402 sugar cookie recipes

Pecan shortbread cookies shaped into little ovals and rolled in powdered sugar. Only 4 ingredients, no eggs, mixed by hand, and they melt in your mouth. A Mexican wedding cookie cousin that makes 4 dozen.

Soft finger-shaped cookies packed with peanut butter, chopped apples, and brown sugar, rolled in powdered sugar. These tea sticks bake in one pan then cut into 24 dainty pieces.

Glazed honey spice cookies with cinnamon, cloves, mace, and allspice, finished with a thin vanilla sugar glaze. Old-world cookies that bake up firm, keep beautifully, and taste better the day after baking.

Buttery brown sugar shortbread pressed into a sheet pan, brushed with egg white, and topped with cinnamon sugar and sliced almonds. Cut into elegant diamond shapes for a cookie platter showstopper.

Sugar crisps made with oats, almond extract, and a baking soda-vinegar reaction for extra lift. Rolled into balls and flattened with a sugar-dipped glass for a crackly, crisp cookie.

Italian macaroons made from almond paste kneaded with egg whites and sugar, baked into chewy, fragrant amaretti-style cookies. A short rest before baking gives them their crackly top and tender center.

Low-fat cocoa brownie bars made with egg whites, nonfat yogurt, and cocoa powder instead of butter and chocolate. Fudgy brownie cookie bars dusted with powdered sugar.

Lemon roll-out cookies with sour cream in the dough for a tender crumb, brushed with lemon juice and sprinkled with sugar before baking. The bright citrusy cookie cutter staple for any holiday tray.

Cream cheese pinwheel cookies filled with cinnamon, sugar, and chopped pecans. A tender, flaky dough rolled jelly-roll style and sliced into swirled rounds.

Italian-style almond coca cookies with a hidden whole almond at the heart, half rolled in cocoa powder and half in powdered sugar. Two-tone cookies with chopped almonds in the dough for double texture.

Grizzlenuckles are no-fuss cookie bars made with sweetened condensed milk, graham cracker crumbs, coconut, and chocolate chips. Mix, bake, dust with powdered sugar, done.

Chocolate chip walnut pie with a chewy brown sugar custard, pockets of melted chocolate, and toasted walnuts in a flaky shell. Half cookie, half pie. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Bizcochitos are the official state cookie of New Mexico: lard-based shortbread perfumed with anise and sweet wine, dusted in cinnamon sugar, and baked into delicate flaky rounds. The traditional Christmas and wedding cookie of the Southwest.

Quick kolachky made with a tender sour cream and yeast dough, rolled thin on powdered sugar, filled and folded into delicate pinched squares. A classic Eastern European cookie finished in a snow of powdered sugar.

Mandel-Halbmonde are German almond crescents: buttery shortbread cookies shaped like half-moons, baked pale, then rolled twice in powdered sugar. The kind of melt-in-your-mouth Christmas cookie every German bakery puts on the holiday plate.

Chocolate snappers with unsweetened chocolate, cinnamon, and corn syrup rolled in sugar and baked until crackled. A chewy, crinkle-style chocolate cookie with a sugary crust.