Strawberry Sugar Cookies

Strawberry sugar cookies are soft and chewy, with a crunchy sugar crust and plenty of sweet strawberry flavor! They're made from scratch using freeze-dried strawberries, with no dyes or artificial flavors. 

Love a classic soft sugar cookie, but looking to switch things up? If you love strawberry desserts, these strawberry sugar cookies are a must try.

Sugar cookies are a quick and easy dessert recipe, mainly due to their short and simple ingredient list. These sugar cookies have one extra ingredient to add fruity strawberry flavor - freeze-dried strawberries.

Freeze-dried strawberries give these cookies a pretty, pale pink color with flecks of red throughout. These cute cookies are perfect for birthday parties, baby showers, and summer barbecues.

If you love these strawberry cookies, you may want to try my recipe for strawberry shortbread cookies too!

Ingredients and substitutions

• Unsalted butter - The listed salt and unsalted butter can be substituted with salted butter if needed.
• Granulated sugar - Adds sweetness and moisture to your dough. You'll also be rolling the dough balls in additional granulated sugar before baking.
• Eggs - Eggs should be room temperature. Set them on the counter 1 hour before baking, or place your whole eggs in a small bowl covered in warm tap water for 15 minutes.
• Vanilla extract - Adds depth of flavor of your cookies.
• All-purpose flour - Adds structure to your cookies and balances the wet ingredients in the recipe. I haven't tested this recipe with other types of flours, so I can't say for sure how your cookies would turn out with substitutions. To avoid wasting ingredients, I highly suggest searching for a recipe that has been developed with the type of flour you'd like to use.
• Freeze-dried strawberries - To give these cookies their strawberry flavor, freeze-dried strawberries are a must. Fresh strawberries will not work in this recipe and would make the dough very wet. This recipe is written to include a dry ingredient, like freeze dried strawberry powder.
• Baking powder - Cannot be substituted with baking soda - these are two different ingredients that will react differently with the other ingredients listed. Check the expiration date before beginning - expired baking powder will result in a flat, dense cookie.
• Salt - Enhances the flavor of your cookies.

Freeze dried strawberries

I find freeze-dried strawberries in the produce section of my local grocery store. A quick google search tells me that stores like Target, Walmart, Kroger, and Publix all sell freeze-dried strawberries.

I specifically used Crunchies Freeze-Dried Strawberries which is a .8 ounce bag. The bag sizes vary between brands, from .7 to 1.2 ounces.

If you'd like a stronger strawberry flavor and darker color, try adding extra strawberry powder to your recipe.

To prepare freeze-dried strawberries for this recipe: use a food processor, spice grinder, or even a blender to grind the dried strawberries into a fine powder.

Can I use fresh strawberries?

No - fresh strawberries will not work in this recipe.

If you only have fresh strawberries on hand, I recommend searching for a reliable cookie recipe that has already been tested with fresh strawberries.

This recipe works because the freeze-dried strawberries do not add any extra moisture to the cookie dough.

Cookie tips and tricks

Check out my full post, 10 tips for baking cookies, for my best tips on baking a perfect batch of cookies. Here are my favorites:

• Room temperature ingredients - Room temperature ingredients mix together evenly to create a perfectly mixed dough (without streaks of unmixed ingredients).
• Bring ingredients to room temperature quickly - Slice sticks of butter into small, ½ inch slivers. Small pieces warm up faster than a whole stick. Place eggs into a bowl and cover with very warm tap water. They'll come to room temperature in about ten minutes.
• Properly measure your flour - The most common issue I see in baking is the improper measuring of flour. I highly recommend using a kitchen scale and measuring using the gram measurements in the recipe card. If you don't have a scale, use the spoon and level method. Stir your flour, then spoon gently into a measuring cup and level off the top with a knife.
• What happens if you add extra flour - By scooping flour with a measuring cup, you're compacting the flour into the cup and adding up to 25% extra flour to the dough. Extra flour can cause cookies to turn out dry and have a bland/flour flavor, instead of allowing the other ingredients (like butter, sugar, freeze-dried strawberries, and vanilla) to shine.
• Prevent spreading by lining your baking sheet - Use parchment paper or a silicone baking mat instead of greasing your pan. Adding grease to a baking sheet causes cookies to spread more while baking.
• Cookie scoop - Use a cookie scoop (I used a medium OXO cookie scoop for this recipe) for perfectly sized, round cookies.

Adding food coloring

Want a bright red or pink strawberry cookie? These cookies have a lovely natural color, but you may be looking for something more intense.

Try rolling your cookie dough balls in red or pink sugar sprinkles instead of granulated sugar.

You're also welcome to add red food coloring to your cookie dough with the wet ingredients. Add a few dots at a time and mix until you've achieved your desired color.

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