Strawberry Cookies – Crazy for Crust

Strawberry Cookies that get their flavor from real strawberries (not strawberry cake mix) – these are soft and chewy strawberry cookies and you can make them all year long, not just during strawberry season!

When I set out to develop a Strawberry Cookies recipe, I didn’t realize how many times I’d have to try to get these absolutely perfect. Adding fruit to cookies can radically change the texture (hello, looking at you, pumpkin cookies) and so it takes a little bit of tweaking to get it perfect. I wanted them to be from scratch, not using a cake mix or strawberry jello, and I wanted them to be like drop sugar cookies with chewy texture on the edges and a soft center.

I tried making these with fresh strawberries, but the fresh berries just added too much water and made the cookies too much like a biscuit, so after some testing I settled on using freeze dried strawberries. They’re real fruit – just dehydrated. Using freeze dried fruit means you can make this strawberry cookie recipe all year – no waiting for strawberry season! These turned out to be the perfect light pink cookies with tons of flavor – you’re going to love them!

How to make Strawberry Cookies

1. First you need to turn the dehydrated berries into freeze-dried strawberry powder. You can do this using a food processor (don’t buy expensive freeze-dried strawberries; you can find them at most stores now in the snack aisle, even Walmart has a store brand). Process until they’re a fine powder, and then mix it in after adding the wet ingredients.
2. Use softened unsalted butter – no substitutes. These are essentially strawberry sugar cookies and good cookies need real butter.
3. If you can find it, you can add a bit of strawberry extract for more of a strong strawberry flavor.
4. These are drop cookies that do not need to be chilled; once you drop the strawberry cookie dough balls onto your cookie sheets lined with parchment paper, just bake until light golden and no longer glossy on top. I always use a cookie scoop – these were made with a 2-tablespoon size scoop.

Expert Tips

• Be sure to blend the freeze dried strawberries to a fine powder.
• I thought the color of the cookies was just perfect, but if you want them to be more of a vibrant pink, add a few drops of red or pink food coloring.
• For the perfect cookies, use a kitchen scale for baking – no guesswork with using measuring cups!
• You can add 1-1 1/2 cups of white chocolate chips to the cookies, like in my strawberry cake mix cookies.
• These cookies are done when they’re no longer glossy on top, have little cracks, and are light golden brown around the edges.

Step-by-Step Photos

1. Whisk dry ingredients (all-purpose flour, baking soda, salt) and set aside.
2. Cream butter and granulated sugar in a large bowl. Use a hand mixer or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.
3. Mix in egg and vanilla extract, then add freeze dried strawberry powder and flour mixture.
4. Scoop balls of dough and bake on a cookie sheet at 350°F.