for how to customize this easy oatmeal cookie recipe! You could…
- Add baking chips: To make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, add in 1/2 cup of your favorite chocolate chips (semisweet, dark, white, etc). Or I also love adding in other fun baking chips or candies too (such as butterscotch chips, toffee chips or M&Ms).
- Add raisins: To make oatmeal raisin cookies, add in 1/2 cup of raisins. Or you can make oatmeal cranberry cookies by adding in dried cranberries, or toss in some dried cherries, chopped dried apricots, or any other type of dried fruit that you may love.
- Add nuts: To make oatmeal nut cookies, add in 1/2 cup of your favorite chopped nuts, such as chopped walnuts or pecans.
- Add cardamom: For a different twist, I also love making these cookies with 1 teaspoon of ground cardamom plus 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon.
More Classic Cookie Recipes:
Looking for more delicious cookie inspiration this season? Here are a few of my favorite classic cookie recipes:
Description
My favorite oatmeal cookies recipe that’s perfectly soft and chewy, easy to make, and full of the best oatmeal cinnamon flavors. Feel free to stir in whatever other add-ins you would like!
Instructions
- Combine the dry ingredients. Combine the oats, flour, cinnamon, salt and baking soda in a medium mixing bowl and stir to combine.
- Mix the wet ingredients. In a separate large mixing bowl, either with a stand mixer or a hand mixer, cream together the softened butter and brown sugar on medium-high speed until the mixture is light and fluffy, about 2 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally as needed. Add the egg and vanilla extract and beat on medium speed until combined, about 30 seconds.
- Add in the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredient mixture and beat on low-speed until combined.
- Stir in any (optional) add-ins. Sprinkle any add-ins evenly over the dough and stir by hand until they are evenly combined.
- Chill the dough. Transfer the dough to a food storage container and refrigerate for at least 1-2 hours until chilled. (Or see a faster chilling method below.)
- Prep the cookies. Heat the oven to 350°F (180°C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Use a medium cookie scoop to form the dough into 2-tablespoon balls and place them a few inches apart on the prepared baking sheet.
- Bake. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly golden around the edges and the centers are set.
- Cool. Transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack and let the cookies cool for 5 minutes. (You can also sprinkle them with a pinch of flaky sea salt, if you’d like.) Then serve warm and enjoy!
Notes
Faster chilling method: To chill the cookie dough faster, go ahead and roll out however many dough balls you would like to bake. Place them on the parchment-covered baking sheet. Then place the entire baking sheet in the refrigerator for about 15-20 minutes until the dough balls are chilled.
Prep time. Prep time listed above does not include chilling time, which can range from an additional 15 minutes to 2 hours.
