I don't often call recipes perfect, but these oatmeal cookies are soft, chewy, and warmly spiced—everything a good oatmeal raisin cookie should be.
These oatmeal cookies are truly the best! From Sarah Copeland’s cookbook Every Day Is Saturday, they’re soft and chewy, warmly spiced, and flecked with raisins and nuts. Perfect, if you ask me.
A few weeks ago, I got an intense craving for good oatmeal raisin cookies and hastily threw together ingredients that I had on hand. I ended up with oat-ball-type cookies that were…just ok, and my craving continued. So when I flipped through Every Day Is Saturday this week, Sarah’s oatmeal cookie recipe grabbed my attention.
She writes, “these [oatmeal cookies are] little nuggets of joy you can’t stop eating—that just-right kind of cookie.” I completely agree. These oatmeal cookies were exactly what I was craving. The only problem was that they disappeared too quickly!
Oatmeal Cookie Recipe Ingredients
This recipe has simple ingredients. You likely have them in your pantry already! Here’s what you’ll need:
- All-purpose flour and whole rolled oats form the base of the dough. Old fashioned oats give these cookies the best chewy texture. I don’t recommend using quick oats instead!
- Baking powder and baking soda make them nice and puffy.
- Brown sugar adds the perfect caramelized sweetness.
- Sea salt offsets the sweet sugar and raisins.
- Cinnamon and vanilla extract give them that delicious warm, spiced oatmeal cookie flavor.
- Coconut oil or melted butter adds moisture and richness. I used coconut oil, and these tasted wonderfully buttery just the same!
- 1 large egg + an extra egg yolk give them a rich, thick dough and a moist, light final texture.
- Raisins dot them with chewy pops of sweetness.
- And walnuts add nuttiness and crunch.
Find the complete recipe with measurements below.
How to Make Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Making this oatmeal raisin cookie recipe couldn’t be easier. No stand mixer (or even hand mixer) required! Here’s what you need to do:
First, make the dough. Whisk together the wet ingredients in one mixing bowl and the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in another.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Then, fold in the walnuts, oats, and raisins. The mixture will be thick!
Next, let the dough rest for 20 minutes. This time gives the wet ingredients a chance to hydrate the flour and oats, making it easier to work with the dough. The cookies come out chewier, too!
Then, shape and bake the cookies. Roll the dough into balls and place them on parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake at 350°F for 10 to 11 minutes, or until golden brown.
Let the cookies cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring them to wire racks to cool completely. Enjoy!
Oatmeal Cookie Recipe Tips
Sarah has a few excellent pointers in her book. These are her tips for making the best oatmeal raisin cookies:
- Use brown sugar. Instead of using a mix of brown sugar and granulated sugar, Sarah opts for all brown sugar. It gives these oatmeal raisin cookies a delicious caramelized sweetness.
- Go for melted, not creamed, butter. According to Sarah, creamed butter cookies are unpredictable: they can easily spread too much or be too firm. With melted butter, though, you’ll get moist, chewy cookies every time.
- Let the dough rest for 20 minutes before baking. Those 20 minutes will make your dough easier to roll into balls, so the cookies will keep their shape and develop a yummy chewy texture in the oven.
- Allow the cookies to cool completely for the best texture and flavor. It may be agony, but letting these oatmeal raisin cookies cool completely only makes them better. They’ll be chewier and fully infused with brown sugar flavor. Sarah likes these best a few hours to 1 day after baking. (Though I can attest that they’re still good if you can’t wait that long.)
Oatmeal Cookies Variations
If you follow this recipe as written, you won’t be disappointed. These oatmeal cookies are buttery, nutty, and perfectly spiced. But if you want to step outside the traditional oatmeal raisin cookie box, feel free. Here are a few great ways to change up this recipe:
- Substitute chocolate chips for the raisins to make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, or use a mix of both. White chocolate chips are a fun option too.
- Use pecans instead of walnuts.
- Swap the raisins for dried cherries or cranberries.
- Add a dash of cardamom or ginger to the dough.
- Replace the raisins with butterscotch chips to give the cookies an extra-buttery taste.
How do you like to make oatmeal cookies? Let me know in the comments!
How to Store Oatmeal Cookies
To keep these oatmeal cookies soft and chewy, store them in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days. They also freeze well for up to 3 months.
Make-Ahead Oatmeal Cookies
If you’re someone who likes to keep cookie dough on hand in the fridge or freezer, this oatmeal cookie recipe is for you. You can store the cookie dough in the fridge for 7 to 10 days or freeze it for up to a month.
To store the dough, roll it into balls and freeze them briefly. Then, transfer the cookie dough balls to airtight containers or Ziploc bags and refrigerate or freeze. You can also roll the dough into a log, using an 8×12-inch piece of parchment paper as a guide. Wrap the log tightly in parchment to refrigerate or freeze, and slice the cookies into rounds before baking.
Bake your cookie dough straight from the fridge. If it’s frozen, allow it to rest for 15 minutes at room temperature before putting it in the oven.
More Favorite Cookie Recipes
If you love these oatmeal cookies, try one of these yummy cookie recipes next:
- Snickerdoodle Cookies
- Easy Sugar Cookies
- Best Peanut Butter Cookies
- No Bake Cookies
- Thumbprint Cookies
- Chewy Molasses Cookies
- Homemade Brownies (not a cookie, but still delicious…)
- Or any of these 17 Easy Cookie Recipes!
