Our best gingerbread cookie recipe! These festive treats are soft and warmly spiced, with a rich molasses flavor. Perfect for spreading holiday cheer!

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What could be more festive than gingerbread cookies?! With Christmas just a few weeks away, I’m ready to turn up the holiday cheer around here, and making this gingerbread cookie recipe seems like a great place to start. For one, it makes the house smell amazing, filling it with the comforting aroma of cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. It’s also a blast to make–rolling out the dough, cutting out gingerbread people, baking them, and decorating them once they cool.

But more important than all of that, these gingerbread cookies are delicious! They’re soft, warmly spiced, and richly flavored with molasses and brown sugar. To me, they’re the perfect holiday treat, especially with a mug of hot chocolate to drink. I hope you love them too.

Gingerbread Cookie Recipe Ingredients

Here’s what you’ll need to make this gingerbread cookie recipe:

All-purpose flour – Spoon and level it to avoid packing too much into your measuring cup.
Unsalted butter – Allow it to come to room temperature before you start to bake.
Brown sugar and molasses – They sweeten the cookies and add rich molasses flavor. We’ve had success baking these cookies with Wholesome and Brer Rabbit blackstrap molasses.
An egg yolk – It makes the cookies extra-soft and chewy.
Baking soda – It helps the cookies rise.
Ground ginger, cinnamon, and cloves – They give these gingerbread cookies their signature spice.
Vanilla extract – For warm depth of flavor.
Almond milk – For moisture. Any other milk, such as cow’s milk or oat milk, would work here too.
And sea salt – To make all the flavors pop!

Find the complete recipe with measurements below.

How to Make Gingerbread Cookies

Once you’ve assembled your ingredients (is your butter at room temperature?), this gingerbread cookie recipe is simple to make:

First, make the dough. Using an electric mixer or a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy. Mix in the molasses, egg yolk, and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients–the flour, spices, baking soda, and salt. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing after each addition. Finally, mix in the almond milk.

Then, chill the dough. Divide it into two equal disks, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerate it for at least 2 hours. Chilling the dough allows it to firm up, making it easier to roll out.

Next, roll out the dough. Use a rolling pin to roll out the first disk on a lightly floured surface until it’s 1/4-inch thick. Use cookie cutters to cut out your desired shapes (I always do gingerbread men and snowflakes!). Re-roll and cut out the dough scraps as necessary. Repeat with the remaining dough disk.

Finally, bake the cookies. Arrange the cut-outs on parchment-lined baking sheets, and bake in a 350°F oven until the edges are just set but the middles are still soft. I like to bake one sheet at time on the center oven rack so that the cookies bake evenly. Let them cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring them to wire racks to cool completely.

Decorate, or enjoy as they are!