You’ve officially found the BEST M&M cookie recipe! My soft and chewy M&M cookies are easy (NO mixer!) and have the prettiest cookie tops. Recipe includes a how-to video!
The Best M&M Cookie Recipe
I’ve got a fun and colorful M&M cookie recipe for you today! These M&M cookies are so easy to make and are great for baking with kids. You’ll love the simple and flavorful cookie base (it’s very similar to my second best chocolate chip cookie recipe!) and how well it works with the crunchy M&M candies. This one definitely deserves a place in your recipe book!
This recipe would be perfect any holiday; just switch up the classic colored M&Ms with the holiday version for simple and crowd-pleasing Christmas cookies or Easter cookies. It doesn’t get much easier than that 😊
What you’ll love about my recipe:
- No mixer required: these can be made by hand, thanks to melted butter.
- Bakery-style finish: I’m sharing my favorite tip for the prettiest cookie tops!
- Can be made in advance: Chill for a few days, or freeze for months.
- Simple: Just 11 ingredients!
What You Need
My M&M cookie recipe uses staple ingredients you should already have in your pantry. Here are a few of the important ones:
- Melted butter. Many cookie recipes call for you to cream softened butter into sugar. There’s nothing wrong with this technique, but I’ve found that creaming butter and sugar leads to cakier cookies, while using melted butter yields chewier, softer cookies that are more buttery and flavorful. Ever since first using this technique with my chocolate chip cookie recipe, it’s become a default for most of the cookie recipes I share, including today’s M&M cookie recipe!
- Brown sugar. I use light brown sugar, but you can use dark brown or even a blend of the two.
- Cornstarch. I love using cornstarch in cookies to keep them soft and prevent them from spreading too much in the oven. While you could leave it out, I highly recommend including it.
- Egg + egg yolk. That extra egg yolk also helps with softness and chewiness–don’t skip it!
SAM’S TIP: Set aside a handful of M&Ms to press into to the tops of your cookies when they come out of the oven. This will give them that bakery-style M&M cookie appearance!
Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make M&M Cookies
- Combine the melted butter and sugars, then stir in the eggs and vanilla.
- Mix together the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then gradually add them to the wet ingredients.
- Stir in the M&Ms until evenly incorporated.
- Cover the dough and let it chill for at least 45 minutes.
- Scoop and roll the dough into balls before placing them onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.
- Bake for 10-11 minutes, then let the cookies cool completely on their sheet before enjoying.
SAM’S TIP: Your cookies should look slightly underdone when you pull them out of the oven; this is intentional! We’ll let them finish cooking outside the oven on the cookie sheet. This guarantees our M&M cookies will stay soft after long they’ve cooled.
Frequently Asked Questions
While they should spread some, your cookies shouldn’t be super flat. This can happen if you add your butter while it’s still too hot. Melted butter that’s too hot can actually melt the sugar and will give you a greasy, runny cookie dough that will never hold its shape in the oven, no matter how long you chill it.
On the other hand, if your cookies aren’t spreading enough, it could be that you’ve over-measured your flour. Read my post on how to measure flour so this doesn’t happen in the future!
Yes! Just make sure to cover it with plastic wrap.
You can also freeze this M&M cookie recipe. Simply wrap each cookie (raw or baked) in plastic wrap and freeze in a ziploc bag or airtight container.
Absolutely. These would be delicious with peanut butter M&Ms or even mint M&Ms–yum!
Candy and cookies–whats not to like?!
Enjoy!
Let’s bake together! I’ll be walking you through all the steps in my written recipe and video below! If you try this recipe, be sure to tag me on Instagram, and you can also find me on YouTube and Facebook
M&M Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup (226 g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled until no longer warm to the touch
- 1 ¼ cup (250 g) brown sugar* tightly packed
- ½ cup (100 g) sugar
- 1 large egg + 1 egg yolk room temperature preferred*
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 ¾ cups (340 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 Tablespoon cornstarch
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ cups (315 g) M&Ms
Instructions
- Combine melted butter and sugars in a large bowl and stir until well-combined.1 cup (226 g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled until no longer warm to the touch, 1 ¼ cup (250 g) brown sugar* tightly packed, ½ cup (100 g) sugar
- Add egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract and stir well.1 large egg + 1 egg yolk room temperature preferred*, 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- In a separate, medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.2 ¾ cups (340 g) all-purpose flour, 1 Tablespoon cornstarch, ¾ teaspoon baking soda, ½ teaspoon baking powder, ¾ teaspoon salt
- Gradually add dry ingredients to wet and mix until combined.
- Use a spatula to stir M&M candies into the cookie dough1 ½ cups (315 g) M&Ms
- Cover bowl with plastic wrap and transfer to the refrigerator to chill for at least 45 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350F (175C) and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
- Once oven has preheated, remove your chilled cookie dough from the fridge and roll dough into approximately 2 Tablespoon-sized scoops. Roll gently to form a ball and place on prepared cookie sheet (space cookies at least 2" apart).
- Bake on 350F (175C) for 10-11 minutes, centers of the cookies may still seem slightly underbaked — allow cookies to cool completely on cookie sheet to finish cooking there, this will help keep them nice and soft.
Notes
Storing
Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
Carol
Beautiful. Great taste and texture. Cookie perfection!
Cathy C
I followed the recipe exactly and these turned out delicious! I stored them in ziploc bags once cooled and it kept them nice and soft. I can’t wait to make these with my grandkids! One question though, if I use salted butter next time would I add any salt at all? Thanks again for another awesome recipe!
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Cathy! If you use salted butter I would cut the salt down to 1/4 teaspoon. 🙂
Lucy
last batch in the oven. Delicious!!!!
keeper recipe. I did save some m&M’s for when they came out of the oven and yes, super cute!!
Thanks for another great recipe!!
Liv
This recipe makes at least two dozen cookies large sized cookies. I doubled it thinking I needed more than the 16 the recipes quotes because I’m bringing them to an event. Definitely didn’t need to double it! Otherwise great recipe!
Phyllis Boedeker
These were divine! I did add about 2 TBSP of flour because I thought the dough was too greasy.