Perfect Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Equipment
- Cookie Scoop (I use this one)
Ingredients
- 1 cup all-purpose flour,
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 cup coconut oil or unsalted butter, melted
- 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1 1/2 cup whole rolled oats
- 3/4 cup raisins
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the melted coconut oil, sugar, whole egg, egg yolk, and vanilla, whisking vigorously.
- Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Stir in the oats, raisins, and walnuts, if using, folding into a tight batter. Set the dough aside for 20 minutes while the oven preheats. (Note: if your dough seems too wet to become scoop-able, chill it in the fridge for this 20 minutes and it'll firm up). If your dough is too crumbly, stir in 2 to 3 tablespoons water.
- Use a cookie scoop to divide the dough into 20 tablespoon-sized balls. Roll lightly in barely damp hands to make them round. Spread out onto the prepared baking sheets and bake until puffed, golden, and a touch underbaked-looking, 10 to 11 minutes. Let cool on the pans for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Just made this recipe and I really like the way they turned out. I doubled the ingredients as I find the yield is too small. For decent sized cookies you get sixteen out of a double batch. Also, I found that they only require eight minutes in a 350 oven. I will definitely make them again !
Have made these x3 thus far and they have come out perfect each time . The first time I ran short of all purpose flour so used 1/2 cup almond flour and 1/2 cup flour . Now I do this anyway . I do put dry ingredients into wet to not waste the butter that sticks on to bowl . Thx for a fabulous recipe !
I made these this morning and they are wonderful! I used slivered almonds in lieu of walnuts and added about a tablespoon of molasses in to the wet mixture. So good!
Dang. These cookies are really, really good. Not overly sweet, slightly crispy at the edges and chewy in the center … so delish. Did I make them way too big, causing them to spread into each other? Yes, but that’s on me, and now I have a delicious oatmeal cookie tray. Saw some really bad reviews, and not sure what went wrong – read all of the instructions, not just the recipe as written. I rested the dough before baking, used half melted butter half coconut oil, and added some chocolate chips and dried blueberries. 10/10, will absolutely make again (this week, probably)!
Very disappointing. I love this website. I’ve tried their pancake and lemon bar recipe and it taste incredible but this oatmeal cookie recipe was just sad. After 11, mins they were still shaped like shapes and not sweet at all! The raisins are the only source of sweetness, which is strange.
Hi Chelsea, I’m so sorry you didn’t love these, did you change anything about the recipe? Maybe the sugar measurement was off.
How are these gluten-free if the recipe asks for all-purpose flour? Am I missing something?
Hi Kamilla, these are not glute free, can I ask what page mentioned that so I can fix it?
Hi! I’m a ten year old. My mom wanted some cookies, so I decided to try this. Awesome recipe! it was great!
Hi Kate, I’m glad she loved them!
I had such high hopes bc I love so many of your other recipes but this was a fail. Also misleading bc on google it shows 4.9 stars with 500+ reviews, yet when reading reviews at bottom of post it reveals otherwise. I followed recipe to the letter. I was even sure to beat wet mixture thoroughly as I have learned from popular pastry chef. End result was very dry, even tried baking for only 10 minutes. I am thinking it is the use of coconut oil vs butter. Just imo.
We followed the recipe perfectly and ended up with hard balls. This is bizarre so many people had a different experience.
So this recipe IS perfect. I’m an inexperienced baker and this cookie recipe took me from baking one disappointment a year, to almost weekly in the past two months! It got me comfortable figuring out my oven temp and bake time (I’m at 360 degrees F for 12 minutes), and it’s SO validating knowing I don’t have to go to out whenever I want a sweet treat. This recipe really unlocked baking for me and I’m so grateful!
I had dark chocolate quinoa raspberry bark so I cut that up and it went perfectly in these. And I go the coconut oil route cuz I have a huge tub from two years ago.
Followed recipe too a T. Came out flat and crumbly. Barely sweet. Won’t use this recipe again.
I made these cookies yesterday and they came out perfectly. I subbed in crasins and pistachios for the walnuts, sprinkled a little extra pistachio crumble on top after baking was complete for some extra crunch and prettiness. I will definitely be using this recipe again!
I’m so glad you loved the cookies, Liz!
These cookies are too good to make in the late afternoon. None will make it to morning!!!
So glad you loved them, Daphne!
I make this recipe with craisins and pecans, they are my families favorite.
So glad you enjoyed them, Mehndi!
Perfect recipe for these recipe! The batter came together very easily and the cookies were really good! Toddler approved too!
Hi Victoria, so glad they were a hit!
Best cookies I’ve ever made! Texture and taste were perfect! Not at all sweet, feels uber healthy 🥰
I’m glad you loved them!
4/12/25
Sorry I didn’t see yesterday’s comment, but uhh….too.
As with others I followed the recipe exactly and the cookies were dry, crumbly and didn’t flatten in the oven.
This is my favourite oatmeal cookie recipe and i love oatmeal cookies so ive tried a few. my husband is worried about carbs (ugg) so i used half stevia and half brown sugar. in my mind stevia has an after taste but hubby loved them. I think i will lie to him from now on. I also added walnuts and dried cherries. So good!
I’m so glad you both loved them!
Best ever,so many compliments! Thank you !
I’m so happy to hear!