586 holiday cookie recipes

Buttery spiced fig thumbprint cookies, tender brown-sugar dough rolled in a crunchy flax-sugar coating and filled with jammy fig preserves. Warm cinnamon and nutmeg make them a standout on the holiday cookie tray.

Jack-o-lantern cookies made from peanut butter sandwich cookies dipped in orange-tinted almond bark with black licorice faces. A fun, no-bake Halloween treat kids love decorating.

Buttery, melt-in-your-mouth piped shortbread cookies dipped in chocolate. Only 5 ingredients and no eggs needed for these classic Viennese Fingers.

This co-winner in the filled-cookie category from Dorothy O'Neill of Whitefish Bay makes a delicate, crispy cookie. Dipping in chocolate and nuts adds flavor and texture.

Virginia Lane of Cudahy secured this recipe, with its nice complexity of flavors, in the late '50s or '60s when she lived in Iran.

Green-and-white peppermint pinwheel cookies, sliced from a swirled frozen log. A classic Christmas icebox cookie with spiraled layers of vanilla and mint dough.

Lighter cranberry apple cookies made with egg whites and skim milk, loaded with fresh fruit, cinnamon, and orange zest. A guilt-free holiday cookie that yields 2 dozen.

Christmas Lizzies are boozy Southern fruitcake cookies loaded with candied cherries, raisins, dates, pecans, and citrus zest, soaked in whiskey. Make them weeks ahead and drizzle with spirits to age.

These cookies with a candy bar center, from Bev Bosveld of Waupun, are packed with coconut.

Swiss Leckerli cookies: honey-spiced almond bars with candied citrus peel and kirsch, finished with a hardening sugar glaze. Traditional Basel Christmas market sweet that improves with age.

A no-bake chocolate hazelnut cheesecake: a buttery cookie crumb base under a creamy, gelatin-set filling swirled with choc-hazelnut spread and cookie pieces, dusted with cocoa. No oven required, just chill and serve.

Gingerbread bear cookies bake molasses-spiced rolled cookies with ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and cloves. Painted with royal icing for a holiday tradition kids adore.

Chocolate crinkle cookies with their signature snowy white powdered-sugar crackle. Made with melted unsweetened chocolate and vegetable oil for a fudgy, brownie-like center. Yields 48 holiday-perfect cookies.

Twice-baked Italian almond cookies studded with bright maraschino cherries, spiked with kirsch and Grand Marnier. Perfect holiday gift.

Jewish rugelach with a flaky cottage cheese dough, apricot jam, cinnamon-sugar, walnuts, and currants rolled into golden crescents. A holiday cookie jar essential for Hanukkah or Christmas.

Rugelach four ways: a single cream cheese pastry dough turned into raspberry-almond crescents, layered chocolate-pecan squares, apricot pockets and honey-pecan triangles. Holiday cookie tray showstopper.