Lemon Sugar Cookies Recipe

Why you'll love it

These lemon sugar cookies are soft, chewy, and melt in your mouth. The dough is filled with bright lemon flavor and coated in lemon-infused sugar. It is the official easy sugar cookie recipe for lemon lovers. 

They are one of my favorite lemon desserts that are great for using up spare lemons and they're just as easy to make as classic sugar cookies with only a couple of quick additions. 

You and everyone you know will love them because they are everything a good cookie should be. Crisp, buttery edges and soft and chewy on the inside with the perfect amount of lemon. 

They are sweet, but not so sweet that you feel guilty eating a few at once. These cookies put all other cookies to shame. Except my s'mores stuffed cookies cause, well, s'mores. If you are looking for more amazing chewy sugar cookies and some of my other favorite cookie recipes, you need my cookbook, Cookie School! 

What you'll need

Like the best cookie recipes, you only need a few pantry staples to make these mouthwatering treats. You probably already have all or most of the ingredients already. Let's review some of the key ingredients. 

• Butter - Unsalted butter is a must for these cookies. You cannot substitute the butter with alternatives such as margarine. For the best results, use softened butter left at room temperature. 
• Lemon - For the best lemon cookies, you need to use fresh lemons. The regular lemons you find at the grocery store is what you should use, but if you want to change things up slightly, you can try pink lemons or Meyer lemons. Lemon extract can be used in addition to fresh lemon zest and juice to amp up the flavor even more, or as an emergency back up if you run out of lemons. 
• Flour - I like to use unbleached all-purpose flour when possible, but bleached flour also works. You can also use white whole wheat flour or a gluten free 1 to 1 baking mix. I do not recommend using cake flour or bread flour. However, if you want puffier cookies, you can add a teaspoon of cornstarch to the flour mixture. 
• Sugar - You should use granulated sugar for these cookies. I would not recommend replacing the sugar with a sweetener alternative. If you want to give the cookies a little more texture, you can use coarse turbinado sugar to roll the cookies in. 
• Vanilla - I like to add vanilla to my lemon cookies to add more depth to the flavor. You should use pure vanilla extract only. 

How to make

Making these chewy lemon cookies is the best because there is no chilling necessary. You can whip up the cookie dough and bake it right away. Quick, easy, and perfect for any impatient bakers looking to dig in as soon as possible. Bere starting, make sure you preheat your oven and line your baking sheet with parchment paper.

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl and set aside. 
2. Cream butter and sugar together in a large bowl with a hand mixer or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment on medium speed until light and fluffy. 
3. Mix the lemon zest, lemon juice, vanilla extract, and egg into the butter mixture and beat until well-combined. 
4. Add the flour mixture into the wet ingredients slowly until just combined. Scrape the sides of the bowl to ensure all the ingredients are thoroughly combined. 
5. Portion the cookie dough balls into 24 equal rounds using a cookie scoop and roll in granulated sugar that's been mixed with some lemon zest. 
6. Place the dough on your baking sheets at least two inches apart and bake until the edges are a light golden brown. Leave them to cool on the cookie sheet for 1 - 2 mintues before you transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Expert tips

The most important way to ensure you get the best results is to make sure you are correctly measuring your ingredients, particularly the flour. You should fluff up the flour and then spoon it into your measuring cup then sweep of the excess. If you want to make sure you get consistent results, you can convert the recipe to metric and use a kitchen scale. 

The most fresh lemon juice comes from room temperature lemons, so I recommend leaving your lemons out for about an hour before you juice them. Zest is best when the citrus is cold, so you can zest your lemons just after taking them out of the fridge to warm up. Do not try to zest your lemons after juicing them.

Make sure all your ingredients are at room temperature before you start baking. This ensures that everything mixes together smoothly to create the perfect cookie dough texture. 

Invest in quality silicone baking mats for easy clean up and a perfect nonstick surface. The texture of the baking mats also helps to keep the dough from spreading too much in the oven which helps make sure you can get thicker cookies. 

If you want picture quality perfectly round cookies, quickly shuffle each cookies around inside round cookie cutters while they are still on the baking sheet before transferring them to a cooling rack.

You can cover the dough with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for a few hours, up to three days if you want to make the cookie dough before you are ready to bake them, or want to develop the flavors more. You may only need to add another minute to the overall baking time. 

Storage tips

The best way to store chewy lemon sugar cookies is at room temperature in an airtight container for up to a week. To prolong the shelf-life of soft sugar cookies, you can add a slice of bread to the container you keep the cookies in. 

You can freeze the baked cookies in an airtight container for up to a month. They thaw at room temperature quickly, but are also a delicious treat to eat while still mostly frozen! 

It is also possible to store unbaked cookie dough in the freezer for up to a month. I recommend portioning out the dough beforehand. Shape the dough into balls and freeze for an hour on a baking sheet before transferring to an airtight container. Thaw overnight for a while in the refrigerator before rolling in sugar and and baking. You may need to add another 1 - 2 minutes to the baking time.