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 unsalted butter, melted and cooled until no longer warm to the touch (226g)
- 1 ¼ cup brown sugar* tightly packed (250g)
- ½ cup sugar (100g)
- 1 large egg + 1 egg yolk room temperature preferred*
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour (340g)
- 1 Tablespoon cornstarch
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ cups M&Ms (113g)
Instructions
- Combine melted butter and sugars in a large bowl and stir until well-combined.
- Add egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract and stir well.
- 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.
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.
Marcy
I made a double batch of these—fantastic (doubles well)!! The students and staff LOVED them!!! One staff member even asked for the recipe (and I provided her with the link to Sugar Spun Run!)! The only thing I changed was I subbed out half a cup (really one cup since I doubled the recipe) of m&ms for semi-sweet chocolate chips. Would definitely make again—thank you as always for your generosity in sharing your recipes!!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Wonderful! We appreciate you coming back to let us know how it went, Marcy! Thanks for using our recipe ❤️
Marcy
Hi Sam, the recipe looks great! I wanted to know:
Can the recipe be doubled (I’m baking for 24 students)?
Can I substitute half a cup of m&ms for chocolate chips?
Thank you!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Hi Marcy! Yes, both will work just fine. We hope your students have fun making them ☺️
Jan
These are delicious but spread too much. I measured carefully to the gram but they seem to need more flour. The recipe says 340 grams of flour but Google tells me 2 3/4 cups of flour weighs 398.75 grams. I will do further research. I have been known to make the occasional error.
Sam
Hi Jan! The weight listed is correct and is the weight that I use myself when testing the recipe. Most often spreading is caused by the butter being too warm when the sugar is added. I hope that helps, and hope you were still able to enjoy the cookies!
Abby
Hi! So I ABSOLUTELY LOVED these cookies. I just am curious of why my cookies always seem to spread when I use melted butter, but when I use butter without melting it they don’t spread at all. I have discovered this happens when putting too much flour, however the cookie is never crumbly, just never spreads, and I am also positive I put the correct and exact amount of flour the recipe calls for. So as I’ve said, I think this relates to the butter, but of course, you’re the expert! I hope I made sense and you understand my issue… now, it really isn’t an issue but I like my cookies to be just a bit thick but when I use melted butter they seem to thin and greasy. But I blow up when they barely spread AT ALL in the oven (sorry, thats just me, heh). Thank you so much!
Sam
Hi Abby! Melted butter is important but make sure it is not at all warm when you add your sugar, otherwise it could leave you with greasy cookie dough and cookies that spread too much. Make sure you let it sit long enough that when you touch it, it feels room temperature or just slightly above, but nothing more than that. I hope that helps!
Morgan
These were perfect!! I used vegan butter since my husband doesn’t eat dairy, and they turned out great. Thanks!
Kristin
This is the perfect go to M&M cookie recipe I’ve been looking for! The second time I made it I did weigh out the M&Ms because when I measured out a cup and a half it was the entire bag of M&Ms and the first time I made it it felt like way too many in the cookies. But when I use the kitchen scale, it only measured out to 3/4 of a cup for 113 g. Not sure if anybody else experience this, but the recipe is still the best regardless.
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Kristin! 🙂
Jill
Perfect another delicious recipe. Thanks Sam,
Donna Berenics
I just made another version of these and they spread out so much and are hard. Wish I had searched for yours before making the others. Next time for sure.
Sam
I can’t wait to hear how you liked them! 🙂
Jen
Wow! These came out perfectly and are absolutely delicious. I love they are so soft. They went really quick in my household. They only thing I did a little different was add 1/2 c. of chocolate chips as well as the M&m’s. Also, I only put one tablespoon of dough and it made about 36 cookies.
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Sounds like a delicious addition, Jen! We can never have enough chocolate ☺️
Sahara
Hey Sam!
First of all, I love your recipes I recently made the honey cookies and they were a hit even with my mom who hates sweets! Now I was wondering about your m&m cookies can I use mini M&M´s instead of the normal-sized ones? Thanks:)
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
We’re so happy you’ve been enjoying the recipes, Sahara! You can definitely use mini M&Ms here 😃
Viola
These are by far the most delicious cookies I have ever had. If anyone needs a good cookie recipe this is the one!
I have made them many times now for family and other events, and gotten compliments every time. My brother begs me to make them almost every time we go camping. I have substituted the M&M’s for chocolate chips a couple of times, and they were still very delicious!
I love all of your recipes and will definitely recommend you to family and friends.
Sam
Thank you so much, Viola! I’m so glad you have enjoyed everything so much! 🙂
Shania
Can I leave this dough overnight
Sam
Sure thing! Keep it covered in the refrigerator. 🙂
Janet
I made these yesterday with a couple of tweaks. To reduce the sugar I used granulated Monk Fruit and added a bit of molasses to get that brown sugar taste and some moisture. I used white whole wheat flour rather than all purpose flour. These cookies turned out great and are delicious even with my substitutions. They’re very easy to make, too. Thanks for a great recipe, I’ll be making these regularly.
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Janet! Thank you for your feedback using your alterations. 🙂