You’ll love making and decorating these easy Easter sugar cookies! Fill your Easter baskets and cookie plates with soft cut-out sugar cookies frosted with adorable egg, bunny, and chick designs.

Looking for more easy Easter baking ideas? Try more fun recipes like these cookie dough-filled Easter eggs and homemade bunny bait!

Frosted Easter sugar cookies shaped like a bunny, egg, chick, and carrot on a plate, nestled in green paper grass.

Festive Frosted Easter Sugar Cookies

These fun Easter sugar cookies are rich and buttery cut-out sugar cookies with gloriously golden edges and soft, tender middles.

With your favorite Easter cookie cutters and a little creativity, you’ll have these cookies ready for holiday gifting! Making sugar cookies doesn’t have to be complicated, and this tutorial is here to prove it. You’ll find all of my best tips for baking and decorating sugar cookies with adorable Easter designs, using your choice of buttercream frosting or icing.

Why You’ll Love This Easter Sugar Cookie Recipe

Easy to make. These Easter cookies use my favorite easy sugar cookie recipe that I use for every holiday, from Halloween cookies to Valentine’s Day cookies. The dough comes together in a snap with just 30 minutes of chilling.
Perfectly soft and buttery. My cookies are soft-baked and irresistibly tender in the center, with crisp, buttery edges. Every bite melts in your mouth!
Fun to decorate. I include detailed tips on how to decorate cookies in popular Easter shapes. But the possibilities are endless!

Close up of frosted Easter sugar cookies on a plate, nestled in green paper grass.

Ingredient Notes

In addition to dry ingredients like flour, perfect sugar cookies call for a few key ingredients (no matter the holiday!). See my notes below. Scroll down to the recipe card for a printable list of ingredients.

Butter – Unsalted butter, brought to room temperature.
Sugar – I make this classic sugar cookie recipe with granulated sugar.
Baking Soda – Dissolved in milk before you start. This kickstarts the chemical reaction so that the cookies rise up quickly in the oven.
Vanilla – For the best flavor, be sure to use real vanilla extract. You can also use almond extract for a more pronounced flavor.
Egg – Beaten before you start, so that it combines smoothly with the other ingredients.

How to Make the Best Easter Sugar Cookies

Sugar cookies are my favorite holiday cookies! I love making these cute Easter sugar cookies and I can’t wait for you to try them. Check out the step-by-step below. Remember to scroll to the recipe card for printable instructions.

Mix the wet ingredients. Begin by creaming the butter and sugar together. Next, dissolve baking soda in milk, and add it to the butter along with the beaten egg and vanilla.
Add the dry ingredients. Gradually beat in flour and a pinch of salt until the dough forms.
Chill the dough. Shape the dough into 3 even-sized discs, wrap them in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes. You can also speed things up by chilling the dough in the freezer.
Cut out the cookies. Roll the dough out flat, and use your choice of cookie cutters to cut out Easter shapes. Move the cut-out cookies to a lined baking sheet.
Bake. Bake the cookies at 350ºF for 8-12 minutes. The key to soft sugar cookies is to leave them slightly underbaked.
Cool. Let the cookies set up on the baking sheet, and then transfer them to a wire rack. They’ll need to cool completely before you can get to decorating, otherwise the frosting will run.

Tips for Success

Keep the following tips in mind for the best sugar cookies:

Fix crumbly dough. If your cookie dough is crumbly, beat in 1-3 teaspoons of milk to help bring it together.
Plan ahead. Between the baking, cooling, and decorating, making Easter sugar cookies is loads of fun, but it’s also a several-hour time commitment. Make sure that you give yourself enough time! See the next tip for make-ahead details.
Make the dough ahead of time. Prepare the sugar cookie dough up to 2-3 days in advance and keep it wrapped in the fridge. You can also freeze the unbaked cookie dough and then defrost it in the fridge before baking.
Don’t overbake. Take the cookies out when they’re just turning golden at the edges, and a little soft in the center. They’ll continue to set up while they cool on the baking sheet.
How much does this recipe make? This batch produces about 24 cut-out cookies depending on the size of your cookie cutters. It can easily be doubled for a larger batch.

