This holiday season, treat yourself to some festively delicious Christmas M&M Cookies! These homemade cookies are everything you love about the season, all baked into sweet treats.
Red and Green Candy Cookies for Christmas
These Christmas M&M cookies are always a huge hit at the cookie exchange! I mean really, who doesn’t love a perfectly baked homemade cookie that’s loaded with festively colored chocolate candies? Grandparents, kids, and everyone in between loves them!
I’m sure your local grocery store has something like this in their bakery section, or even in the pre-packaged cookie dough section, but none of those options can hold a candle to the real deal. These homemade cookies are perfectly soft and chewy and loaded with delicious flavor.
While the list of ingredients may seem a tad extensive, I promise that they payoff is so very worth it! Each ingredients plays a apart in ensuring the incredible consistency and mouthwateringly sweet flavor of these Christmas cookies. But of course, the best ingredient of all are the M&M’s!
Why You’ll Love this Christmas M&M Cookies Recipe:
- Festive – Homemade cookies with red, green, and white M&M candies are sure to make you feel holly and jolly!
- Delicious – It bears repeating that these homemade cookies are so downright delicious, they put the store-bought stuff to shame.
- Easy – Oh, have I failed to mention that these cookies take just 20 minutes of your time from start to finish?! This is a quick and easy hassle-free recipe.
Trademark Note: In the spirit of transparency, I want to note that some of these ingredients are trademarked products. M&M’s is a proprietary brand that I want to acknowledge and give credit to.
Be sure to try these Christmas M&M brownies and M&M pretzel bark.
How to Make M&M Cookies for Christmas
Be sure to see the recipe card below for full ingredients & instructions!
- Preheat the oven and prepare a baking sheet.
- Beat together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar.
- Mix in the eggs, maple syrup, and vanilla extract.
- Add in the flour, baking soda, and salt. Careful not to overbeat.
- Fold in the M&M’s and chocolate chips.
- Scoop the cookie dough onto a prepared baking sheet.
- Bake.
- Cool, then enjoy!
No! While these cookies have a lot of ingredients in common with standard chocolate chip cookies, they will be fluffier due to the addition of vanilla pudding mix, and they will have a warmer flavor due to the addition of maple syrup.
Refrigerating the cookie dough helps the cookies to not spread out as much while baking. While I’ve never run into a spreading issue with this recipe, you can chill the dough for about 30 minutes in the refrigerator prior to baking if you’re afraid of your oven running a bit too hot.
While I think these cookies are plenty festive, you can make them look like Buddy the Elf himself made them by adding a small handful of Christmas-colored sprinkles to the cookie dough.
Recipe Tips and Tricks
- Make these cookies fit any holiday by swapping out the M&M’s for another season! Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and even the 4th of July are all seasons that come with colored M&M’s. Get creative!
- DO NOT overbeat the dough! That will cause the cookies to go flat while they bake and totally lose their shape. Instead, mix in the flour mixture until just combined.
- Baking soda tends to clump, so make sure there are no clumps in it before you mix it with the other ingredients. If you do, you’ll have a hard time breaking it up and getting it to mix well.
Be a star at the cookie exchange this year when you bring a batch of Christmas M&M cookies!
If you make this recipe be sure to leave us a comment or rating. Enjoy!
Christmas M&M Cookies Recipe
Ingredients
- ½ cup salted butter 113 grams, room temperature (1 stick)
- 1 cup brown sugar 213 grams
- ¼ cup granulated sugar 50 grams
- 2 large eggs 100 grams, room temperature
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup 39 grams
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract 8 grams
- 1½ cups all-purpose flour 180 grams
- 3.4 ounces vanilla pudding mix 96 grams (1 box)
- 1½ teaspoons baking soda 9 grams
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1½ cups Christmas M&Ms 255 grams
- ½ cup semisweet chocolate chips 85 grams
Equipment
- Kitchen Scale (optional)
- Cookie Portion Scoop (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, light brown sugar, and granulated sugar together until fluffy and creamy, about 2 minutes.½ cup salted butter, 1 cup brown sugar, ¼ cup granulated sugar
- Mix in the eggs, maple syrup, and vanilla extract and beat together until combined, about 30 seconds.2 large eggs, 2 tablespoons maple syrup, 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- Add the all-purpose flour, pudding mix, baking soda, and salt, and beat on the low seating until just combined, about 30 seconds. Do not overbeat the flour. Make sure that there are no lumps in the baking soda.1½ cups all-purpose flour, 3.4 ounces vanilla pudding mix, 1½ teaspoons baking soda, ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- Fold the M&M's and chocolate chips into the dough.1½ cups Christmas M&Ms, ½ cup semisweet chocolate chips
- Scoop out cookies with a cookie scoop or spoon (I used a 2-inch cookie scoop) and place them onto the prepared baking sheet with about 2 inches between them.
- Bake for 9-10 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies have set and turned golden.
- Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 2 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to finish cooling.
Notes
- Make these cookies fit any holiday by swapping out the M&M’s for another season! Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and even the 4th of July are all seasons that come with colored M&M’s. Get creative!
- DO NOT overbeat the dough! That will cause the cookies to go flat while they bake and totally lose their shape. Instead, mix in the flour mixture until just combined.
- Baking soda tends to clump, so make sure there are no clumps in it before you mix it with the other ingredients. If you do, you’ll have a hard time breaking it up and getting it to mix well.
I would love to make these cookies, however, when do you add the vanilla pudding mix? I find it listed in the ingredients but not in the directions. Also is the pudding the instant kind?