Our Christmas M&M Rice Krispie Cookies are soft and delicious with a wonderful extra crunch from the M&M and Rice Krispie Cereal these cookies are super yummy.

Closeup on a serving platter filled with Christmas M&M Rice Krispie Cookies sitting in front of Christmas decorations.

Nancy and I have a long list of Christmas treats that we bake every year … Christmas Morning Coffee Cake, English Toffee, Frosted Sugar Cookies, Pretzel Bites, and Rice Krispie Treats. The question we have every year is which Christmas Cookies to bake.  We always try to do something new every year.  This year it was these delicious Christmas M&M Rice Krispie Cookies.  They have a soft and yummy chocolate chip cookie base but with a special blast of crunch from the Rice Krispie cereal and the M&M Minis.  Super duper yummy!!!  Give them a try this holiday season … your family will be begging for more! 

Closeup on a metal mixing bowl filled with cookie dough and a wooden spoon.

Step 1: Cream the butter and sugars. Mix in the eggs and vanilla.  Add the baking soda and salt and mix well.  Fold in flour.

Collage image showing how to fold the Rice Krispie Cereal and the Red and Green Mini M&M's into the cookie dough.

Step 2: Gently fold in Rice Krispie Cereal.
Step 3: Add in the Red and Green M&M Minis.  You could use regular-sized M&M’s but I highly recommend using the mini version.  The tiny blast of chocolate from the M&M Mini’s really adds something special to this Christmas Cookie Recipe.  I pulled out the red and green M&M’s from two bags of M&M Minis and used that amount.  It was approximately 1 1/2 cups.

Closeup on the Christmas M&M Rice Krispie cookie dough in a metal mixing bowl.

Step 4: This is what the Christmas M&M Rice Krispie Cookie dough looks like when it is finished. Yum!

Baking Instructions

Collage image showing the Christmas M&M Rice Krispie Cookies before going in the oven and after coming out of the oven.

Step 5: Take a spoonful of dough and roll it into a ball.  Press the ball down slightly on the cookie sheet. This will help you get a more uniform cookie.
Step 6: Bake the cookies in an oven preheated to 375 degrees until they are golden brown on the bottom and around the edges.  It should be 8-10 minutes.

Closeup on the top of a Christmas M&M Rice Krispie Cookie .

Step 7: These cookies are so pretty and festive looking.  They are going to look great on the Christmas dessert table.  Allow them to completely cool before you store or freeze them.

Expert Tips and FAQ’s

Use Room Temperature Ingredients

Both the eggs and the butter should be at room temperature which will help your cookies turn out lighter and fluffier.  For the eggs, room temperature simply means not cold out of the refrigerator. If you forget to take the eggs out before you start making cookie dough you can put the eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5-10 minutes to warm them up.  The butter also needs to be softened to room temperature which means if you touch it you should leave an indentation on the stick of butter. Do not use butter that has been over-softened or melted.  If that happens you should use a different stick of butter or put it back into the refrigerator to let it set up.  We have a whole post about How to Soften Butter, click here if you need more information on how to do that.

Do you need to use a Mixer?

Yes. In our opinion, you need some kind of a mixer to make a good cookie dough. A stand mixer, while expensive, is a great investment if you believe you have a lot of homemade baked goods in your future. An electric hand-mixer also works well and you can probably find one for around $20. You can hand mix cookie dough in a pinch (which is how we did it growing up), but you will really have to use a lot of muscle to cream the butter and sugar and eggs properly.

Cookie Dough Mixing Tips

Creaming the butter, sugar and then mixing the eggs in is the most important part of the cookie dough mixing process. Creaming is when you fully incorporate the butter and sugar together and add some much needed air to the dough. We recommend creaming the butter and sugar for 2 minutes on medium-high speed and then mixing the butter/sugar/eggs for another 3 minutes at the same speed. Once you add the flour, you want to mix the dough as little as possible. Mix it too much and you will get tough cookies. Mix in the flour on low speed and continue mixing ONLY until the dry ingredients are incorporated into the dough. Make sure you scrape down the sides and the bottom to make sure all the flour has gotten mixed in.

