Everyone will love these soft and chewy red velvet cookies! A chocolate cookie base gets combined with red food coloring for a cookie perfect for Valentine’s Day, 4th of July, Christmas, or any time you just want a sweet treat!
There’s something special about a good red velvet recipe. Whether it’s red velvet cake, red velvet cupcakes, or these red velvet cookies – it’s one of my favorite things ever.
I’ve previously shared all sorts of cookie recipes (snickerdoodles, cut out sugar cookies, chocolate chip pudding cookies just to name a few) so I thought it was only time for a red velvet cookie recipe!
Plus, they’re one of the few ways I can get my son to eat chocolate, well kind of chocolate. Cocoa powder at least!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- No chill recipe – there’s no need to chill the dough for this recipe so you can have these on your table to enjoy in less than 30 minutes!
- White chocolate chips – these aren’t traditional red velvet cookies, they’re red velvet chocolate chip cookies – white chocolate chips at least! The white chocolate pairs fantastic with the cookie flavor!
- Kid-friendly – kids love to both help make and help eat these cookies!
- Freezer friendly – these cookies freeze fantastic! Double the cookie dough, freeze half, and enjoy for months to come!
Ingredients
Ingredient Notes
- Butter – make sure to use real butter, not margarine. Also, make sure your butter is softened – I recommend taking the butter out of the fridge about an hour before you’re ready to make the cookie dough.
- Brown sugar – light or dark works fine in this recipe. The cookies are going to be red so the color won’t change the final recipe at all.
- Red food coloring – I always recommend gel food coloring for baking recipes so that you’re not introducing additional liquid into the recipe.
- White chocolate chips – I personally love the addition of the white chocolate chips in this recipe, but you can leave them out if you’d like.
- White frosting – I used just regular store-bought white frosting to do the drizzles on the cookies in these photos but you could also use a thickened version of this cream cheese frosting or even this sugar cookie icing. Or eat them without any frosting. Or melt white chocolate or almond bark to drizzle instead.
Instructions
Alright, you ready to see how easy it is to make these red velvet cookies? So easy you can still make them last minute for Valentine’s Day this weekend!
First you will want to preheat the oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a small mixing bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Set the bowl with the dry ingredients aside for later.
Next, cream together softened butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together.
Once mixed, add the eggs and vanilla and mix well.
Stir in the red food coloring (add extra if you want a brighter red color).
Now it’s time to grab that bowl you set aside earlier. Add the dry ingredients to wet ingredients and beat until combined.
Fold in the white chocolate chips, if using, with a spatula or wooden spoon.
Using a 2 tablespoon cookie scoop, create cookie balls and place them 1-2” apart on the baking sheet. The cookies will spread while baking so giving them some space is important!
Press the top of the cookie down slightly before baking with the bottom of a cup.
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the center is set. Remove from the oven and let cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes so they don’t fall apart during the transfer.
If using the white chocolate frosting, prep it while the cookies are cooling.
Heat 1/4 cup of frosting at a time in the microwave for 5 seconds and drizzle over cookies and sprinkle with sprinkles that match your theme. These would be great with some heart sprinkles, Christmas sprinkles, or even blue sprinkles to make them red, white, and blue cookies.
Transfer cookies to a cooling rack and let them cool completely before enjoying.
Expert Tips
Work with a little frosting at a time so that it doesn’t harden too quickly. You will want it slightly warm for a better “drizzle effect” so it’s not too thick.
Drizzle the frosting with a fork or put it in a zippered plastic bag with the tip cut off to pipe. Just make sure to cut a small tip so not too much frosting comes out at once.
Freeze the cookies once baked (prior to adding frosting) in an airtight freezer safe container for up to six months. Remove from the freezer and allow to come to room temp to thaw.
Store the cookies in an airtight container for up to five days. After five days either toss them or freeze them using the instructions above.
Recipe FAQs
Red velvet cookies are made up of typical chocolate cookie ingredients – flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, butter, sugar, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla. They get their signature red color from the addition of red food coloring combined with the cocoa powder.
Red velvet is kind of like a mild chocolate flavor because of the cocoa powder but not as intense chocolate as say this chocolate brownie cake. You could also leave the red food coloring out and just enjoy these as brown velvet cookies.
Your cookies may be brown if you didn’t use enough red food coloring. I recommend using a good amount of red food coloring to get the signature bright red color of typical red velvet cookies.
You can but it is much less concentrated than gel. Use 1 TBS of red liquid food coloring to get the same coloring as 2 tbs gel food coloring.
More Easy Cookies
If you like these red velvet cookies, you’ll love these other cookie recipes!
- Cream cheese sugar cookies – soft, fluffy, and delicious sugar cookies! Perfect to roll out, cut out, and decorate!
- Chocolate whoopie pies – thick fluffy chocolate cookies with a whipped vanilla frosting sandwiched in between! Delicious both warm and chilled!
- Ginger molasses cookies – the best molasses cookies ever! Soft, fluffy, and full of delicious warm holiday spices!
- Cherry cheesecake cookies – store-bought cookie mix gets a delicious upgrade with the addition of cherry cheese filling and a homemade drizzle!
- White chocolate cranberry cookies – a sweet and nutty cookie the entire family will love! White chocolate macadamia nut cookie at its very best!
Red Velvet Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 cups unbleached flour
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter (softened)
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 2 eggs (beaten)
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 2 tsp red food coloring gel
- 1 cup white chocolate chips
- white frosting (optional)
- sprinkles (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a small mixing bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- Cream together butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar, then add eggs and vanilla and mix well.
- Stir in the red food coloring until desired color is achieved.
- Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and beat until well combined.
- Fold in chocolate chips with a spatula or wooden spoon.
- Using a 2 tablespoon cookie scoop, create cookie balls and place them about 2" apart on baking sheet. Press tops of cookies down slightly before baking.
- Bake for 10 - 12 minutes or until the center is set. Remove from oven and let sit on baking sheet for 10 minutes.
- While cookies cool, before you transfer them to the cooling rack, heat 1/4 cup of frosting at a time in the microwave for 5 seconds then drizzle over cookies and add sprinkles if desired.
- Transfer cookies to cooling rack to cool completely before serving.
Tips & Notes:
- Frosting - You could melt white chocolate chips or white almond bark to drizzle on top of the cookies in place of the white frosting as well.
- Food coloring - I recommend gel food coloring so you don't introduce additional liquid. If you only have liquid, you'll need more like 1 TBS of liquid food coloring since the gel is much more concentrated.
Cindy Miller says
This recipe is fantastic. Easy to make and delicious. Great for little ones to help in the baking and decorating.
Mel Laurens says
This recipe is great! The cookies turned out great. I’d recommend using less white chocolate chips (they are EXTREMELY sweet). Either use 1/2-3/4 cups instead, or just avoid mixing them in entirely and just put a few on top. Don’t worry too much about the flour, I used bleached flour as that was all that I had and they turned out ok. Again, be careful with the white chocolate. I have a huge sweet tooth and I found it to be a bit too much (and I hadn’t even used icing).
Britni Vigil says
Thanks for your input!