Celebrate the holidays with freshly baked chewy Christmas kitchen sink cookies loaded with mix-ins like chocolate chunks, M&Ms, pretzels, and marshmallows that deliver sweet and salty flavors in every decadent bite! They have a little bit of everything making them one of the best cookies you’ll have all Christmas season long!
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Kitchen Sink Christmas Cookies
Satisfy your sweet tooth all winter long with these fun and festive kitchen sink Christmas cookies!
These are the cookies you make when you’re not just craving one kind of cookie. You’re craving all the cookies and can’t decide what you want to put in them – throw in everything but the kitchen sink!
This easy kitchen sink cookie recipe is a one-bowl recipe made with simple pantry staples and some vanilla instant pudding mix, making it a great baking activity for the kids during the holiday season. They’ll love picking and choosing what goes in them!
We’ll definitely be whipping up a batch or three this holiday season. I’ve already got my dessert table lined up with Christmas pinwheel cookies, strawberry thumbprint cookies, and chocolate peppermint thumbprint cookies, so, these will be a perfect fit for my cookie tray! And yours!
Why You’ll Love These Cookies
- Versatile – Whether you’re baking them for your holiday party dessert or a cookie exchange, these loaded with everything but the kitchen sink cookies are going to become a fast favorite!
- Make ahead & freezer friendly – You can prepare the dough on Christmas Eve and chill it overnight to save time on Christmas day. Once baked and cooled, they’ll keep frozen for months. You’re looking at kitchen sink Christmas cookies on demand here, friends!
- Customizable – Use whatever you’ve got on hand or any leftover candy and chocolate from Christmas (or dare I say, Halloween)! You’re welcome to make them your own. My son doesn’t like chocolate, so we may make a batch without them or swap them for more marshmallows or crushed candy cane!
Ingredients
Ingredient notes
- Butter – Make sure to use unsalted butter that’s at room temperature so it creams well with the sugar!
- Eggs – Using cold eggs won’t make or break this recipe, but there’s no harm in bringing them to room temperature along with the butter. This will help with even baking.
- Flour – As with any baking recipe, measuring your flour correctly is important. Use a kitchen scale or the spoon and level method.
- Brown sugar – the recipe calls for light brown sugar but if dark brown sugar is all you have, go ahead and use it. It will just give the kitchen sink Christmas cookies a slightly darker color and a deeper, caramelized, molasses flavor.
- Instant vanilla pudding mix – You’re just using the powder, do not make the pudding. Also, for best results, do not use cook and serve, otherwise, your kitchen sink Christmas cookies won’t have the texture we’re looking for.
- Mix-ins – this recipe is written with a variety of different mix-ins such as chocolate chunks, mini marshmallows, and pretzels. You’re welcome to get creative as long as the base cookie recipe is the same, but we like it as written!
How to make kitchen sink cookies
These Christmas kitchen sink cookies are super easy to make. You’re just going to mix all the ingredients together, add your mix-ins, and bake. Easy as can be!
1 – Make the Kitchen sink cookie dough
- In a large mixing bowl, with a hand mixer or the bowl of a stand mixer, add the softened butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Mix all the ingredients until smooth and fluffy about two minutes.
- Add in the eggs, egg yolk, vanilla extract, and the pudding mix. Keep mixing these in until the batter is smooth.
- With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the flour, baking soda, and salt. When adding the flour, add about 1/2 cup at a time and fully mix that before adding another 1/2 cup.
- With a wooden spoon, stir in the chocolate chunks, marshmallows, M&M’s, and crushed pretzels. Use a folding motion until all the ingredients are fully combined.
2 – Chill the Dough
- Cover the bowl of dough with aluminum foil or plastic wrap then put it in the fridge for at least an hour, up to overnight. Don’t freeze if you’re planning to bake soon.
3 – bake
- When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Take the dough out of the fridge and roll about three tablespoons of dough into a ball. After the dough is rolled into a ball, place onto the parchment lined baking sheet. Repeat until you’ve filled the baking sheet, making sure to leave room between the cookies as they will expand!
- Put the cookies into the preheated oven for 12-14 minutes or until the edges look like they are set and the top of the cookies are golden.
- After the cookies are done baking, put them onto a cooling rack.
Once the cookies are completely cooled, they’re ready to serve! You can also eat them a little warm, but I recommend letting them cool at least partially so they don’t fall apart (and the chocolate doesn’t burn you).
These make great cookie exchange cookies, gifts for neighbors (with these cute Christmas gift tags), or cookies for Santa!
Store any leftover Christmas kitchen sink cookies in an airtight container for up to a week. You can freeze them if you don’t eat them all as well!
