Soft and Chewy Oatmeal Scotchies — 😍❤️🎉 Soft, chewy, and hearty without being too dense! They’re thick enough, but not overly thick, and are just enough to sink your teeth into. Best of all, they’re loaded with sweet butterscotch chips!
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Oatmeal Scotchies Recipe
These butterscotch chip cookies are a tasty trip down memory lane. My grandma used to make them, and I hadn’t had them in ages. So, I changed that.
They turned out to be my favorite oatmeal cookie to date. They’re soft, chewy, and hearty without feeling like I need to strap a backpack on and take them mountain hiking. Sometimes oatmeal cookies get a little too oaty and hearty. I want a cookie, not a granola bar.
They’re also thick enough, but not too thick. Sometimes really thick oatmeal cookies turn dry or cakey, a total deal-breaker. Plus, really thick cookies take longer to bake, and you run the risk of the bottoms getting too dark before the tops are set.
And they’re not too thin. There’s nothing worse than biting into a paper-thin cookie that just sort of disappears. I don’t like thin cookies in general, but thin oatmeal cookies are particularly unsatisfying.
Best of all, they use butterscotch chips. I just love butterscotch and I find it’s very under-represented in recipes in general. After making my favorite peanut butter to date, I vowed to use more butterscotch in my baking.
For anyone who dislikes raisins in your oatmeal cookies, your wishes have been granted. No raisins, nor chocolate chips. Just loads of butterscotch.
Oatmeal cookies, when done right, are some of my favorite cookies. I found myself going back for one more, one more. The chewiness, the hearty texture, the nuttiness of the oats, and nostalgic memories of gobbling vast quantities of my Grandma’s oatmeal cookies make these my new favorite oatmeal cookies. And the abundance of sweet butterscotch chips doesn’t hurt, either.
What’s in Oatmeal Scotchies?
To make these oatmeal butterscotch cookies, you’ll need:
- Egg
- Unsalted butter
- Light brown sugar and granulated sugar
- Vanilla extract
- Old-fashioned oats
- All-purpose flour
- Cinnamon and nutmeg – I prefer my oatmeal scotchies to be well-spiced, so I wasn’t shy about adding the cinnamon or nutmeg. Adjust to your preferences, as needed
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Butterscotch chips – When measuring the butterscotch chips, I measured 1 heaping cup. Don’t be skimpy on the butterscotch
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How to Make Oatmeal Scotchies
These oat scotchies require a bit of planning, but they’re simple to make. Here’s an overview of the process:
- Cream the egg, butter, sugars, and vanilla until light and fluffy.
- Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the dry ingredients, and beat again. Incorporate the butterscotch chips.
- Use a 2-inch medium cookie scoop to portion the dough into about 20 mounts, place them on a plate, and flatten them slightly. Cover the plate with plastic wrap, and chill.
- Arrange the cookie dough on two baking sheets lined with Silpat mats or parchment paper greased with cooking spray, leaving space between each cookie.
- Bake just until the edges are soft and the tops are barely set. Cool on the trays for about 5 minutes, and transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Recipe FAQs
Yes! Before baking, you must chill the dough. It’s too soft coming out of the mixing bowl for immediate baking, and if you don’t chill it first, I guarantee the cookies will spread out into thin puddles.
Chill it for at least 3 hours or up to 5 days. Bake as many mounds as you want at one time, and keep the remaining dough in the fridge.
No, quick oats are more finely ground than old-fashioned oats and will make your oatmeal scotchies dry.
You can store leftover cookies in an airtight at room temperature for up to 1 week. Or, freeze them for up to 3 months.
Yes! Unbaked cookie dough can be stored airtight in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. So, consider baking only as many cookies as desired, and save the remaining dough to be baked in the future when desired.
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Soft and Chewy Oatmeal Scotchies Cookies
Equipment
- 1 Stand Mixer Fitted with a Paddle Attachment
- 1 (2 inch) Medium Cookie Scoop
- 2 Baking Sheets
- 1 Wire Rack
Ingredients
- 1 large egg
- ½ cup unsalted butter, 1 stick
- ½ cup light brown sugar, packed
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups old-fashioned whole rolled oats, not instant or quick cook
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- ¾ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- pinch salt, optional and to taste
- 1 heaping cup butterscotch chips
Instructions
- To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or a large mixing bowl and hand mixer), add the egg, butter, sugars, vanilla, and beat on medium-high to cream ingredients until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
- Stop, scape down the sides of the bowl and add the oats, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, optional salt, and beat to just incorporate, about 1 minute.
- Add the butterscotch chips and beat momentarily to incorporate.
- Using a 2-inch medium cookie scoop (about 2 tablespoons), form dough mounds (I made 20). Place dough mounds on a large plate. Flatten mounds slightly. Cover plate with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, and up to 5 days, before baking. Do not bake with warm dough; cookies will spread and bake thin and flat.
- Preheat oven to 350F, line 2 baking sheets with Silpat Non-Stick Baking Mats, parchment, or spray with cooking spray. Place mounds on baking sheets, spaced about 2 inches apart. I bake 8 to a tray.
