M and M Cookies | The Best Soft and Chewy Bakery Style Recipe

4 hours 22 minutes

By: Julie Blanner86 Comments
Updated: 6/19/21

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The best M&M Cookies that are bakery quality, without a lot of effort! Get the secrets that make this M and M cookie recipe better than the rest!

Ani has been talking for weeks about her “special day.” It’s the day that she was assigned to celebrate her birthday at Parent’s Day Out. She was so excited to bring treats to share with her friends.

Like a lot of kids, she requested M&M cookies! Because I am a cookie-obsessed adult, who am I to argue with her choice? What’s better than a classic?

White surface with a valentine's day m&m cookie.

I’ve been making M&M cookies for years, but I knew they could be even BETTER. Therefore, I decided to mix it up a little bit and update my M&M cookie recipe to truly take them up a notch.

One of my many obsessions is brown butter – it enhances the flavor of any recipe that calls for butter and in cookies with brown sugar, it creates a toffee-like taste while maintaining a soft, chewy texture.

Gold baking sheet filled with Valentine's m and m cookies.

As a result of this additional step, these cookies truly stack up to bakery M and M cookies. We’ve been making them frequently ever since, because our friends and family always request them! They are a rich, chocolatey cookie that is light and fluffy in texture.

You’re going to want to follow along and make these for your friends and family, I promise. Just be sure to have a “share plan” in place so you don’t eat every last one.

I like to give a lot of detail in my recipe posts to guide readers through any questions. If you’re just here for the printable recipe, feel free to click “jump to recipe” right under the title of this post and you’ll head straight there!

M&M Cookies - get the tips for bakery style cookies

I love that you can change this recipe for the seasons, too! What fun to add holiday M&Ms for Christmas, Valentine’s, Easter, etc. Is there any holiday that can’t benefit from m and m cookies?

I have a lifelong love affair with cookies, and I am not ashamed to admit it! We make a lot of cookies around here, and although cookies are a part of my job description, I love them more than anyone should!

With that said, I can certainly claim to be a bit of a cookie expert. A few reader favorites? Don’t miss my salted caramel sugar cookies, these incredible oatmeal lace cookies, and carmelita cookies!

Table of Contents

M&M Cookie Ingredients

Butter – Salted or unsalted, your choice. I tend to use salted butter in all my baking.
Sugar – Granulated sugar.
Brown Sugar – Packed brown sugar adds that beautiful golden color and a hint of molasses flavor.
Vanilla – Store bought or Homemade Vanilla Extract adds a hint of flavor that’s synonymous with chocolate chip cookies.
Eggs – Large eggs bind ingredients together and add a little rise.
Baking Soda and Baking Powder – The leavening agents that add just the right amount of rise to achieve a chewy M&M cookie.
Salt – A touch of salt enhances the flavors of all the other ingredients in baking. A touch of sea salt from a grinder set on the thickest setting as a garnish takes these cookies over the top.
Flour – All purpose flour, no need to sift.
M&M’s – Because you can’t make the best m and m cookies ever without them!
Chocolate Chips – Completely optional, but highly recommended. They add a little additional body to these m and m cookies.

White surface, stack of three m&m cookies.

M&M cookies being held in a person\'s hand.

How to Make M&M Cookies

Prep – Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Brown butter. Above all, don’t skip this step, it gives you that ultimate caramelized flavor! If you don’t know how to do this, just follow the link to watch a quick video – it’s so easy!
Combine sugars and vanilla in a large bowl, and gradually add in your browned butter (let it come to room temperature, don’t pour it in while it’s extremely hot).
Next, add eggs. Careful not to over-mix!
Mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients, mix until combined.
Add M&Ms and chocolate chips.
Freeze Dough (optional) – Place parchment paper on your baking sheets. (Find some of my favorite baking sheets here) Form large dough balls and place in freezer for approximately four hours.
Bake – Add a crack of sea salt a bake 12 minutes.

Questions and Facts

Cynthia asks: “What does “crack with sea salt” mean??” answer: I always use sea salt that comes in a grinder – the thick flakes are full of flavor. Maybe this is my secret to consistently great cookies? Enjoy!
Robert asks on Pinterest: “Can I add peanut butter to these cookies?” Robert, while I agree that this sounds delicious, don’t add it to this particular recipe! It will throw your oil ratio off and therefore it really might not work well. Above all, I promise you’ll love is M&M cookie recipe just as it is!
Katie asks: “Do you have to put these in the freezer?” Katie, it’s worth the extra step to place them in the freezer or fridge! This is how to make M&M cookies soft and will certainly keep them from spreading too much, especially when you’re making larger cookies.

What Readers Say

Sue says: “Omg!!! The browned butter totally changes it! We LOVED them! I used the small Pampered Chef scoop and got 50 med sized cookies. They were perfect, thanks for another great recipe!”
DG says: “Thank you for this amazing recipe. Made these for my family yesterday and they did not last the night. Making batch two tonight ? the flavor of the dough is really wonderful, the browned butter definitely brings out the rich caramel flavor in the brown sugar without making it super sweet. Will definitely be adding this to my cookie rotation!”
David B says: “Just made these today to use up leftover Halloween candy. I got 21 balls and was firmly convinced that there was NO way they’d flatten out like a cookie from a frozen state in only 12 minutes. And then a miracle occurred. These are really good!”

M and M Cookie Tips

Don’t over bake – a slightly under-baked cookie is the most delicious cookie of all.

Don’t over mix the egg.

Refrigerate or freeze dough {freeze for larger cookies like these}.

Add candy or chocolate chips to the top of your dough balls just before freezing.

Use a lot of add-ins {M&Ms, chocolate chips, nuts}. It gives the cookie a little added height.