These Valentine's cookies are soft, chewy, and packed with chocolate and festive colors. Every batch tastes incredible and makes about 50 cookies, so there's plenty to go around!
These valentines day cookies are so delicious you'll want them all year long (not that I'm stopping you or anything). Made from scratch with boxed pudding mix in the dough, these cookies are simply irresistible.
Fun fact, these cookies are a festive twist to my holiday cookies. Inspired by Santa's Favorite Cookies, these lovely cookies are a great variation on a classic.
Why This Recipe Works
- They're fun. The added sprinkles, M and Ms, and chocolate chips make the cookies festive and indulgent.
- They're easy to make. Just mix, scoop and bake! This recipe is a great beginner-friendly cookie recipe to try with the family.
- No chilling is required. Until many other cookie recipes out there, we don't need to chill this dough before baking. The cookies turn out perfectly, and your patience won't be tested.
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🥘 Ingredients
All-Purpose Flour- This will be the structural base of the cookie recipe.
Oreo Jell-o Pudding- Adding cookie pieces, chocolate flavor, and chewy goodness. You'll just need the dry mix from the box, do not prepare it in advance!
Cornstarch- Adding cornstarch helps to make cookies softer.
Leavening agents- You will need both baking powder and baking soda to get these cookies to spread and rise properly as they bake.
Salt- This is a natural flavor enhancer and will help the other flavors to taste great.
Unsalted butter- You can use salted or unsalted butter in this recipe but I prefer these cookies with unsalted butter. The butter will give the cookie added fats needed to stay moist and rich tasting.
Sugars- Sugar helps with the overall texture of the cookies and brown sugar especially helps to make the cookies chewier with nicer edges.
Vanilla extract- This is another flavor enhancer.
Large eggs- Use eggs to bind the dough together well.
Milk chocolate chips- You can use milk chocolate or semi-sweet, but you'll want them inside the dough and placed on top for a nicer appearance.
Red and Pink Holiday M&Ms- You can find these seasonally in your local grocery store. I've used the cherry chocolate-flavored ones and the regular pink and red ones and I still can't decide which version was my favorite!
Valentine's Sprinkles- For a festive and fun touch, grab some colorful valentines sprinkles to add to these cookies.
For the exact amounts needed, please see the recipe card below.
🍽 Equipment Needed
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🔪 Instructions
Check out how to make Valentine's chocolate chip M&M cookies with these simple step-by-step instructions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or spray with nonstick cooking spray.
Whisk together the flour, pudding dry mix, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Set aside.
Cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy in a large mixing bowl.
Add in the vanilla and eggs, and mix to distribute.
Add the dry ingredients to the bowl of egg mixture and mix until well combined. You may need to use your hands to help mix it in. the dough will be thick.
Fold in most of the chocolate chips, sprinkles, and M&Ms. Reserve the rest for later.
Scoop the dough into 2 tablespoon sized scoops and place on a parchment lined baking sheet at least 2 or 3 inches apart.
Sprinkle your reserved sprinkles over the top of the dough balls.
Bake the cookies for 10 minutes until the edges look set.
Immediately after removing the cookies from the oven top the cookies with some remaining chocolate chips and M&Ms. I like to chop my M&Ms for a nicer appearance.
Let rest on the baking sheet for 2 minutes before transferring to the cooling rack.
Continue until all cookies have been cooked and cooled
🍴 Recipe Tips
Use a bigger bowl
These Valentine's day chocolate chip cookies are super simple and easy to make but require a large (or extra-large) mixing bowl as it can be a lot to handle.
Careful while mixing
I like to mix everything with my electric mixer but I use the dough hooks when I'm incorporating the M&Ms, choc chips, and sprinkles at the end because it mixes them in well without overdoing it or making a mess.
Why pudding mix
I love tossing a box of pudding mix into my cookie recipes. It adds chewy goodness soft texture, and packs so much flavor into every bite that it's like a secret weapon. These M&M pudding cookies are packed with those great flavors.
With Oreo pudding dry mix in the recipe, you get small bits of oreo cookies with that creamy flavor that just makes these cookies swoon-worthy.
Let cookies cool on the pan
When the cookies come out of the oven, it's important to let them sit on the baking sheet for AT LEAST 2 minutes (preferably longer). This allows the cookies to finish cooking, set, and not fall apart when you go to transfer them to the cooling rack.
⏲️Make Ahead Instructions
You can chill the dough in the freezer for a short time or chill it in the fridge for longer depending on how many cookies you want to bake it might be wise to shuffle the dough around. I like to ball out all of my dough on one baking sheet and place it in the freezer while cooking another sheet pan full.
