This easy and fast chewy oatmeal cookies recipe is a classic, and a little cinnamon gives them a little extra something special.
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Chewy Oatmeal Cookies
Soft and chewy oatmeal cookies recipe for a classic and easy treat. This is an easy recipe with no eggs or butter and they stay soft after they're baked and cooled. These might be the best oatmeal cookies ever, and if you want to add chocolate chips or raisins you can do that too.
Equipment
- 1 mixing bowl or stand mixer
- 1 rubber spatula
- 2 cookie sheets
- Parchment paper
- 1 small ice cream scoop or teaspoon
Ingredients
- 2 cups packed light brown sugar
- 1 cup vegetable shortening
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 4 cups quick-cooking oats
- 1 3/4 cups AP flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375F
- Mix sugar, shortening, milk and vanilla until combined.
- Stir in the dry ingredients and mix until combined.
- Cover the cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- Scoop balls of cookie dough, or make rounded teaspoons of dough, and put them onto the cookie sheets about 2" apart.
- Bake for about 8-10 minutes, or until the tops are slightly golden and the edges of the bottoms are slightly golden.
- DON'T OVERBAKE the cookies! They'll continue to firm up when they cool.
- Slide the parchment sheets off of the cookie sheets onto the cooling racks.
- When the cookies cool off for a few minutes, remove them from the parchment and finish cooling them on the racks.
- Store the cookies in an airtight container or freeze in a plastic freezer bag.
To read about black cocoa powder, click here.
Equipment list for the cookies.
These are some of the things you’ll need to make the cookies, and the ones that I like on Amazon:
Tips for making the chewy oatmeal cookies.
- The most important thing for this recipe is to NOT overbake the cookies. They shouldn’t look wet on the tops when you check them, but they might not be very “done” looking when they’re really done. The tops should have a tiny bit of a golden color here and there on them, and they’ll be slightly golden around the bases. If it looks like they’re bubbly and wet on the top they’re not quite done, but if they look very golden brown they’re not going to be as soft when they cool off.
- I used a small ice cream scoop to make the cookies in a uniform shape. You can form them by hand but roll them into balls to get the best round shape.
- I bake cookies using insulated cookie sheets (not baking pans) so that there’s less of a chance for the bottoms to get scorched.
- Line the sheets with parchment paper for the easiest way to get the cookies off of the sheets. Slide the paper off and directly onto the cooling racks, then remove them from the parchment after they cool off a little to finish cooling on the racks.
- For cookies, I like cooling racks that have a grid, not the ones with lines. The ones with grids support the cooling cookies better.
- Store these in an airtight container, or freeze in plastic freezer bags (if they last that long.)
- This recipe made about 4 dozen cookies, but you’ll get different numbers depending on how large you make the cookies.
Variations on oatmeal cookies recipe.
If you want to add chocolate chips or raisins to the cookies, stir in about 1/2 to 1 cup into the cookie dough.
You can also add nuts, white chocolate chips, or butterscotch chips for a different flavor.
