These soft-baked, cinnamon-hinted loaded oatmeal cookies are positively packed with add-ins like butterscotch morsels, M&Ms, and chocolate chips. You can swap in your favorites, too, like dried cranberries and chopped nuts. This is a wonderful base recipe!
Why You Should Try Loaded Oatmeal Cookies
- Highly adaptable to use your favorite add-ins
- Incredible flavor from dark brown sugar, plus a touch of cinnamon and molasses (what I use in oatmeal raisin cookies, too!)
- Crisp edges with soft and chewy centers
- Added texture from whole oats and crunchy/chewy/crispy add-ins
- Only 30 minutes of cookie dough chilling before baking
- Perfect for parties, an after-school snack, quick dessert, bake sales, or any time that calls for cookies!
So Many Oatmeal Cookies!
I have recipes for classic oatmeal raisin cookies and nostalgic iced oatmeal cookies. Then come my special seasonal variations… zucchini oatmeal chocolate chip cookies in the summer, brown butter pumpkin oatmeal cookies in the fall (readers go CRAZY for these!), and at Christmas, I always serve these iced gingerbread oatmeal cookies. And just when you think oatmeal cookies couldn’t get any better, I take two and sandwich them together with sweet frosting for homemade oatmeal creme pies.
So many versions!
But if you can’t find a variation from my 20+ oatmeal cookie recipes, look no further. Today’s recipe is just as soft and chewy as them all, but is written with your unique tastebuds in mind! With its mega-thick dough, these cookies hold a whopping 1.5 cups of your favorite add-ins—baking chips, candies, nuts, dried fruits, you name it. Use one or use many… you can truly make these cookies your own.
Need a gluten-free option? Use certified gluten-free oats in these flourless peanut butter oatmeal cookies.
3 Key Ingredients for the Best Batch of Loaded Oatmeal Cookies
If you’ve made any of my oatmeal cookies before, the ingredients in this version will look familiar to you. My recipe for oatmeal scotchies goes into detail about the role each ingredient plays, so feel free to hop over there if you’re interested. But here’s a quick rundown of the 3 key ingredients that set my oatmeal cookie recipes apart from the rest:
Use Your Favorite Add-ins
These loaded oatmeal cookies remind me a lot of my magic 5 cookies or my holiday magic 5 cookies. In each of these recipes, the big variety of add-ins makes the cookies a true texture-lover’s dream. I have a few suggestions below, but feel free to enlist your tastebuds and come up with your own combinations. Plenty of room to play!
Final Success Tip: Chill Your Cookie Dough
Because this cookie dough can be a little sticky, chill the cookie dough for about 30 minutes before baking it. This is my #1 tip for how to prevent cookies from spreading. This is a relatively short chill time compared to, say, double chocolate chip cookies, but still important nonetheless. Just enough time for you to clean up, pre-heat your oven, and get your cookie scoop ready. (I use the medium-sized scoop for these cookies.)
No time to chill? Try my 1 giant monster cookie instead. Lots of great texture and room for add-in customization there, too.
Loaded Oatmeal Cookies Recipe
Ingredients You’ll Need
Instructions
- Using a hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat the butter and both sugars together on medium speed until light and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add the egg and beat on high until combined, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed. Add the vanilla and molasses and beat on high until combined. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl, whisk the oats, flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt together. Pour into the wet ingredients and beat on low speed until combined, then beat in the add-ins. Dough will be thick.
- Cover the cookie dough tightly and refrigerate the dough for at least 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
- Roll balls of dough (about 1 and 1/2 Tablespoons of dough per cookie) and place 2 inches apart on the baking sheets. I recommend using a cookie scoop since the dough can be sticky. I like to press a few extra chopped M&Ms into the tops of the cookies; this is optional, and only for looks.
- Bake for 10–11 minutes until very lightly browned on the sides. The centers will look soft and under-baked. Remove from the oven and let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. The cookies will continue to “set” on the baking sheet during this time.
- Cover and store leftover cookies at room temperature for up to 1 week.
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