These soft and chewy M&M Cookies are absolutely loaded with colorful candy pieces! Easy to make with no mixer required, this a great recipe to make with the kids!
My M&M Cookie Recipe includes a brief step-by-step video at the bottom of the post!
Do you realize how many different flavors of M&Ms there are out there?
Just curious, because until the other day when Zach came home from the grocery store with about 10 different colored M&M bags (because there’s obviously not enough sugar in my house already 😉), I had no idea.
I made these M&M Cookies with plain milk chocolate M&Ms, but now I’m looking forward to trying them with different flavors (so far, from trying them outside of a cookie, Caramel is a clear winner, White Chocolate is too sweet, and even though I was super resistant to trying Strawberry Nut it was surprisingly good).
Regardless of which variety of chocolate you choose to use, I think you’re going to love this easy, no-mixer required M&M Cookie Recipe. Let’s get started.
Why Do We Use Melted Butter Instead of Softened Butter?
Many cookie recipes call for softened butter and the ingredients direct you to cream your butter and sugars together. There’s nothing wrong with this technique, but I’ve found time and time again that creaming butter and sugar leads to cakier cookies, while using melted butter yields not only a chewier, softer cookie, but one that’s more buttery/more flavorful as well. Ever since first using this technique with my (“worst”) chocolate chip cookie recipe it’s become a default for most of the cookies that I share.
There are some drawbacks to using melted butter. Usually cookie dough made with melted butter requires chilling (as this M&M Cookie recipe does) to keep the cookies from spreading to much, but I’ve found the taste to be worth any extra time.
As I’ve also noted in this recipe and others, it’s really important that you not only melt your butter, but also let it cool back down to near room temperature. If you add your sugar while the butter is too hot, you can actually melt the sugar and end up with runny cookie dough that will never hold its shape in the oven, no matter how long you chill it.
Want to nerd-out about butter some more? Read why I use unsalted instead of salted butter here.
Treat yourself to a FREE E-BOOK!
Enjoy!
My video for these M&M Cookies is at the bottom of the recipe! If you enjoy watching my recipe videos, please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel.
How to Make M&M Cookies
M&M Cookie Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter melted and cooled at least 10 minutes 226g
- 1 ¼ cup brown sugar* tightly packed 250g
- 1/2 cup sugar 100g
- 1 large egg + 1 egg yolk room temperature preferred*
- 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour 350g
- 1 Tablespoon cornstarch
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ cups M&Ms
Instructions
- Combine your melted (and cooled) butter and sugars in a large bowl and stir until well-combined.
- Add egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract and stir until combined.
- In a separate, medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
- Gradually add dry ingredients to wet and mix until combined.
- Use a spatula to stir M&M candies into the cookie dough
- 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.
Lisa Wilf
Cookies are yummy but they look nothing like the cookies in the video. Perhaps I cooked them too long.
Sam
Hi Lisa! What did they look like?
lisa wilf
Hi – should I change the cooking time if I use a 1 Tbsp. scoop? Thanks!
Sam
Hi Lisa! Your cookies will be smaller so they will require less time in the oven. 🙂
Laura
I have made several of your cookie recipes and always love them, until this one. I questioned the brown sugar from the start and wish I had gone with my gut, I was after that amazing M&M sugar cookie I used to beg for when we went to the mall and this definitely was not that. To begin with: I use a scale to measure all ingredients, all my ingredients are fresh and room temp, the butter is done the way you say (I’ve used this method before, those cookies turned out perfect and I loved them), and chilled for over 2r hours. The only thing I did different was used salted butter. I did add more flour at the end because they were still way too sticky and wet, not the texture they needed to be. The cookies all ran together and the pan was coated in butter!! I always scoop with a 1/4 cup scoop because I like them thicker than most, I use a cookie mat on a dark pan that I use with all my cookies, as I said I’ve used your recipes before and loved them. What happened here?
Sam
Hi Laura! This is frustrating, and certainly bizarre. My first thought would be that the butter was too hot, but it sounds like you are familiar with letting it cool enough so the only thing I can imagine is that an ingredient was accidentally mis-measured (the salted butter would not be the problem, just to confirm only one cup/2 sticks/226 grams of butter was used, correct?).
