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!
The texture of these cookies was absolutely perfect and what I’ve been looking for! I’ve tried several of your recipes now, love your website and trust we are looking for thr exact same qualities in baked goods. :-) However, I did think the dough and the finished product tasked a bit like baking soda. Any suggestions?
Hmmm, there was only 1/2 teaspoon in the entire batch, which is pretty standard for most cookies recipes so maybe you accidentally over-measured it? Not sure what to say otherwise. Glad that you loved the cookies overall!
I just made these today and they were wonderful. Thanks for the recipe. I love your site!
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you!
Hi Averie, these look awesome! I can’t wait to try them! I would like to make a large cookie using this batter for my husband’s upcoming birthday (he’s a cookie connoisseur). I use the Wilton large round cookie pan. Can you give me advice on chilling and baking time/temp please?!
Sorry that I’ve never tried doing what you plan to do so can’t give exacts. Being that you’re making it in a round cookie PAN (not just a free-form cookie on a baking sheet) you won’t have to chill the dough. Just bake it til it looks done and enjoy!
Ah sorry, just saw a similar question answered ;)
I know you stated you can store these cookies in the freezer for a couple of months, and I assume you can store the unbaked dough in the freezer before baking it too?
I made these! Loved them. You can check it out on my blog. I did not let them sit in the refrigerator and they still turned out great!
https://huntershealthykitchen.com/2014/12/31/soft-butterscotch-pecan-oatmeal-cookies/
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you even without chilling the dough!
I just made these cookies this Christmas eve evening, I only made 2 simple additions of freshly grated orange peel and a shot or two of bushmills Irish whiskey!!
I let the dough sit warm a while to meld the flavors before forming balls for my freezer. I cannot wait to smell them baking and serve them to my family tommarow!! Merry Christmas!!
can you refrigerate before putting them into balls?
It will make it harder to form balls out of a rock hard blob of dough in your mixing bowl which is why you form the balls before refrigerating.
Has anyone made these using gram measurements? If so, please tell me because it is so much less guesswork, with consistant results. Thanks so much. Sure wish we could get away from volume measurements since they vary so much depending on whether you dip and scoop, or spoon into cup and level off. With baking ingredients so expensive, why not use the consistently accurate method that the pros use? Thanks for the help.