Soft Sugar Cookies with Roll & Cut and Drop Cookie Options

This dairy-free sugar cookies recipe is truly a family favorite for dairy-free mama, Sarah. The recipe was adapted from her friend and neighbor Renee’s recipe, which was passed down from her grandmother. Renee makes a double batch of these cookies every year for their annual neighborhood Christmas party, where they are always a big hit. But these soft and tender dairy-free sugar cookies are so good, they deserve to be served more than once a year. So Sarah and her milk allergic daughter Katherine started baking them for birthdays, school parties, and other holidays, like Easter!

Dairy-Free Sugar Cookies are a Favorite for Every Occasion

I whipped up several batches of Sarah’s dairy-free sugar cookies recently. I tried them as drop cookies and roll and cut sugar cookies with my new cat cookie cutter. They were delicious both ways, and received rave reviews from my neighborhood too! I’ve included some new photos, added a few tips, and have some fun options to share for this dairy-free sugar cookie recipe.

Tips for the Perfect Sugar Cookie Texture

These dairy-free sugar cookies are meant to be soft and tender, with barely a hint of chewy. The drop cookies are gently domed (unless you flatten them) for a pillowy bite. The roll & cut sugar cookies are firm enough to handle (once they cool), but still have a gentle and soft texture.

To get this soft texture, the sugar cookie dough should be a little stiff for your hand mixer, but still a touch sticky and soft enough to stir with a wooden spoon. You will need to flour your surface and rolling pin generously for roll and cut sugar cookies.

Crispy Causes

If you’re cookies come out crispy, they most likely baked too long or have too much flour added. Or, the problem could be your vegan butter or eggs. Some buttery sticks brands have a higher water content, or different oil type ratios. I like to use Spectrum shortening when worried about seamless results, but also use my best dairy-free butter for baking guide when I want to mix things up or add buttery flavor. Also, I’ve noticed that “large” eggs seem to vary quite a bit in size. Many are actually extra large (2.25 ounces – making cakier cookies), and I’ve had some mediums (1.75 ounces – making denser cookies) sneak into the dozen. A large egg should weigh 2 ounces.

If your sugar cookies brown too much on the bottom, there are a few fixes. First, if you have a convection setting on your oven, use it to circulate the heat better. You can bake the cookies on a higher rack and/or bake them on an airbake sheet, silicone baking mat (on your baking sheet), or baking stone.

Roll & Cut Cookie Tip

Since these are softer sugar cookies, they do spread just a little. Consequently, I would avoid overly detailed cookie cutters. You will lose a little of the detail from the slight spread. But the dough works great for basic cookie cutters. If you want to minimize spread, I advise using shortening, or a firmer brand of dairy-free butter alternative, like Miyoko’s.

Dairy-Free Sugar Cookie Options

Frost Your Cookies

Our favorite cookie frostings are dairy-free buttercream frosting, dairy-free milk chocolate frosting, and dairy-free lemon frosting. For a whiter frosting that’s good for tinting, use the Decorator’s option in the notes of the buttercream recipe.

Flood the Tops with Cookie Icing / Glaze

Sift 1 cup powdered confectioners’ sugar into a large bowl. Add 1 1/2 tablespoons corn syrup (can sub honey), 1 tablespoon unsweetened dairy-free milk alternative, and 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract (use clear vanilla for pure white color). Whisk until smooth. If using any food coloring, whisk it in at this time. Lift the whisk and let the icing drizzle back into the bowl. The ribbon of icing should be visible for a few seconds before nestling back into the icing. Whisk up to 1/2 tablespoon additional milk alternative to get that consistency.

To decorate the fully cooled cookies, pipe the icing near the outside edge of the cookies like an outline. Then pipe inside the outline, letting the icing “flood” the top of the cookie.

Sprinkle Some Color On or In Your Sugar Cookies

If you want to make birthday sprinkle cookies, stir some sprinkles (as many as you like) into the sugar cookie dough before shaping and baking it. If you’re worried about bleeding, you can drop the dough onto your baking sheet, and then press sprinkles into the top whiled lightly flattening them.

You’ll want to use a frosting or glaze on the baked and cooled cookies if you want to use sprinkles on top. If frosting, you can go ahead and frost them all, then sprinkle on the sprinkles, and lightly press them into the frosting. If using the icing / glaze, top with the sprinkles within a few minutes of glazing the cookies. It takes the glaze several hours to fully set up, but it will start to harden a little quite quickly.

