You always need a one-bowl cookie recipe in your arsenal, and these Chewy Oatmeal Cookies fit the bill perfectly! Made with common pantry ingredients, and without the use of a mixer, you'll wow everyone with how tasty these are.
These oatmeal cookies are so good, they don't even need any mix-ins to shine on your dessert table. Everything comes together in one bowl (and without a hand or stand mixer), so double the batch and freeze your dough. Then, you can pull out a few cookies when the craving hits!
The Coined Breakdown
- Total Cost per serving: $0.20
- Total Cost (about 30 cookies): $5.86
- Those Other Guys: $2.50 a cookie
Ingredients
- Unsalted, Softened Butter - Take your butter out about an hour beforehand so it's super soft to the touch and easy to whisk by hand.
- Brown Sugar & White Sugar - We use both brown sugar for a moist cookie, and white sugar for stability.
- Molasses - My secret ingredient - just a touch of molasses really gives a depth of flavor that takes these cookies over the edge!
- Spices - I like to use both cinnamon and a hint of nutmeg in my oatmeal cookies. If you're using salted butter, I suggest skipping the salt.
- Quick Oats - Quick oats work perfectly for this recipe.
- Flour - A bit of all-purpose flour also helps get the chewy middle/firm bottom that we want in a cookie.
Variations and Substitutions
Oatmeal Pecan Cookies: With the dry ingredients, stir in some chopped raw pecans into the dough for a beautiful crunch.
Oatmeal Creme Pie Cookies: Sandwich two of these cookies together with some vanilla buttercream.
Other Mix-In Ideas: Try chopped chocolate bars, walnuts & dried cranberries, or mini M&Ms!
How to Make the Best Chewy Oatmeal Cookies - No Mixer Needed!
Step 1: Cream together your softened butter and both sugars for 3-5 minutes. It should be light yellow.
Add in your eggs, molasses, and vanilla extract. Stir until fully combined.
Step 2: Pour in your dry ingredients (as well as any mix-ins) and stir well.
Be sure to scrape the sides of the bowl while mixing.
Step 3: Be sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl to get any extra flour.
Cover, and chill the dough for two hours.
Step 4: Bake at 360°F for 11 minutes, then remove the pan from the oven and let the cookies fully set for another 2 minutes.
You can eat them now if you like them warm like me, or transfer to a cooling rack so they can cool completely. That's it!
Recipe Pro Tips
- Start with room temperature ingredients. For the most even dough, have all of your ingredients like the butter and eggs at room temperature before baking.
- Don't forget to chill. This allows the flour and oats to fully hydrate, and results in a chewier cookie that is less-prone to spreading in the oven. It's worth it!
- Underbake, not overbake. We take these out a couple minutes before you would think they are ready, because the hot pan will finish cooking them outside the oven.
Recipe FAQs
Be sure to let the dough rest, covered, in the refrigerator for at least two hours! This helps get that perfectly thick and chewy texture we want.
Melted butter doesn't lead to a chewy oatmeal cookie. Similar to my thumbprint heart cookies, you want to use softened butter.
Simply set out your butter right in the mixing bowl on the counter until soft. You can also pour hot water into a glass, drain the water, and add the butter into the hot glass to soften!
Yes, this recipe is great for freezing!
Portion out your balls of dough and then add to a parchment-lined baking pan. Pop that in the freezer until hard, then remove and add the cookie dough balls to a large freezer bag.
When you're ready to bake, you can cook them straight from the freezer; just add on another 3-5 minutes to the baking time as necessary.
Other Easy Dessert Recipes You'll Love!
If you tried this Chewy Oatmeal Cookies Recipe, or any other recipe on my website, please leave a star rating and let me know how it went in the comments below. I love hearing from you! Thanks for visiting!
Chewy Oatmeal Cookies (One-Bowl!)
Equipment
- Mixing Bowl
- Wooden Spoon
- 1.5 tablespoon Cookie Scoop
- Cookie Sheet
- Parchment Paper
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter softened
- 1 cup brown sugar light or dark
- ½ cup granulated white sugar
- 2 count eggs room temperature
- 1 tablespoon molasses
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 3 cups rolled oats
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk the softened butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar for about 5 minutes until light yellow and fluffy. This will be a bit of a forearm/bicep workout - but it's worth it!
- Add the eggs, molasses, and vanilla extract and whisk again for another 2 minutes until fully incorporated.
- Pour the dry ingredients into the bowl. Stir well, scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl to incorporate all of the ingredients.
- If you have any mix-ins, stir these in here as well.
- Cover the dough and chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 360°F. Line a baking sheet with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.
- Scoop spoonfuls of cookie dough and roll them into balls using the palm of your hands.
- Place the dough balls about an inch apart on the baking sheet.Pro tip: to have picture-perfect cookies of similar size, use a cookie scoop or small ice cream scoop!
- Bake for 11 minutes until lightly browned. The trick here is to slightly under-bake because the cookies will finish baking on the pan after being taken out of the oven. The middle of the cookies will look super soft.
- Take the pan out of the oven and let cookies cool for about 3 minutes on the baking sheet. This is usually as long as I can wait to eat them; but if you have more patience than me, transfer to a wire rack so they can cool completely. Enjoy!
Joy Reynolds says
Woo, these cookies are so good and easy to make! The hardest part is waiting on the bowl to chill before baking.
Shani W. says
Thanks so much Joy! The chilling always tests my patience too, haha