How to Freeze Kitchen Sink Cookies
If you’re planning to freeze these kitchen sink cookies, roll the cookie dough into balls and before baking, freeze them on a baking sheet.
Place the frozen cookie dough balls into a large gallon-size freezer bag and freeze for up to three months. No need to thaw before baking, just tack on a few extra minutes in the oven.
If you want to bake the actual cookies after baked, simply put the baked cookies into an airtight container and place in the freezer. When you’re ready to enjoy a cookie, remove from the freezer and allow to thaw before eating.
Tips & Tricks
Chop pretzels roughly with a knife on a cutting board or just break apart the pretzel pieces with your hands. If you prefer smaller bits, place them in a zip-top bag and use a rolling pin to smash them into smaller pieces.
Make sure to use instant pudding and not cook and serve. These cookies will only work with instant.
Place a few extra mix-ins on top of the cookies just before baking, for presentation.
Easily customize them to suit any occasion. Switch up the color of the M&Ms and you’ve got kitchen sink cookies for all kinds of occasions!
Recipe FAQs
What is a kitchen sink cookie?
Only one of the tastiest, chunkiest, and loaded cookies you’ll ever bite into! They’re a simple recipe made with basic baking ingredients and mine just happens to use instant pudding mix for extra soft, extra chewy cookie texture. Then, the dough is ready and waiting for all the fun and festive mix-ins you can handle.
Can I skip adding marshmallows?
Absolutely! This is the fun part about this kitchen sink Christmas cookies recipe. You can make these cookies your own by adding, substituting, and omitting whatever you like!
For example, swap the M&Ms for other fun mix-ins like crushed candy cane, or use chocolate chunks for white chocolate chips. You can use chocolate-covered pretzels, chopped nuts, rice cereal, peanut butter chips, toffee bits, and even potato chips!
How many cookies does this recipe make?
If you follow my directions exactly, you’ll end up with a batch of 20 homemade Christmas kitchen sink cookies. Using a smaller cookie scoop, or fewer tablespoons of dough will result in a larger batch of smaller cookies. The same goes for the opposite. You can make them bigger, but you’ll have fewer cookies.
Either way, you’ll need to adjust the time spent in the oven.
How long can I store kitchen sink Christmas cookies?
Keep them stored in an airtight container so they don’t dry out and you’ll have delicious cookies to nibble on for a week at room temperature.
Can I freeze them?
Once completely cooled, they can also be kept frozen for up to 3 months. I like to layer them with parchment paper while they’re in a freezer bag so that way they don’t freeze stuck together.
More Easy Christmas Cookies
If you’re looking for cookie recipes to fill up your holiday treat trays, any of these would be great! Finish it off with these cute Christmas treat tags!
- Christmas pinwheel cookies – these festive red and green spiral cookies are one of our cookie exchange favorites!
- Melted snowman cookie – these cutest snowman inspired cookies!
- Cherry cheesecake cookies – the flavors of cherry cheesecake in a Christmas cookie!
- Soft molasses cookies – these are one of my all-time favorite Christmas cookies with their soft texture and amazing flavor!
- Grinch sugar cookies – cute Grinch tree cookies with a fun green color and great flavor!
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Christmas Kitchen Sink Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- ¾ cup packed light brown sugar
- ¼ cup white sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 (3.4oz) box vanilla instant pudding
- 2 ½ cups flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ cup semi-sweet chocolate chunks
- ¼ cup mini marshmallows
- ¼ cup red and green m&ms
- ¼ cup crushed pretzels
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl and a hand mixer or you can use the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the softened butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Mix all the ingredients together until smooth and fluffy about 2 minutes.1 cup unsalted butter, 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar, 1/4 cup white sugar
- Mix in the eggs, egg yolk, vanilla extract, and the pudding mix. Keep mixing these in until the batter is smooth.2 large eggs, 1 large egg yolk, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1 (3.4oz) box vanilla instant pudding
- With the mixer on low speed, slowly add in the flour, baking soda, and salt.2 1/2 cups flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt
- Stir in the chocolate chunks, marshmallows, m&ms, and crushed pretzels until fully combined.1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chunks, 1/4 cup mini marshmallows, 1/4 cup red and green m&ms, 1/4 cup crushed pretzels
- Cover the bowl of dough with aluminum foil or plastic wrap then put it in the fridge for at least an hour, up to 1 night.
- When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Then prepare a baking sheet by lining it with parchment paper.
- Take the dough out of the fridge and roll about 3 tablespoons of dough into each ball. After the dough is rolled into a ball, place each one onto the parchment lined baking sheet.
- Put the cookies into the preheated oven for 12-14 minutes or until the edges look like they are set and the top of the cookes are golden.
- After the cookies are done baking, put them onto a cooling rack.
- serve!
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