These homemade lemon sugar cookies are perfectly soft and chewy! Bursting with fresh lemon flavor, you’ll love these bright summery cookies!

Lemon is most definitely Shane’s favorite dessert flavor. “It tastes like lemon!” is truly high praise from this man. Needless to say, I’ve made all sorts of lemon desserts for him.

He loves, and I mean LOVES, these lemon sugar cookies. These are gone as soon as I make them, and I’m sure you’ll love their bright, crisp, buttery flavor, too.

How to make lemon sugar cookies:

First, you’ll cream together butter and granulated sugar using either a stand mixer or using a handheld mixer. Mix the butter and sugar for about 3 minutes, or until the mixture is light and fluffy.

Add in the egg, pure vanilla extract, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Mix together until it’s fully combined.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and fine sea salt.

Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture. If using a stand mixer, pulse the ingredients a few times until the risk of the flour flying everywhere has subsided. Mix everything together until the flour mixture is just barely fully incorporated.

Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes. This is an important step because these cookies are more delicate, fluffy, and buttery when they’ve been chilled.

Using a #50 cookie scoop, scoop the dough onto a parchment paper or silicone mat lined baking sheet (each dough ball is roughly 1.2 Tablespoons). Place the dough balls 2” apart to allow room to spread. Sprinkle a little bit of sugar on top of each cookie.

Bake the cookies at 350 F for 9-11 minutes, or until they have a crispy edge but still have a chewy center. 10 minutes was perfect with my oven. These cookies taste AMAZING when they’re still chewy, so be sure not to overbake them!

As soon as you remove them from the oven, sprinkle each cookie with a little bit of sugar. This gives them a perfect crunch.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

I highly recommend using an air insulated baking sheet. I use these for all of my cookies because they create a more even baking environment for the cookies, which helps with the dreaded problem of a burned bottom with a doughy middle. Using these baking sheets allows your entire cookie to cook evenly.

I always use a #50 cookie scoop for drop cookies. It keeps all of your cookies the same size, which makes such a difference in even baking. It’s the perfect size for this type of cookie and I definitely recommend having one on hand if you love baking cookies. It’s an affordable tool that’s definitely worth it!

The last tool that you’ll need for this recipe is a zester. The lemon zest adds such a strong lemon flavor to these cookies that makes a world of difference in the flavor. Zesters can be a little frustrating to work with, so having a good one makes such a difference. I love this one and it’s so easy to use.

How to make GLUTEN FREE LEMON COOKIES:

I’ve made these cookies with regular flour and with gluten free flour and they turned out beautifully both ways.

I recommend this gluten free flour blend above all others. It makes the most amazing baked goods, and I can always count on my recipes turning out well when I use it. This is flour I used for this recipe, so I can only vouch for how the recipe will turn if you use it, too.

Please let me know what you think of this recipe in the comments and on Instagram! @keytomylime #keytomylime

Be sure to pin this recipe for later!

Looking for more lemon desserts? Delish has an article of 30+ lemon desserts that look amazing.

Try making these lemon sugar cookies!