- Bake for 9 to 10 minutes, or until edges are set and tops are barely set, even if slightly underbaked in the center and glossy. Cookies may not appear to be done, but they firm up dramatically as they cool. Baking longer results in cookies with dark or burnt bottoms and that set up too crisp and hard and don’t stay soft over time.
- Allow cookies to cool on trays for about 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More Oatmeal Cookie Recipes:
ALL OF MY OATMEAL COOKIE RECIPES!
Thick and Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies – The cookies are very texture-filled and are loaded with oats and an abundance of raisins in every bite. You won’t stop at just one!
Easy Oatmeal Cookies — An incredibly FAST and EASY recipe that produces perfectly thick cookies with chewy edges and soft centers! One bowl to wash, no mixer to drag out, and no waiting around!
Chocolate Chip Banana Oatmeal Cookies — These cookies are soft, moist, and oh-so chewy. They taste like banana bread and chocolate chip cookies rolled into one dessert!
The Best Chocolate Chip Oatmeal M&M’s Cookies — Soft, chewy, and LOADED with M&Ms and chocolate chips in every bite! Make them today! The cookies are SO GOOD they got me a marriage proposal!
Soft and Chewy Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies — 3 favorite cookies combined into 1 so you don’t have to choose! Easy, no-mixer recipe, and always a hit!
Cowboy Cookies— These cowboy cookies are packed with oats, chocolate chips, Cornflakes, and shredded coconut. This is a flexible recipe that you can make with different mix-ins to suit whatever is in your pantry!
One-Bowl, No-Mixer, Extra-Large Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie — A FAST and EASY recipe for ONE XL soft and chewy very THICK cookie loaded with chocolate! No mixer needed and so DELISH!
Soft and chewy , nuff said!
I’m weak when it comes to cookies. I love them and therefore can’t resist them. These sound amazing!
Butterscotch chips in oatmeal cookies sound delicious and I don’t think I’ve ever met a variety of oatmeal cookie I didn’t like! These are giving me a serious cookie craving!
These sound like a fantastic cookie! I love the idea of the butterscotch chips!
Thanks! (you went into my spam but you’re out now!) :)
Butterscotch chips are so often ignored but have great flavor. I’m not sure how this is possible but I don’t think I’ve ever had an oatmeal scotchie. Must change that!
It’s so you!! And no chocolate. The texture, flavors, the whole thing, totally your scene!
Oatmeal in any form are always delicious! You can never have to many really good oatmeal cookie recipes! This recipe? Looks so so so good!! Like all the others, but I the the addition od the butterscotch chips!!
Thanks Tieghan and I agree with never having too many oatmeal cookie recipes!
These cookies sound and look delicious!
LOL I feel the same way about oatmeal cookies. Gotta be just right! My dad actually makes a pretty mean oatmeal cookie. No clue where he found the recipe. I know it calls for smashed banana so it’s really soft.
Bananas in the cookies..interesting! I bet they’re super soft!
I just used butterscotch this weekend and had too forgotten how good it is. I like pairing it with oatmeal and in the perfectly soft and chewy cookie? Sounds just about perfect to me! And I LOVE our cookie scoop too. Makes life so much easier! And I’ve never told you this, but I am so jealous of that surface you photograph your cookies on – so textured and yet not distracting. Lovely photos as usual!
Thanks for the compliments and my surface is actually a 350+ year old Chinese writing desk that I found at a local antique dealer. I just love it and even when I want to change it, I am so drawn to it, and gravitate to it for most of my pics. But glad you feel it’s textured yet not distracting!
Oatmeal scotchies are the BEST! Always remind me of being a kid :)
Me too!
Chewy, ooey and gooey is the only way to go with drop cookies. Mmmm…with an extra soft oatmeal dough base requiring adequate chill time first. Averie, Oatmeal Scotchies never looked so good! Love that “under baked” is the new “perfectly baked” because the “perfectly baked” of our mothers’ baking days is now considered “over baked”. Kind of like with pork. Instead of tender and juicy (of course, due to food safety fears of under cooking), the chops were ALWAYS over cooked shoe leather back then, LOL! xo
I think places like Mrs Fields and Cinnabon haven’t turned into multi billion dollar empires becuase they serve hard, dry, crunchy food. No, the public wants the ooey gooey stuff and times are a changing!
This is so well said: Love that “under baked” is the new “perfectly baked” because the “perfectly baked” of our mothers’ baking days is now considered “over baked” — YES! agreed!
Soft and chewy – just the way I like it! And I love oatmeal cookies (it’s my second favorite after snickerdoodles!) but I haven’t had them in a while too. Maybe I’ll make a batch tomorrow night after work! :)
Oh and I love snickerdoodles, too! They’re a huge fave as well…I’ve got so many Sugar-Doodles, Brown Sugar Maple, Soft Batch Coconut Oil, etc types of cookies that all revolve around that snicerkdoodley base and flavor!
I haven’t commented in a while because I’m still abroad, but I see my inbox full of amazing recipes from you, just like clockwork! I’m going to have to track down some good butterscotch chips when I get back, ASAP!
I was wondering where you were or what was going on. Glad to know you’re enjoying yourself abroad! Have fun & the recipes will all be here when you get home :)
You’re ok with me just eating a bowl of this dough-style, right?;)
Looks fabu!
Dough is always fair game! :)