Soft and Chewy White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies + VIDEO
Easy soft and chewy oatmeal cookies packed with white chocolate chips and dried cranberries. These White Chocolate Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies are a perfect treat for the holidays!
I couldn’t let the holidays pass without sharing another oatmeal cookie recipe that I absolutely love!
I originally posted the recipe for these white chocolate cranberry oatmeal cookies back in 2015, but I wanted to update the pictures for these cookies and add a video to show you just how easy they are to make.
Not only are these cookies easy to make, but they’re also jam-packed with so many goodies. You can even mix in some chopped pecan for a little something extra in these cookies. Trust me when I say that this is one cookie recipe you’ll want to keep on hand for the holidays!
Recipe Ingredients
These oatmeal cranberry white chocolate chip cookies call for ingredients you likely have in your pantry already. Here’s what you’ll need to make this oatmeal cookie recipe:
- All-purpose flour: Spoon and level the flour when measuring it, otherwise your cookies may turn out dry.
- Baking soda: Gives the cookies some lift.
- Cinnamon: Just 1/2 teaspoon complements the white chocolate and tart cranberries.
- Salt: Balances out the sweetness of the dough.
- Butter: I recommend using unsalted butter since the amount of salt in salted butters can vary between different brands.
- Sugar: I used a blend of granulated and brown sugar to sweeten and flavor the dough.
- Egg: Should be room temperature before making the dough.
- Vanilla extract: Use pure vanilla extract for the best flavor.
- Oats: I recommend using old-fashioned (rolled) oats for this recipe.
- Dried cranberries: I used sweetened dried cranberries.
- White chocolate chips: If you don’t have white chocolate chips on hand, you can also chop up a white chocolate bar.
How to Make White Chocolate Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies
The base of these white chocolate cranberry cookies is very similar to my oatmeal raisin cookies with a couple of small changes. You’ll start by whisking together a few dry ingredients: all-purpose flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and a little salt.
For the wet ingredients, you’ll cream together the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar. Once the butter and sugars are well combined, you’ll mix in an egg and some vanilla extract. After you combine the wet and dry ingredients, slowly mix in the old-fashioned rolled oats, dried cranberries, and white chocolate chips until they’re just combined.
Once you’re finished mixing up the cookie dough, you’ll want to cover it and refrigerate it for about 30 minutes. I prefer to chill my cookie dough because it prevents the cookies from spreading too much in the oven and creates a thicker cookie.
Then, bake the cookies for 10 to 13 minutes until the tops of the cookies are set. They may feel slightly underdone when they come out of the oven, but that is exactly what you want if you’re looking for incredibly soft cranberry white chocolate chip cookies.
Once they’ve cooled for about 10 minutes on the baking sheet, you can transfer them to a wire rack to finish cooling. Or you can go ahead and enjoy them, because does anyone really wait for a cookie to completely cool first?
Can I Make These Into Cookie Bars?
A few readers have asked whether they can make these white chocolate oatmeal cranberry cookies into cookie bars. I believe you could make cookies bars with this recipe, but I would probably use an 8- or 9-inch square pan. You would need to increase the baking time, but it will depend on the size of the pan that you use.
Can I Use Fresh Cranberries?
I’ve only tested this recipe with dried cranberries, but it would probably be fine to use fresh cranberries. If experimenting with fresh cranberries, remember that they’ll release a lot of moisture once baked so you may need to adjust the dry ingredients to compensate.
Baking Tips
- When measuring your flour, don’t scoop it out of the container with the measuring cup. Instead, stir the flour around, spoon it into your measuring cup, and level it off with the back of a knife.
- Be sure to use old-fashioned rolled oats in these cookies and not quick-cooking oats. Quick-cooking oats are pressed much thinner and don’t provide the same chewy texture in oatmeal cookies.
- Make sure to chill your cookie dough for at least 30 minutes so the cookies don’t spread too much in the oven.
Video Tutorial
More Oatmeal Cookie Recipes to Try!
- Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Apple Oatmeal Cookies
- Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Oatmeal Scotchies
- Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies
White Chocolate Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup (125 grams) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup (115 grams) unsalted butter , softened to room temperature
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg , room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 and 1/2 cups (150 grams) old-fashioned rolled oats
- 3/4 cup (105 grams) sweetened dried cranberries
- 3/4 cup (140 grams) white chocolate chips
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or in a large mixing bowl using a handheld mixer), beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until smooth. Mix in the egg and then the vanilla, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Slowly add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Add the oats, dried cranberries, and white chocolate chips and mix until fully combined.
- Cover the dough and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- Using a 1.5-2 tablespoon cookie scoop, scoop the cookie dough and drop onto the prepared baking sheets. Roll the cookie dough into balls and very gently press down with your hand to flatten each ball of cookie dough slightly (make sure not to flatten them completely, just slightly).
