50+ Easy Thanksgiving Cookies Everyone Will Love
Published on October 1, 2026
Pie may get most of the attention on Thanksgiving, but a plate of homemade cookies is the dessert everyone keeps reaching for. This collection of Thanksgiving cookies has something for every baker and every kind of celebration, from soft pumpkin cookies and maple pecan treats to buttery shortbread and cinnamon-spiced snickerdoodles.
You’ll also find beautifully decorated Thanksgiving sugar cookies shaped like turkeys, leaves, and pumpkins, plus simple no-fuss recipes that come together in under an hour. Many of these cookies can be baked ahead and stored for days, which makes them perfect for easing the holiday rush.
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Whether you’re filling a dessert table for a big family dinner, bringing a treat to Friendsgiving, or looking for a fun baking project to do with the kids, these Thanksgiving cookie recipes are full of cozy fall flavors. Bake a batch or two, and you’ll have a sweet ending to the meal that’s easy to share and even easier to love.
For more Thanksgiving treats your crew will devour, check out these too, Kids Thanksgiving Turkey Treats, Sugared Cranberries, and Easy Thanksgiving Appetizers.
❤️Don’t Leave Before You Check Out These Fun Ideas!❤️
Easy Oreo Turkey Cookies
Six ingredients and zero oven time, and the kids can handle almost every step, from squeezing candy corn feathers into place to sticking on the googly eyes. They come together fast enough to knock out while the rest of Thanksgiving is still cooking, and they’re the ones that disappear off the dessert table first.
Cute and Easy Turkey Cookies for Kids
The trick is pressing the Reese’s cup and candy corn into the cookie while it’s still warm from the oven, so everything melts in and actually stays put. Starting with refrigerated dough means there’s no real baking involved, just a fun decorating project for little hands after dinner’s in the oven.
Nutter Butter Turkey Cookies: No Bake Thanksgiving Treat!
These do double duty as dessert and as place settings, since each turkey stands up on its own at every seat. No oven required, just melted chocolate to hold the fudge stripe base and candy corn feathers together, so they’re an easy one to set out the morning of.
Cute Nutter Butter Turkeys
If your Thanksgiving table sits a dozen, this recipe is already portioned for it, no math required. The mini M&M beak is the detail that makes these turkeys look genuinely finished, and there’s no baking step to worry about timing around the big meal.
Pilgrim Hat Cookies
Four ingredients and ten minutes is all it takes to turn a fudge-striped cookie and a Reese’s cup into a tiny pilgrim hat. No oven, no fuss, just a quick assembly that makes a fun edible place card at every seat.
Painted Turkey Sugar Cookies
The sponge-painted feathers are the whole show here, giving each cookie a watercolor look that’s hard to believe came from food coloring and a paper towel. The citrus-vanilla dough holds its shape well enough for the 3D assembly, which makes these the pick if you want something that looks like it came from a bakery case for gifting or mailing.
Decorated Thanksgiving Sugar Cookies
These hold up in a tin for two to three weeks, which makes them the one to bake ahead and mail in a care package without worrying about crumbs. The faux royal icing gets that smooth, glossy fall leaf look without needing real piping skills, so it’s a forgiving project even for a first-time cookie decorator.
Thanksgiving Oreo Cookie Turkey Pops Tutorial
Candy corn tail feathers and a candy stick underneath mean these can go straight into hands at the kids’ table, no fork needed. Royal icing tinted orange, yellow, and red gives the feathers their color, and a ribbon tied around each stick turns it into a little favor guests can take home.
Thanksgiving Turkey Wafer Cookies
Five minutes of prep is all this one asks for, since the wafer cookie is already turkey shaped once you dip the tail end in chocolate. Candy corn feathers, a yellow M&M head, and a pair of candy eyes finish the look, and the recipe makes ten at once so everyone at the table gets their own.
Harvest Corn Cookies
This one turns into an edible ear of Indian corn once it’s dipped in white chocolate and rolled in colorful sunflower seeds, and the Nutter Butter shape does all the work. The recipe makes two dozen, so it’s the one to bring when the dessert table needs some fall color instead of just brown and orange.
Decorated Pumpkin Pie Cookies (in a Thanksgiving Cookie Set) – all the details!
Rolling the dough into one big circle and slicing it into wedges before baking means you get a whole tray of tiny pie slices without cutting each cookie by hand. Only two icing colors, orange and tan, go into decorating them, so they come together faster than the rest of a Thanksgiving cookie set.
Decorated Pumpkin Shaped Cookies (Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing)
Gold paint brushed over the classic orange and green is what makes these stand out from every other pumpkin cookie on a table, and the fall festival crowd apparently emptied the tray before it was even set out. Sanding sugar on top catches the light, which is a nice touch if the cookies are sitting out for a while before anyone digs in.