Overhead view of Easter sugar cookies on a plate, next to more assorted Easter cookies scattered on a white countertop next to speckled eggs and decorating tools.

Favorite Sugar Cookie Tools

How to Decorate Easter Cookies

Once your sugar cookies are baked and cooled, that’s when the real fun starts! Scroll for a quick tutorial on how to frost and decorate Easter sugar cookies as you see in the photos.

Choose your frosting. I frosted the cookies pictured with my perfect vanilla frosting, but for less sweet option, consider try my easy icing recipe instead.
Color the frosting. Next, pick your color palette. When I think of Easter, I always think of soft pastels (yellow, pink, blue, green), so that’s what I use here. The best food coloring for frosting is gel colors.
Choose your piping tips. I use a no.18 open star tip or no. 21 open star tip for the larger surfaces and a no. 5 open round tip for the smaller details. See my in-depth tutorial on how to use piping tips to learn about the different tips that you can use.
Fill the piping bag. My tutorial on how to use a piping bag walks you through filling a piping bag with frosting. If you use a set of couplers with your piping bags, it’s even easier to change out the piping tips.

Check out my post dedicated to decorating sugar cookies with buttercream frosting for loads of tips, tricks, and frosting techniques. Finish these cookies with festive sprinkles, sugar pearls, and any garnishes you’d like!

Easter Bunny Cookies

For the bunnies, start with an open star piping tip. Press out the frosting while pulling up and away from the cookie to create rows of small rosettes for the “fur”. Use the same open star tip to pipe pink frosting inside the ears, and a small open round tip for the mouth. For the eyes and nose, use sugar pearls, candy eyes, or frosting.

An Easter bunny cookie propped up against a plate of frosted Easter sugar cookies.

Easter Egg Cookies

To decorate your Easter egg cookies, use a small open star piping tip to pipe horizontal frosting stripes in alternating colors. I like to use a combination of small rosettes and solid lines for some visual interest. Just like decorating actual Easter eggs, feel free to get creative!

A frosted Easter egg cookie leaning against a stack of unfrosted sugar cookies, with more cookies on a plate next to piping bags in the background.

Chick Cookies

Start by using a small open round piping tip to create an outline around the outside edge of the cookie. Next, use the same tip to fill inside the outline. I do this by piping horizontal lines in one continuous motion for the body, and vertical lines for the head. Use sugar pearls for the eyes, and small orange sprinkles work great for the feet and beak, or you can pipe orange frosting.

A chick-shaped Easter cookie frosted with yellow buttercream frosting, propped up against a carton of speckled Easter eggs.

Carrot Cookies

To easily frost carrot cookies, use an offset spatula to spread plain frosting over the cookie. Immediately press the frosted part into a pile of orange sanding sugar or sprinkles. Afterward, use a small open round tip to pipe green frosting for the leaves.

Cookie Decorating Tips

These are my last tips for perfectly decorated Easter cookies!

Use gel colors sparingly. When using gel colors, a toothpick is a great way to transfer just a small amount of color to the frosting or icing. Gel food dyes are more concentrated than liquid-based food coloring, so a little goes a long way. See my tutorial on how to color buttercream for details.
Skip the piping tips. Of course, if you don’t have piping tips and piping bags, you can always frost these cookies with a knife or offset spatula instead.

How to Store Sugar Cookies

To store. Allow the frosting to set completely and store these Easter cookies in an airtight container. I don’t recommend stacking them as the weight will crush the peaks of the frosting.
Freeze unfrosted cookies. Place the unfrosted cookies in a freezer-safe airtight container and freeze them for up to 1 month. Thaw completely before frosting.
Freeze frosted cookies. First, flash-freeze the frosted sugar cookies in a single layer on a cookie sheet for 15-30 minutes. Once hardened, transfer the cookies to a container (once frozen these can be stacked, use parchment paper between any layers). Freeze for up to 1 month. Thaw on a cookie sheet in a single layer, so as not to damage the frosting.

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