- Bake in separate batches at 350°F for 10-13 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the baking sheet for 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.
Made this for our Christmas Eve family gathering and everyone loves them. Easy recipe. Drizzled white icing over some of them and also delicious and so pretty.
I made a double batch of these cookies for neighbor gifts…. wish I’d made more for myself! Will definitely make these again.
These cookies are delicious, I made them today for Christmas Cookie trays. I doubled the recipe as I have many trays to fill, they are soft and chewy. Easy recipe to follow. They are getting my red star in my recipe book. I may try adding nuts next time, but definitely don’t need them
This is the 2nd holiday season that I’ve made this recipe since the cookies got raves last year. Both times they came out perfectly. The only change I made was to use brown sugar rather than lt. brown. It makes them slightly richer.
Love the addition of cinnamon in this recipe that is not found in most others.
Can you use browned butter instead of softened, and how would that affect chilling and baking times?
Yes, but you lose moisture when you brown butter so you’d need to brown an additional 2 tablespoons of butter (10 tablespoons total). You’d also need to let it come back to a solid room temperature, then you can proceed with the recipe as written. I have a post on how to brown butter that goes over substituting brown butter for regular butter. It may be helpful to read through 🙂
Well, don’t know what I did wrong but the dough didn’t come together.. I have made one pan of cookies and what remains in the bowl is just oatmeal, chocolate chips and cranberries. All very dry. Have read the list of ingredients about four times and I used the exact amounts. The rest of this is going into the garbage can. Utter fail!
It sounds like there was either too much flour or not enough moisture in the dough. Did you make sure to spoon and level your flour? Did you use a large egg? I always recommend using a food scale, if you have one, to ensure that you’re measuring everything correctly too.
These are the BEST I’ve made! I used just slightly less oats for my preference but these are so soft and moist
Great cookies!! If your like me you always look at reviews on a recipe and this recipe is excellent.was easy straightforward and cookies are delicious
These cookies are absolutely amazing!
Great recipe, pretty quick to pull together, liked the lesser amount of sugar compared to other recipes. I used my stand mixer to cream butter and sugar, mix eggs and vanilla, and mix in dry ingredients. I stirred the cranberries (which I chopped up a bit) and white baking chips in by hand. Chilled dough for 30 minutes.
I used a small cookie scoop and the recipe made 34 cookies. They baked for about 14 minutes, but you have to watch them carefully toward the end. The last 10 cookies came out browner and crisper than I liked.
These are fantastic breakfast cookies! I leave out the white sugar as the chocolate and cranberries make it very sweet.
Hi Danielle. Love all of your recipes (especially this one). Do you think raisins would be good with the White Chocolate in place of the cranberry? I just wanted to try something different.
Thank you, Shaun! I think raisins would work great with the white chocolate in these cookies!
Yum! I had some old dried cherries I used instead of cranberries. Turned out so good!
This is my absolute favorite cookie recipe of all time. I’ve made it so many times that I like to do variations as well. Adding some cardamom, for instance, or melting white chocolate and drizzling it over in funky patterns. Highly recommend this. They come out perfectly!
I accidentally add 2 teaspoons of vanilla. Hopefully, they will be ok
It should be okay!
I just made these today and I am blown away by how good these are!!! The whole family loved them!!
Only have med to small size egg . Should I usen2 eggs
It really depends on the size of the eggs. One large egg without the shell weighs about 50 grams. If you have a food scale, I’d recommend lightly beating a couple of eggs and weighing out 50 grams.
Thank you for sharing! I love this recipe!! I sometimes double it and always use orange zest(1-2tablesooons), as one baker suggested. I have taken them to parties and made them for my family. People always comment about how uniquely delicious they are with the zest.
These cookies fly off the plate every time I make them.
These are DELICIOUS. I added orange zest and that made them even better. I’m scared I’m going to eat them all before Christmas lol
Delicious and easy to make.
Absolutely love this recipe.
I didn’t change a thing and they turned out beautiful and so scrumptious.
They will now be on my holiday baking list every year.
As promised, perfect for the holidays. These were easy to make, delicious, and pretty. I can’t wait to make them again!
Ok to substitute dark brown for light brown sugar?
Yes, that would be fine.
I used bobs red mill 1 to 1 gluten free flour in this recipe, and it was perfection. I also added 1/4 cup chopped pistachios.
Just got done making this delicious recipe and everyone in the house LOVED them. will be making them for a cookie swap. Thanks for the recipe!
The most delicious cookies! Even my son who was SURE that he would not like them (because of the cranberries) couldn’t get over how much he loved them. Thank you for the recipe!
Cannot find amount of flour in recipe
It’s the first ingredient listed in the recipe – 1 cup (125 grams).
Do you know what adjustments I would need for high altitude?
I’m not familiar with high altitude baking, but some readers have found this guide helpful for adjusting my recipes.