Prepping the Cookie Sheet

We always line our cookie sheets with a piece of parchment paper, it keeps the cookie from sticking to the sheet and from over-browning. You can find parchment paper either in rolls or in pre-cut sheets in most grocery stores, and we highly recommend it. Ideally, you should use at least 2 cookie sheets when baking cookies. You don’t want to add the raw cookie dough to a cookie sheet that is hot out of the oven. The dough will start baking even before you get it in the oven.

Use an Ice Cream Scooper or a Scale to get perfectly sized cookies

Cookie size is a matter of personal taste. The important part is making them all the same size so they bake evenly. We like a good-sized cookie, so we use a medium-sized cookie dough scoop that makes a portion that has approximately 2 tablespoons of cookie dough. You can also pull out your food scale and measure the cookie dough.

Oven Tips

Everyone’s oven is different. We recommend starting with a test bake with a single cookie to help you hone in on the exact baking time for your oven. You should set your timer for 2 minutes less than whatever the recipe recommends. Once the timer goes off, open up the oven and see how your cookie is baking. Make corrections accordingly. Our oven has a hot spot in the back so we always rotate the cookie sheet halfway through the baking time to get a more even bake. Although this may seem like an unnecessary step, it is better to do this than burn a whole tray of cookies.

Storage/Freezing Tips

Cookies should always be stored in an airtight container.  They should be completely cooled before storing them. We usually add a layer of parchment paper between each row of cookies in our plastic container.  Cookies stored at room temperature should stay fresh for 3-4 days. You can also keep them in the refrigerator and that extends their freshness for up to a week. If you need them to last longer, you can freeze them for up to 3 months. You can pull them out of the freezer and leave them on the counter for 1 hour and they will be ready to eat.

Closeup on a stack of Christmas M&M Rice Krispie Cookies sitting on a white table in front of a red cloth and Christmas greenery.

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Christmas M&M Rice Krispie Cookies

Yield 3 dozen cookies
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Total Time 20 minutes

Our Christmas M&M Rice Krispie Cookies are soft and delicious with a wonderful extra crunch from the M&M and Rice Krispie Cereal these cookies are super yummy.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup Sweet Cream, Salted Butter (Softened)
  • 3/4 cup Granulated Sugar
  • 3/4 cup Brown Sugar
  • 2 large Eggs
  • 2 teaspoon Vanilla
  • 2 1/2 cups All-Purpose Flour
  • 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon Salt
  • 2 cups Rice Krispie Cereal
  • 1 1/2 cups Green and Red M&M Mini's

Instructions

  1. Cream the butter and sugars. Mix in the eggs and vanilla.  Add the baking soda and salt and mix well.  Fold in flour.
  2. Gently fold in Rice Krispie Cereal.
  3. Add in the Red and Green M&M Minis.  You could use regular sized M&M’s but I highly recommend using the mini version.  The tiny blast of chocolate from the M&M Mini’s really adds something special to this Christmas Cookie Recipe.  I pulled out the red and green M&M’s from two bags of M&M Minis and used that amount.  It was approximately 1 1/2 cups.
  4. Take a spoonful of dough and roll it into a ball.  Press the ball down slightly on the cookie sheet. This will help you get a more uniform cookie.
  5. Bake the cookies in an oven preheated to 375 degrees until they are golden brown on the bottom and around the edges.  It should be 8-10 minutes.
  6. Allow the cookies to completely cool before you store or freeze them.

Notes

Cookies should always be stored in an airtight container.  They should be completely cooled before storing them. Cookies stored at room temperature should stay fresh for 3-4 days. You can also keep them in the refrigerator and that extends their freshness for up to a week. If you need them to last longer, you can freeze them for up to 3 months. You can pull them out of the freezer and leave them on the counter for 1 hour and they will be ready to eat.

Did you Make this Recipe? Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @twosisterscrafting on Instagram so we can see it!