Making festive cookies for the holidays doesn’t have to mean owning six types of sprinkles or having three different sugars on hand. In fact, some of my holiday favorites have shockingly few ingredients with no decorations necessary, barring the occasional shake of powdered sugar.
If you think cookies should be easy to make and easier to consume, you’re in the right place. Here are 13 of my favorite Christmas cookies that use five ingredients or fewer, and are completely decoration-optional. (Note that many of them also don’t use flour, so this list has a surprising amount of gluten-free options.)
Pignoli cookies
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Walk into any Italian bakery and, no matter what your original intention was, look for the pignoli cookie first. It may not be as flashy as the rainbow cookie, but that knobbly little blob is a secret crowd favorite, and with good reason. Pignoli cookies are soft, chewy, and utterly almondy. The price tag might seem a little high, but there’s a reason for that too. The ingredients are almond paste, sugar, egg whites, and pine nuts. They’re not ingredients I would spring for on a regular basis, but the holidays are a special time of year where I manage to find the extra 10 bucks. Chewy, light, and brimming with almond flavor, with a light resin aroma, pignoli cookies are unlike any other cookie out there.
Peanut butter and banana oatmeal cookies
A good cookie list isn’t complete without some form of oatmeal cookie, so here’s one that’s sure to be a favorite. Besides the rolled oats, each of the other three ingredients is a flavor powerhouse. Ripe banana, chocolate chips, and peanut butter fill out the roster, and unlike most of the other cookies on this list, there’s no added sugar. Mash all of the ingredients in a bowl, scoop, and bake. One bite of these will feel a little bit like childhood, and a little bit like you’re eating healthily so you can have another.
Shortbread Cookies
Sitting down with a good shortbread cookie and a cup of tea sounds like something the (British) grandma version of me would do. Make it coffee, and I’ll enjoy them regardless because baking a batch of shortbread is pretty darn effortless. The first cookie on our list with any flour in it, shortbreads only require the aforementioned and an addition of butter and sugar. The resulting treat is lightly sweet, incredibly tender, and delicious year-round. Most shortbread cookies hold their shape very well, so you can stamp a pattern into them, or cut them into shapes if you’d like a bit of decoration.
Meringue kisses
Surprisingly simple and completely fat-free, meringue kisses make a festive, sweet treat during these chilly months. Whipped egg whites and sugar are the only two ingredients you need. Some recipes call upon the support of cream of tartar, and a few drops of any extract or flavoring you like, but if you only had a couple eggs in the fridge, and your trusty canister of sugar, no one would be able to stop you. Depending on how far you want to dive into decoration, you can keep it simple and add a few drops of food coloring to the mix, or turn these cookies into a cute afternoon project with your kids. Stack a couple meringue drops with frosting and add candy accessories to make crunchy, sweet snowmen.
A simple but elegant kransekake
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If you're looking for a show-stopping edible centerpiece that only requires four ingredients (inclusive of decoration) then look no further than the Norwegian kransekake. The dough is made from almond flour, powdered sugar, egg white, and a couple drops of almond extract and the icing is royal icing, which is simply more powdered sugar and egg white. Read here to get my holiday kransekake recipe.
Peanut butter cookies
I don’t need to sell anyone on making peanut butter cookies. They could require 50 ingredients if that meant they’d taste as good. Luckily you only really need three. Since peanut butter already has peanut solids (no need for added flavoring) and plenty of naturally occurring fat, making it into a cookie only calls for a little sweetness, and adequate binding to pull it all together. Let me introduce you to granulated sugar and an egg. Mix it all together and you’re ready to scoop your way to holiday happiness.
Amaretti Cookies
Another cookie that practically makes itself is the amaretti, an Italian almond flour cookie with a tiny ingredient list and a whole lot of flavor. You can make these chewy treats with just the three base ingredients, almond flour, sugar, and egg whites, but many recipes will add a drop of almond flavoring or amaretto liqueur. Roll the dough into one-inch balls, and cover them in powdered sugar before baking. This step is optional, but the cookies will expand in the oven and cause the sugar coating to attractively crack. No other decoration required.
Coconut macaroons
These aren’t those French almond dainties, tauntingly pastel and demure in the bakery window and selling for a whopping three bucks a pop. We’re talking big, chunky piles of chewy coconut. The macaroon is a coconut lover’s happy place and it’s more than easy to get a one way ticket there. Recipes vary, but at the root of it all, you need a sack of sweetened coconut flakes, a binder, and a sweetener. Usually that comes in the form of sweetened condensed milk or egg whites. Mix the ingredients together, scoop, and bake until the bottom edges take on a hint of color and the flakes on top begin to toast.
Flourless dark chocolate cookies
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For a cookie that tastes like a deeply fudgy brownie, but is actually much easier to make than any brownie, try these flourless chocolate cookies. I first tasted something like this at Whole Foods, where they labeled it a chocolate chewy, and it was full of chopped walnuts. This recipe uses optional chocolate chips instead, but if you like mix-ins then I have a sneaking suspicion you could add an equal amount of anything else. Use pecans, potato chips, corn flakes, or crumbled bacon to make this chocolate chewy your own fantastic creation.
Almond lace cookies
Despite their delicate and intricate appearance, lace cookies are very simple to make. Also called Florentines, these are the crispy, paper thin, golden brown cookies that are sometimes (thankfully) sandwiching a layer of dark chocolate. They’re delicious. They’re named lace cookies because the sugary batter will bubble in the oven, and as it cools, the bubbles pop and leave holes behind. Since almond lace cookies are mostly made of liquid sugars and butter, the batter will be loose. Be sure to leave ample space between each cookie because they’ll spread even more while baking. Adding a dark chocolate coating is decadent, but completely up to you, these crispy buddies are perfect on their own.
Sugar cookies
She’s a classic. Composed of just a few ingredients, the sugar cookie is an extremely versatile mixture. Scoop it into mounds, or roll it out for cookie cutters, the holidays are better with a batch of these. With nearly the same ingredients as shortbread cookies, sugar cookies have more, well, sugar. (Tough to build suspense there.) They also use granulated sugar instead of confectioners’ because, unlike shortbread, sugar cookies aren’t crumbly and subtle, they’re meant to be chewy bombs of sweetness. Blend the butter and sugar together before mixing in the flour. Scoop them onto a baking sheet, and if you have some sprinkles laying around, smash a few on top. Bake as directed.
Nutella cookies
Although it is tempting to simply take a spoon to your Nutella jar, it’s not exactly shareable for holiday visitors, and even less appropriate for shipping cookies to loved ones. Instead of squeezing brown paste into a cookie tin, make these delicious treats that have an equally intense flavor profile, and are a little more handheld. Mix Nutella, flour, and an egg in a bowl until you make a thick dough. Shape into rounds and bake them for a chewy delight.
Chocolate almond cookies
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Minimal ingredient cookies have the added benefit of being minimal effort, and these cookies absolutely follow suit. Simply add all of the ingredients to a bowl and stir. Scoop these onto a parchment lined baking sheet and bake. The almond flour provides a pleasant texture, the sugar and cocoa powder balance out sweet and bitter, and the baking powder keeps the cookie from being a claggy brick. This recipe uses palm sugar but notes at the bottom that you can replace it with an equal amount of white or brown granulated sugar.
