Learn How To Make Perfect M&M Cookies! These really are the best chocolate chip cookies and I simply can’t wait to share them with you!
The Best M&M Cookies
Are you ready for the best m and m cookies recipe? I’ve been making these M and M cookies for years now and they are ALWAYS a hit. In fact, I’m making a batch today for some neighbor gifts!
What defines a perfect cookie to you? It’s quite different for everyone I imagine. For me, the cookie has to be soft and chewy but crispy around the edges with just the right texture. This cookie that I’ve developed has all of those things which is why this recipe is titled How To Make Perfect M&M Cookies 🙂
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Crowd Favorite. These cookies are a favorite at every party.
- EASY! They’re easy to make!
- Can’t Mess Them Up! Fail proof recipe!
Try my Chocolate Malted Cookies too! Follow Picky Palate on Instagram for daily recipe inspiration!
What You’ll Need
Here are the ingredients you’ll need to make M&M Cookies at home. See the recipe card located at the bottom of the post for full details.
- Salted Butter, Softened– For most of my recipes I use salted butter, but unsalted is just fine here too.
- Granulated Sugar– This fine sugar brings the sweet to the cookies.
- Light Brown Sugar– The light brown sugar also brings the sweetness to the cookies.
- Large Egg– For consistency use large eggs for your baking.
- Pure Vanilla Extract– For best tasting results use pure vanilla extract.
- All-Purpose Flour– Flour is the main dry ingredient for the cookies.
- Kosher Salt- This coarse salt is commonly used in cooking and baking. Find it near the table salt.
- Baking Soda– Baking soda helps the cookies rise during baking.
- Mini Chocolate Chips– Mini chips can be found in the baking section near the other chocolate chips.
- Mini M&M’s– Find the mini M&M’s near the candy section in most grocery stores. Regular size are fine too if you can’t find the mini.
How To Make The Best M&M Cookies
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and line a large baking sheet with a silpat liner or parchment paper.
Cream Butters and Sugars. In a large mixing bowl cream your butter and sugars until well combined.
Wet Ingredients. Pour in your egg and vanilla mixing to combine.
Dry Ingredients. Add your flour, pudding mix, baking soda and salt, stirring to combine.
Chocolate. Add chips and m and m’s stirring to combine.
Scoop Dough Onto Baking Sheet. With a medium cookie scoop, place dough 1 inch apart from each other. NOTE: Do not press the cookie dough before baking. Leave just like this. UPDATE: If your cookies don’t flatten after baking as my photo shows below, try pressing the cookie dough to about a 1/2″ thickness before you bake.
Bake. Bake for 10-12 minutes until cooked through. Let cool on cookie sheet for 10 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.
Secret Ingredient To The Best M&M Cookies!
Instant Pudding Mix! Add a few Tablespoons of vanilla instant pudding mix with your dry ingredients.
This is how they’ll come out. Perfect! Enjoy friends!
Tips For Making The Best M&M Cookies
- Don’t alter the recipe, use all ingredients as listed.
- For a more firm cookie, refrigerate your cookie dough for 24 hours before baking.
- Always use butter, not margarine. I prefer salted butter for my chocolate chip cookies.
- Don’t skip creaming your butter and sugars for a good 2 minutes. Helps create a fluffy, chewy cookie.
- Try sprinkling dough with just a touch of salt for a perfect sweet and salty combination.
- Don’t overtake your cookies. Cookies will continue to cook on hot cookie sheet when removed from oven.
- Let cookies cool completely before storing in containers. This will keep their crispness
How To Serve
Serve cookies for any occasion where cookies are needed. They make the perfect sweet treat. Great for gifting to neighbors and even bake sales.
How To Store Leftovers
Store any leftover cookies in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
Freezing Instructions
You can freeze the scooped cookie dough, flash freeze on a cookie sheet for 30 minutes then place dough into an airtight container and freeze up to 3 months in the freezer. To freeze the cookies, place them in an airtight container for up to 3 months in the freezer. Thaw before enjoying.
Try More Delicious Cookie Recipes
- The Best Brown Butter Cookies
- Churro White Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Malted Oreo Chocolate Chip Cookies
How To Make Perfect M&M Cookies
Equipment
- Oven
- cookie sheet
- parchment paper
- mixing bowl
- cookie scoop
- measuring cups
- measuring spoons
- mixing spoons
Ingredients
- 1 stick unsalted butter softened
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1-1/2 cups all purpose Gold Medal Flour
- 3 tablespoons Instant vanilla pudding mix
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 3/4 cup mini chocolate chips
- 1 or 1-1/2 cups Mini M and M’s
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and line a large baking sheet with a silpat liner or parchment paper.
- In a large mixing bowl cream your butter and sugars until well combined. Add your egg and vanilla mixing to combine. Add your flour, pudding mix, baking soda and salt, stirring to combine. Add chips and m and m’s stirring to combine.
- With a medium cookie scoop, place dough 1 inch apart from each other. Bake for 10-12 minutes until cooked through. Let cool on cookie sheet for 10 minutes before transferring to cooling rack. Enjoy!
Video
Nutrition
Welcome to my online kitchen! Picky Palate is where you’ll find family friendly recipes along with the best Disney eats, tips and copycat recipes! 
I made these cookies last night for my daugher’s poetry party at school today. I hestitated sending them to school this morning becuase I wanted to eat all of them myself. What a great recipe! Thanks for sharing! Christy
I made these tonight and they were so delicious! I am in Utah, so my dough was NOT crumbly, as per the directions. In fact, I had to add about 3T of flour. But it was delicious!
These were so soft and delicious! There was a lot of chocolate but I just mixed it in with my hands and it turned out great. Everyone couldn’t keep their hands off them.
