Soft, Chewy, Spiced, and Buttery: 10 Reader-Favorite Cookies to Bake in December

Here are the cookie recipes everyone's saving right now.

By
Genevieve Yam
Genevieve Yam headshot
Genevieve Yam
Senior Editor
After graduating from the International Culinary Center, Genevieve cooked at Blue Hill at Stone Barns and Per Se. Prior to joining Serious Eats, she was an editor at Epicurious. She grew up between Toronto and Hong Kong and is a graduate of the University of St Andrews in Scotland. She currently lives in New York with her husband and two cats.
Learn about Serious Eats' Editorial Process
Published November 29, 2025
Plate of lemon sugar cookies on a yellow textile on top of yellow and white tiles.

Serious Eats / Robby Lozano

Last year for Halloween, I dressed up as Sesame Street's Cookie Monster, and my son was an adorable chocolate chip cookie. The costumes were a testament to my deep love for cookies, which knows no bounds. Like many of our readers, I often reach for a cookie when I want something comforting, sweet, and snack-sized—even better if there's a glass of milk or a cup of coffee for me to enjoy it with. For that reason, I try to keep my freezer stocked with as many cookies as possible, so I never have to go without.

If you have just as much of a sweet tooth as I do, you've come to the right place. With December around the corner and holiday baking on our minds, we decided to gather the cookie recipes our readers have saved the most with MyRecipes, our free tool for saving and organizing recipes. You'll find classic chocolate chip cookies, zingy lemon slice-and-bake cookies, as well as pleasantly chewy oatmeal raisin cookies, among many others. Prep a few batches, stash them in your freezer, and you'll be ready for every single cookie swap you're invited to this holiday season. 

Love these recipes? With MyRecipes—your personal home for recipes—easily save and organize your favorites, plus thousands more, in one convenient place.

  • Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

    oatmeal raisin cookies stacked up on top of each other, and one cookie leaning on the stack. 2 glasses of milk in back and a red swirl background wall.

    Serious Eats / Fred Hardy

    These oatmeal raisin cookies are simultaneously soft and crispy, with slightly chewy edges and warm notes of cinnamon and freshly ground nutmeg. Browning the butter develops nutty and complex flavors, and blooming the spices in the hot butter intensifies their aromatic qualities.

  • Levain Bakery-Style Super-Thick Chocolate Chip Cookies

    20190131-levain-style-chocolate-chip-cookies-vicky-wasik-19
    Vicky Wasik

    These giant chocolate chip cookies are rich and buttery, and loaded with crunchy nuts. A low proportion of sugar relative to flour reduces spread, keeping the cookies thick. Using an assortment of chocolate chips creates a more dynamic flavor.

  • French Sablé Cookies

    Sable Cookies

    Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

    This recipe requires just one bowl and a bit of plastic wrap—there's no need for room temperature butter or creaming of butter and sugar. All you have to do is toss the ingredients for the dough together, smear it across your counter, then roll it into a log before chilling, slicing, freezing, and baking.

  • Shortbread Cookies

    Overheav view of shortbread cookies with coffee

    Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

    Each bite of these one-bowl shortbread cookies is rich and buttery, with a tender, crumbly texture that melts in your mouth. Plus: The dough takes just five minutes to make.

    Continue to 5 of 10 below

  • Brown Butter Bananarama Cookies

    Overhead view of banana cookies

    Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

    These cookies have the same rich banana flavor as the very best banana bread, but with a chewy, tender cookie texture that makes them perfect for dunking into a cold glass of milk. Browning the butter and caramelizing the bananas gives the cookies a strong toffee and banana flavor, and a brief chill in the fridge helps the cookies hold their shape in the oven.

  • Easy One-Bowl Oatmeal Cookies

    20170911-oatmeal-cranberry-cookies-vicky-wasik-2.jpg
    Photograph: Vicky Wasik. Video: Natalie Holt

    These spectacularly easy cookies are thick and chewy, with crispy edges and butterscotch-y middles. Melting the butter to just the right temperature ensures that the dough achieves the ideal consistency, preventing it from becoming too oily or refusing to spread.

  • The Food Lab's Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

    20131213-chocolate-chip-cookies-food-lab-55-edit.jpg
    J. Kenji López-Alt

    These chocolate chip cookies are barely crisp around the edges, with a buttery, toffee-like crunch that transitions into a chewy, moist center. They're rich with butter, have pockets of melted chocolate, and strike that lovely balance between sweet and salty.

  • Lemon Sugar Cookies

    Plate of lemon sugar cookies on a yellow textile on top of yellow and white tiles.

    Serious Eats / Robby Lozano

    Using lemon juice and zest in both the cookie dough and sprinkled over the glaze gives these slice-and-bake cookies a bright citrus flavor. It's an easy, tangy cookie that would be welcome at a holiday cookie swap or a party.

    Continue to 9 of 10 below

  • Soft Molasses Cookies

    molasses cookie

    Stock: Foodcollection / Getty Images

    These cookies get their sweet, earthy flavor from molasses, and have just the right hint of warm spice from cloves and ginger. You could, theoretically, be satisfied with one, but you'll probably want several.

  • Miso Butterscotch Pecan Cookies

    A plate of cookies with visible nuts, with a glass of milk in the background

    Serious Eats / Maureen Celestine

    These rich, chewy cookies have complex butterscotch notes and micro-pockets of savoriness and sweetness in each bite. White miso paste mellows the intense sweetness of the butterscotch chips and gives the cookies their fudginess. Using an equal amount of spelt and all-purpose flour ensures a nutty, flavorful cookie with a tender chew.

Explore more:

More Serious Eats Recipes