Strawberry Sugar Cookie Recipe: Soft, Sweet & Spring-Ready

If you love strawberries and sugar cookies, these strawberry sugar cookies will hit the spot. Soft sugar cookies topped with a fresh strawberry buttercream offer bright, natural flavor and a tender texture that’s simple to make.

If you’ve made sugar cookies before, you know there are two main styles: thin and soft. I prefer the soft, pillowy variety, and this is my favorite style when I want an easy, comforting cookie. They’re perfect for holidays or anytime you want a special treat.

These strawberry sugar cookies have a rustic, unfussy feel. They keep the classic soft sugar cookie texture but are made without rolling or cutters. Instead of rolling out dough, you simply scoop, shape, and press to create a shallow well for the strawberry icing.

One of the best things about this method is how low maintenance it is. No rolling pin, no cutters, and no flour-covered counters. Scoop a walnut-sized portion of dough, roll it into a ball, place it on an uncreased cookie sheet, and flatten the center with the bottom of a small jar or glass. That indentation is where the fresh strawberry buttercream will sit, and pressing the dough gives the cookies their rustic, jagged edge.

Press each ball until about 1/4 inch thick so you get a shallow center for the icing and a slightly uneven outer edge that adds to the cookies’ charm.

Strawberry sugar cookies

The cookie dough itself doesn’t contain fresh strawberries so you get a pleasing contrast between the pale cookie and the pink icing. If you prefer a pink dough, add a drop or two of food coloring or replace a tablespoon of flour with two tablespoons of freeze-dried strawberry powder (pureed freeze-dried strawberries) to keep the flavor natural.

The cookies do get strawberry flavor from strawberry extract. You can use concentrated flavoring oils or a quality strawberry extract to achieve that true strawberry note without adding moisture to the dough. The icing, however, uses fresh strawberries for brightness and a slightly textured, rustic finish. Fresh strawberries give the icing a flavor that’s hard to replicate with extract alone.

If you enjoyed the icing here, a similar strawberry buttercream works well for other desserts, like blondies or bars that pair strawberry with lemon or vanilla.

Is this recipe gluten free?

That depends on the flour you choose. The recipe works with both all-purpose flour and gluten-free flour mixes. When using gluten-free flour, handle the cookies gently while they’re hot since they can be more fragile, and store them in an airtight container to prevent them from drying out.

If your gluten-free flour mix doesn’t include a binder, add about 1 teaspoon of xanthan gum to the dry ingredients. Many prepackaged gluten-free mixes already contain a binder like xanthan or guar gum, so check the mix’s ingredients and omit any extra binder if it’s already present.

These cookies are forgiving and straightforward: press the dough, bake until the edges just begin to brown, cool, and top with fresh strawberry buttercream. The result is a soft, tender cookie with bright strawberry flavor and a homemade, rustic presentation.