Go Sparkly with Sugar

You can sprinkle the tops of the sugar cookies with sparkling sugar or sanding sugar. You can also make your own sparkling sugar colors.

Bake them with Kids

Children can help measure the ingredients and mix the dough. Although they might need some assistance with the hand mixer toward the end of mixing, as the dough becomes stiff. Kids can also have fun rolling and cutting the dough, if using cookie cutters, or scooping the dough, if making round cookies. And of course they can have fun making the frosting and decorating these soft dairy-free sugar cookies!

Special Diet Notes: Soft Dairy-Free Sugar Cookies

By ingredients, this recipe is dairy-free / non-dairy, nut-free, peanut-free, optionally soy-free, and vegetarian. Be sure to choose the shortening or buttery sticks and milk alternative that suit your dietary needs.

For egg-free sugar cookies, see our vegan sugar cookies recipe.

For gluten-free dairy-free sugar cookies, you might try your favorite all-purpose gluten-free flour blend, like King Arthur Measure for Measure. You might need to adjust the flour amount to get the right consistency. Please note that we have not tested this recipe without gluten. Let us know if you do! But, do not substitute a grain-free flour, like coconut flour or almond flour. I can guarantee that these will not work properly as 1:1 substitutes.

Sarah Hatfield

Dairy-Free Sugar Cookies

4.58 from 7 votes

Everyone needs a good sugar cookie recipe for holiday, birthday, and school parties. This is our favorite dairy-free and nut-free version.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 20 minutes mins

Cook Time 10 minutes mins

Total Time 30 minutes mins

Servings: 24 cookies

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Calories: 126

Ingredients Method Nutrition Notes

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x?

• ½ cup shortening (like Spectrum or 1 dairy-free buttery stick)
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2½ cups all-purpose flour
• ¼ to ½ teaspoon salt (see Salt Note below)
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• 2 tablespoons plain dairy-free milk alternative or as needed

Method

 

1. Preheat your oven to 350ºF and grease a large baking sheet or line it with parchment paper.
2. In a large mixing bowl, mix the shortening or buttery stick and sugar with a hand mixer on medium speed until creamy, about 2 minutes.
3. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix until combined, about 1 minute.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and baking soda.
5. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well until just combined.
6. Slowly add the milk beverage until the dough is still stiff, but just a little sticky. The dough is very stiff, so the mixer might need to be set on high towards the end of mixing.
7. The finished dough is stiff and slightly sticky. This will not affect drop cookies. If you are rolling and cutting the cookies, the flour you use to dust the rolling pin and rolling surface will help the cookies not stick. This is a soft sugar cookie recipe, not a crunchy one.

Drop Cookies

1. Scoop the dough with a 1½-inch cookie scoop, and place the cookies about 2 inches apart on your prepared cookie sheet.
2. For rounded cookies, leave the dough as is.
3. For flatter circle cookies, gently press the tops of the cookies with the bottom of a greased drinking glass.
4. Bake the cookies for 9 to 11 minutes, or until the tops look dry and the bottoms are lightly browned. The cookies will stay pale on the top.

Roll and Cut Cookies

1. Flour a cutting board or other flat surface and your rolling pin. Roll the dough out to roughly ¼-inch thickness with a floured rolling pin.
2. Cut the dough using your favorite cookie cutters, and place the cookies about 2 inches apart on your prepared cookie sheet.
3. Bake the cookies for 8 to 10 minutes or until the tops look dry and the bottoms are lightly browned. The cookies will stay pale on the top.

For All Cookies

1. Let the cookies rest on the cookie sheet for 1 minute before carefully removing them to a cooling rack to cool completely.
2. Once completely cool, you can frost them, if desired.
3. Store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week. You can freeze them for longer storage.

Nutrition

Serving: 1cookieCalories: 126kcalCarbohydrates: 18.3gProtein: 1.8gFat: 5gSaturated Fat: 3.1gSodium: 63mgFiber: 0.4gSugar: 8.4g

Notes

Salt Note: Use 1/2 teaspoon salt if using shortening or unsalted buttery sticks. Use ¼ teaspoon salt if using salted butter alternative.

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Also Try Our Favorite Dairy-Free Triple Chocolate Cookies!