Pumpkin Pie Cookies
Two whole wheat snickerdoodles sandwich a pumpkin cream cheese filling in the middle, so it tastes like pumpkin pie and cheesecake got baked into one cookie. Whole wheat flour in the dough is a nice bonus if you like pretending dessert is a little better for you.
Crumbl Copycat Pumpkin Pie Cookies
A pumpkin pie mousse gets piped onto a soft sugar cookie base, copying the bakery case version without a drive to Crumbl. Piping on the topping is the part your kid will want to take over, and it’s a good one for that.
Pecan Pie Thumbprint Cookies – Sense & Edibility
Pecan pie flavor gets pressed into a thumbprint cookie instead of a crust, so there’s no rolling out dough or blind baking involved. It’s the one to add if the Thanksgiving spread already has a pie but the cookie tray still looks a little bare.
Pecan Praline Cookies
Praline in the name means that caramelized brown sugar pecan flavor baked right into the cookie instead of just sprinkled on top. Worth a click if you want a pecan cookie with more going on than the usual sugar cookie base.
Maple pecan cookies (with real maple syrup)
Real maple syrup and maple sugar go into both the dough and the icing here, no corn syrup shortcuts. Toasted pecans get chopped fine so the flavor spreads through every bite instead of sitting in chunks, and the batch makes three dozen small ones, plenty for a cookie plate.
Pecan Tassies with Honey
Cream cheese pastry shells hold a gooey brown sugar and honey pecan filling, basically mini pecan pies you can eat in two bites. They freeze well too, so you can tuck a batch away weeks before Thanksgiving and pull them out the day of.
Pumpkin Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting
Soft and cakey with real pumpkin puree in the dough, and the cream cheese frosting on top is the kind you’ll want to scrape off the bowl. Twenty four cookies come out of one batch, enough for a bake sale table or a Thanksgiving dessert spread.
Pumpkin + Cream Cheese Frosting = Cookie Perfection
Pumpkin and cream cheese frosting again, this time from a blog that put the two together and called it done. Grab this one if you want your pumpkin cookie to actually chew instead of crumble.
Pumpkin Spice Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting
This one makes six dozen cookies, so it’s the pick when you need enough for the whole extended family plus leftovers to freeze. A sprinkle of extra pumpkin pie spice on top of the frosting is the detail worth copying.
Chewy Pumpkin Cookies – Tasty Oven
Another chewy pumpkin cookie option, straightforward title, straightforward payoff: a soft middle and spice in every bite. A simple one to add to the rotation for fall cookie swaps.
Pumpkin Spice Peanut Butter Cookies
Peanut butter and pumpkin spice sounds like an odd pairing until you taste it, and then it just makes sense. It’s a simple dough with no sifting and no fuss, so it’s an easy one to let a kid help stir together. One batch makes two dozen, plenty for the dessert table with a few extra to sneak before dinner.
Chewy Pumpkin Snickerdoodles
Thirty cookies come out of one batch here, rolled in cinnamon sugar for that classic snickerdoodle crackle on the outside. Real pumpkin puree in the dough keeps the centers soft, so you get old-fashioned flavor with a fall twist. Plenty to cover a dessert table and still have extras for lunchboxes.
Can You Really Improve a Snickerdoodle? Spoiler: Yes, You Can
Ever wonder if you can actually improve on a snickerdoodle? This one from Chew Out Loud says yes, and it’s worth a look if you want a second pumpkin snickerdoodle in the mix with its own texture.
Slice and Bake Pumpkin Sugar Cookies – My Gorgeous Recipes
Slice and bake dough means the log sits in the freezer until you’re ready, then it’s fresh rounds of pumpkin sugar cookie whenever the craving hits. Clean edges, no rolling pin required, and it’s ready to bake in batches as small or big as you need.
Chewy Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies
No mixer required for this one, just a bowl and a spoon before it hits the oven. Whole wheat flour, oats, and applesauce keep it a little more wholesome than your average cookie, and the sweet glaze on top still makes it feel like a real dessert.
Soft Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies
Four ingredients is the whole list: oats, pumpkin, maple syrup, and chocolate chips. Nothing fancy, just a cozy cookie you can mix up on a random Tuesday when the fall craving hits.
Sourdough Pumpkin Cookies
If you’ve got sourdough discard piling up in the fridge, this is where it goes. Rolling the dough in sugar before baking gives the edges a crisp, sparkly crunch while the center stays soft and chewy.
Sourdough Pumpkin Maple Cookies
Sourdough discard and maple syrup pair up in this one, judging by the name alone. Sounds like a cozy fall cookie worth tracking down the full recipe for.
Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies Recipe – My Gorgeous Recipes
Chocolate chip pumpkin cookies, plain and simple, with pumpkin puree and a good amount of chocolate chips in every bite. Good one to bake when you want the classic combo without any extra fuss.
Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies – Tasty Oven
Simple is the whole point here, pumpkin and chocolate chips in a classic drop cookie without a long spice list to measure out. A good second batch to have going if the first tray disappears fast.
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies: Perfect Fall Baking Recipe
Bakery style is the right way to describe these, soft and almost cake-like from the pumpkin puree with cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger carrying the fall flavor. They’re built for meal prep too, so a batch keeps well if you want cookies ready all week.
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Flaky sea salt and extra chocolate chips pressed on top right before baking make these look like they came from a bakery case instead of a home kitchen. Only a third cup of pumpkin puree goes into the batch, so it’s a good way to use up the rest of a can without committing all of it.
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Feeding a full Thanksgiving table calls for a big batch, and this one delivers thirty two cookies from a single round of baking. Chilling the dough first keeps them thick instead of spread thin, with crisp edges and soft centers.
Pumpkin and White Chocolate Chip Cookies (Using Box Cake Mix)
Starting with a box of gluten free yellow cake mix instead of measuring out flour is the shortcut that gets these into the oven fast, and white chocolate chips make it a nice change from the usual semi-sweet kind. Thick and chewy, they’re a good one to add if you want something a little different on the cookie tray.
Soft Apple Spice Cookies
Chunks of real apple and a caramel topping poured over the top bring big fall flavor without any pumpkin at all. Soft and spiced with cinnamon and brown sugar, they’re a good way to use up apples from a trip to the orchard.
Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal Cookies
Grated apple and warm cinnamon go straight into the dough here, so every bite tastes like fall. This is the one to bake when you want the whole house smelling like apple pie, and the batch is big enough for a cookie swap without doubling anything.
Apple Cider Shortbread Cookies
Four tablespoons of hard apple cider is the whole flavor secret, split between the shortbread and the glaze on top. Shortbread bakes fast, so you could have a plate of these ready before the rest of the cookie tray is even out of the oven.
Apple Butter Thumbprint Cookies
Apple butter gets pressed right into the center of each cookie, so you get a sweet, spiced middle without making a filling from scratch. Store-bought apple butter is all you need, and they still come out looking like a bakery thumbprint cookie.
The Best Soft and Chewy Ginger Molasses Cookies
Soft and chewy ginger molasses cookies, exactly like the name promises. Molasses keeps the middle tender while the edges crisp up a little, the kind of combination everyone reaches for from the cookie jar this time of year.
Ginger Snaps ( c. Mid 1800s)
Sixty ginger snaps come out of one batch, which makes this the one to bake if you’re filling a big Thanksgiving cookie tray. The recipe comes straight from a handwritten manuscript cookbook, so there’s a little bit of history baked into every crisp, spicy bite.
Orange Cranberry Pistachio Cookies
Orange zest and chopped pistachios give these a color and crunch that stand out on a table full of brown and orange desserts. Dried cranberries bring the tartness, and the whole plate reads a lot more festive than a plain sugar cookie.
Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies
Old fashioned oats, white chocolate chips, and craisins have been the same combination in this recipe for over thirty years, and it shows in how dialed in it is. Soft in the middle with a slightly crisp edge, and the craisins keep every bite from tipping too sweet.
Sourdough Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies
Sourdough discard, cranberries, and white chocolate chips, going just off the title, sounds like a smart way to use up starter you’d otherwise toss. Worth trying if you keep a jar going in the fridge and want a Thanksgiving cookie to show for it.
Keto Pumpkin Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting
Crushed pecans on top of the cream cheese frosting turn these into something you’d expect from a bakery case. Twenty four cookies come out of the batch, plenty to fill a Thanksgiving cookie tray, and they’re low carb enough for anyone watching sugar this year.
Keto Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Soft and loaded with chocolate chips, this is the pumpkin cookie for anyone who wants dessert to taste like dessert, not a health food. The batch makes two dozen, so there’s enough to send a plate home with everyone at the table.
Keto Pumpkin Pie Cookies
Bite into one of these and you get a soft almond flour cookie wrapped around a creamy pumpkin pie center, no fork required. They travel well for a Thanksgiving spread since each one is already portioned into its own little pie.
Keto Pecan Pie Cookies
The gooey pecan filling tucked inside tastes like caramel and toasted pecans, shrunk down into a cookie you can actually pick up. It’s a good one to add if your dessert table already has pumpkin everything and needs something different.
Keto Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookies
Rolled in cinnamon and sugar with pumpkin puree and cream cheese worked into the dough, these keep their centers soft instead of turning dry. They’re the one to bake when you want a classic snickerdoodle with a fall twist.