If it's taking a while between batches and I feel the cookie dough is getting too hard in the freezer I just move it to the fridge and finish up since the dough will be well chilled by that point.
🥣 Substitutions
If you can't find the Oreo Pudding Mix, use a 3.4-ounce box of Vanilla pudding instead. Just mix the dry stuff with 4 crushed and crumbled oreo cookies and use in place of the Oreo pudding mix.
💭 FAQs
That depends on the cookies you're making, I usually prefer milk chocolate chips. They melt nicer, look glossy, and give a nice burst of sweetness. Semi-sweet can also be good if you like the contrast in flavor and slight bitterness.
Yes, you could use any boxed pudding in place of the one requested in this recipe. Cheesecake flavored, chocolate, vanilla, or even banana cream would all taste pretty amazing in this recipe.
Yes. Freeze the dough balls before baking or freeze the cookies after they've cooled down. Valentine's cookies can be frozen in an airtight container for up to 3 months.
More great Valentine's day recipes to try
- Red Velvet Funnel Cake
- Cherry Chip Cake Mix Cookies
- Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries Dipped in Chocolate
- Raspberry Whipped Cream Filled Cream Puffs
- Red Velvet Banana Bread
- Rustic Strawberry Galette
📖 Recipe
Valentines Chocolate Chip M&M Cookies
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour ($0.24)
- 1 4oz box Oreo Jell-o Pudding (dry mix only) ($0.98)
- 2 teaspoon cornstarch ($0.01)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder ($0.02)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda ($0.01)
- 1 teaspoon salt ($0.10)
- 1 cup unsalted butter, softened ($0.75)
- 1 cup brown sugar ($0.35)
- 1 cup white sugar ($0.22)
- 2 teaspoon vanilla ($0.04)
- 2 large eggs, room temp ($0.16)
- 1 cup milk chocolate chips ($0.99)
- 2 ½ cups Red and Pink Holiday M&Ms (10 ounce bag) ($03.38)
- 3 tablespoon Valentines Sprinkles ($0.30)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or spray with nonstick cooking spray.
- In a bowl, whisk together the flour, pudding dry mix, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy.
- Add in the vanilla and eggs, and mix to distribute.
- Add the dry ingredients to the bowl of egg mixture and mix until well combined. You may need to use your hands to help mix it in. the dough will be thick.
- Fold in most of the chocolate chips, sprinkles, and M&Ms. Reserve the rest for later.
- Scoop the dough into 2 tablespoon sized scoops and place on a parchment lined baking sheet at least 2 or 3 inches apart.
- Sprinkle your reserved sprinkles over the top of the dough balls.
- Bake the cookies for 10 minutes until the edges look set.
- Immediately after removing the cookies from the oven top the cookies with some remaining chocolate chips and M&Ms. I like to chop my M&Ms for a nicer appearance.
- Let rest on the baking sheet for 2 minutes before transferring to the cooling rack.
- Continue until all cookies have been cooked and cooled.
Notes
Recipe Tips
- These Valentine's day chocolate chip cookies are super simple and easy to make but will require a large (or extra-large) sized mixing bowl as it can be a lot to handle.
- I like to mix everything with my electric mixer but use the dough hooks when I'm incorporating the M&Ms, choc chips, and sprinkles at the end because it mixes them in well without overdoing it or making a mess.
- When the cookies come out of the oven, it's important to let them sit on the baking sheet for AT LEAST 2 minutes (preferably longer). This allows the cookies to finish cooking, set, and not fall apart when you go to transfer them to the cooling rack.
Making in Advance
- You can chill the dough in the freezer for a short time or chill it in the fridge for longer depending on how many cookies you want to bake it might be wise to shuffle the dough around. I like to ball out all of my dough on one baking sheet and place it in the freezer while cooking another sheet pan full.
- If it's taking a while between batches and I feel the cookie dough is getting too hard in the freezer I just move it to the fridge and finish up since the dough will be well chilled by that point.
- Freeze the dough balls before baking or freeze cookies after they've cooled down. The Valentine's cookies can be frozen in an airtight container for up to 3 months.
Substitutions
- If you can't find the Oreo Pudding Mix then use a 3.4-ounce box of Vanilla pudding instead. Just mix the dry stuff with 4 crushed and crumbled oreo cookies and use in place of the Oreo pudding mix.
- Alternatively, Cheesecake flavored, chocolate, vanilla, or even banana cream flavored pudding would all taste pretty amazing in this recipe.
Sarita says
This recipe! These cookies! Oh my my my. I will be making this all year long. These cookies remain soft and gooey. Just like how I love my cookies!
Nicole says
I'm so glad you enjoyed them! They're certainly a favorite around here too.