My daughter and I made these for her bake sale at school, they turned out great. Doubled the recipe, but not the amount of chocolate, and it was perfect. Basically 3/4 cup mini choc chips, and 1 bag of mini m&m’s was plenty of chocolate. Thanks for a yummy cookie recipe.
So the butter is one full stick plus a half cup?
It is only 1 stick of butter which equals to 1/2 cup. That is why she put 1 stick/1/2 cup. Hope that makes sense 🙂
These look delicious! Being in England, I’ll be using smarties instead of M and Ms. However, I know that us Brits don’t have pudding. I do know that custard powder is sometimes used in biscuits (cookies for you!). We don’t have ‘pudding’ powder, do you have any idea whether custard powder would work, perhaps not quite as well but would it do? Thanks!
These cookies are so, so amazing!! I’ve made them 3 times already and everyone loves them. I want to add pudding mix to everything now! 🙂
I made these this morning and they were just perfect. I made sure my butter was softened so cookie dough would not be too thick. Loved them!
These cookies are PERFECT! This is the cookie recipe I’ve been waiting for. Thanks so much for the recipe! It’s definitely a keeper =)
Is it 1 stick of butter that equals 1/2 acup or 1 stick plus 1/2 cup?
I made these but the dough came out dry and crumbly. I followed all the steps correctly and I don’t know what happened. Any ideas what caused it?
Gorgeous!! I always include chocolate chips with my M&M cookies as well 🙂 Definitely going to have to try these, I am a sucker for anything with M&M’s.
I made these last night with carmel bits and chocolate chips and they are absolutely the best cookies. Thank you so much for the recipe. I will be using this over and over. My kiddo loved them too!
These are amazing! Thanks for the recipe. I used 1 c. of m&m’s and 3/4 c. chocolate chips.
Best M&M cookie recipe! We loved it! The amount to chocolate and M&Ms seemed like a lot to me, so I reduced the choc chips to 1/3 cup and M&Ms down to 1 cup and they turned out great.
I made these and I have to say this is one of the FIRST Pinterest recipes that has EVER turned out! Thanks, I was happy I didn’t make them and then have disappointing cookies.
How many cookies do you get out of this recipe?
Thank you!!
Sibylle
So fun for children! How many cookies do you get out of the recipe? Thank you!
Just made these and although they don’t look nearly as pretty as yours, they sure taste great! Thanks
Your cookies do look absolutely perfect! Yum!!
I made these this past weekend with my 3 year old, she had a blast and she really enjoyed them! They turned out beautiful and delishious thank you for sharing your recipe. (Note we used regular sizedd m&m’s)
Oh my! These do look perfect and we love the exact same cookie – fluffy, chewy and a little crispy! Thanks for sharing – I will definitely be adding pudding mix to future cookies!!
I bookmarked this. My husband LOVES M&M cookies, this might be great for his birthday!
To those that were having difficulty getting “pretty” cookies — I was having the same problem until I decided to chill my dough in the fridge. Once chilled, they came out exactly as Jenny’s looked! They held their shape better on the pan when cold…. hope this helps!
So… Just made these today. I live in Colorado so the altitude may make a difference. The dough was VERY dry and it was hard to get all of the M&M’s to stick in the dough. I did not add the chocolate chips (thank goodness otherwise there would not have been enough dough to hold all of the chocolatey goodness). My suggestion would be to add 1 -2 tsp water or maybe another egg? Thoughts?
I had an opened box of pudding in my cupboard from when I made your green velvet donuts so I made these yesterday…Very easy and yummy! I love that they don’t get flat like my cookies usually do :-)Great texture, and it really was a very simple recipe. Thanks Jenny!
I used one of your old chocolate chip cookie recipes. Then I added 6 Tablespoons of the vanilla pudding powder along with the bag of mini M&M’s and mini chocolate chips. This recipe looks like it is cut in half so I doubled the vanilla pudding ingredient to the old chocolate chip recipe. The dough was perfect and they look and taste phenomenal!
Do you think this recipe would double ok?
Your cookies look awesome! Do you think it would be ok to double this recipe?
I knew something about this batter sounded like it was going to be awesome with addition of the instant vanilla pudding mix – and it was! I didn’t make these exact cookies as I had no mini M&Ms but I used chocolate chips and Kraft Caramel nuggets – and WOW! They are unreal! I have only so-so luck with regular/original chocolate chip cookie dough so this will now be my go-to dough for any kind of chocolate chip or ‘fun add-in’ cookie. AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS!
I made a double batch of this recipe yesterday substituting Trader Joe’s Gluten Free All Purpose Flour (I am gluten intolerant) for regular flour and they were outstanding! They did turn out a little flatter than your photos but maybe that was due to the GF flour. Anyway, they were so delicious and no one could tell they were GF. I am sure the addition of the pudding mix was the reason. Thanks for a great recipe!
Thanks for the feedback Natalie, glad to hear they can be GF too! xox
THese look amazing! I feel like I just gained 5 pounds. Can’t wait to bake these. I prefer using the mini chips!
I’ve been waiting for a recipe to try with my leftover mini M&Ms and vanilla pudding mix! They taste great! Lots of chocolate, which I love!
Yay, let me know how you like them!
Your M & M cookies are so pretty! Chocolate chips and M & Ms is a delicious combination. Your picture makes the cookies look amazing!
These were amazing! My son loved them. The only thing I did was add two eggs instead of one. My dough wasn’t sticking with just one egg. Great recipe!!
So glad to hear you enjoyed them 🙂
Hi Jenny, question? Could you freeze the dough exactly how it is with all the add ins. These look super yummy & M&M cookies are my favorite!
I think the dough would be fine to freeze with everything in.