The ratios in this recipe are comparable to (if not identical to) the ones that I use in many of my other cookie recipes (and the brown sugar wouldn’t cause this, either), so I think this is a simple matter of accidental mis-measuring, unfortunately. The video gives a good idea of what the dough should look like and as you can see it’s quite different from what you described (and I have not had anyone else describe this issue, in the comments you can see most people have had success with the recipe). I would recommend giving them another shot and I think you’ll have much better results (and please let me know how it turns out if you do!), but how frustrating for sure 🙁
Christina
Do these cookies freeze well? Won’t be needing them for 6 days from now and I wanted to make them ahead of time!
Sam
Hi Christina! They should be fine to freeze. 🙂
Jada
Hi, I tried this delicious M&M cookies recipe yesterday. And it was yummy. I was wondering next time if I can trade out the M&M’s for sprinkles ?
Thankyou for sharing all your recipes 😊
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Jada! Yes you can use sprinkles instead. 🙂
Rebecca
Hi Sam, I wanted to ask if you thought brown butter would work for this recipe? Looks fantastic! Thanks!
Sam
Hi Rebecca! It should work here. When you brown it though you cook out a little bit of the moisture so that may be something to try to account for when making the cookies. 🙂
Liza
What a yummy m&m cookie recipe! This is second Sugar Spun Run recipe that has knocked it out of the park with my family. (The first one is the homemade biscuit recipe!)
Sugar Spun Run
Thank you so much, Liza! I am so glad that everyone enjoyed the cookies. 🙂
Krysti K Vogel
Wondering why you use cornstarch along with the flour in a lot of your recipes?
Sam
Hi Krysti! The cornstarch really helps with the texture here. It makes for a nice soft chewy cookie that’s not cakey. 🙂
Veda
Can we use granulated sugar instead of brown sugar?
Sam
Hi Veda! You can use granulated sugar, but it will change the flavor and texture a bit. They also won’t be quite as moist. 🙂
Jen
Hi! I’m a huge fan of your giant chocolate chip cookies. I’d like to make giant M&M ones as well—can I use this recipe and scoop it into 1/2 cup balls or do I need to alter ingredients?
Thanks so much!
Sam
Hi Jen! Sometimes if I try to do that they don’t bake quite right, but it may end up working for you. I have a giant chocolate chip cookie recipe that you could add M & Ms to. 🙂
Maisy
Best cookies ever my family loved them!
Sam
I am so glad everyone enjoyed them so much, Maisy! 🙂
wendy
best recipe. this was my first time measuring using the scale and they came out perfect!!!! thank you!!!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Wendy! 🙂
Carol Hunter
Absolutely the best M&M cookie ever!!
Sugar Spun Run
Thank you so much, Carol! I am so glad that you enjoyed them. 🙂
Kara
Very confused! I’ve been baking for years and just recently decided I wanted to try out a new type of m and m cookie. I saw this one, read the reviews and decided it looked great. I followed the recipe to a T and the dough tasted delicious, however when I started rolling the cookies into small balls I noticed the dough wasn’t very sticky as the m&ms were falling out and even the dough barely held together . I was a bit confused, but kept going. I then put them in the oven for 9 minutes, and it didn’t even look like they were cooked! I kept adding minutes on, but they still hardly even spread out. I have no clue what I did wrong.
Sugar Spun Run
Oh no, Kara! I am so sorry that you’re experiencing issues with your cookie dough. If the M&M’s are falling out and your dough seems to be on the drier side, this is the result of too much flour being added to the batter. This is the most common mistake in baking so I have created a guide on how to measure flour properly that can be used as a reference for next time. As far as your cookies being undercooked in the center your cookies may need an extra minute or two in the oven. This recipe has a video that I would reference as well. In the video, I will walk you through my process and you can see how your dough compares. I hope that helps.
Dianna J
Does this dough chill in the fridge or freezer? In step 6 you mention the fridge, but in step 8 you mention the freezer. Thanks!
Sam
Whoops, just the fridge! Thanks for bringing that to my attention, Dianna, I will get that fixed.