About Nutella Stuffed Sugar Cookies
I was going to start this post off with “It’s been a shamefully long time since I made some cookies…” but when I went to look up the exact date of my last cookie recipe I found Patriotic Fruit Pie Cookies, White Chocolate Cookies, Red Velvet Cookie Dough Bars, and Cookie Dough Dip… all posted within the past 2 months.
Okay, fine, you got me: I freaking love cookies.
I’d make them every day if could get away with it – and oh, I do try.
It’s just that I can only work the “it’s for the blog” angle for so long before an old friend of mine begins asking for “real” food.
He’s a little weird, that one.
However, I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you’re in the same boat at me… since, you know, you’re here. Reading this post that’s all about how to make Nutella cookies.
I can assure you that you’re in good company, because I think these cookies might be so good that they’ve stolen the top spot of my all time favorite cookie.
No joke, these cookies are like that.
But can you blame me? These Nutella cookies are like little soft and chewy pies of chocolate hazelnut goodness.
Another great thing about these cookies: I originally posted this sugar cookie recipe a year ago, shortly after Homemade Hooplah came into existence, and for the longest time it was my most popular post. Even to this day it still gets a respectable amount of traffic from Google.
However, ever since this Nutella cookie has made its debut, it has become one of the most popular on this little food blog… and for good reason. These cookies are delicious and I hope you enjoy these cookies as much as I have!
So here’s to you, delicious sugar cookie recipe. I hope I did you justice by taking it to the next level.
Do you have to chill the dough?
This particular recipe calls for chilling the cookie dough for one hour.
I know it can be frustrating to put your baking on hold, but when it comes to cookies, chilling the dough is totally worth the impact it as on your cookies.
If you’re curious about the purpose (and benefits!) of doing this, check out this article: Chilling Cookie Dough: Does it Make a Difference?
How much Nutella should each cookie have?
When making these cookies, you want enough Nutella filling to make these cookies “worth it” AND you want to use enough cookie dough to completely cover the Nutella. When I originally developed this recipe, I didn’t have a cookie scoop and measured everything by eye. This means that the ratio of cookie to Nutella I used has varied a bit over time.
To give you a general guide, the cookies in the pictures are about three inches wide and the dough balls were about one to two inches across when raw. I considered these “to be small” cookies.
The cookies in the recipe video are monstrous and measured about four to five inches wide once baked. Those dough balls were about two to three inches wide when raw.
Ultimately, use your best judgment when measuring the cookies. As long as you have enough cookie dough to completely cover the Nutella, then you should be good to go for cookie perfection!
Notes & tips for these Nutella filled cookies
- If you’re doing a lot of baking, I highly recommend having some silicone baking mats or silicone baking mats on hand. Baking cookies takes enough time without having to cut or measure parchment paper. Or if you prefer using parchment paper, you can try using pre-cut parchment paper sheets instead.
- Plus, some quality baking sheets are a must for a cookie baking extravaganza!
- For this recipe, I highly recommend using a stand mixer or a hand mixer. This recipe would be difficult to make by hand with a whisk.
- These cookies will be best 1 day after baking. When these cookies are freshly baked and cooled, the Nutella inside will be a bit dry and not very creamy. If you store the cookies in a sealed container for 24 hours, some of that creaminess will come back to the Nutella. At that point, you can warm the cookies for a few seconds in the microwave and get the creamy look as shown in these pictures.
- Looking for more Nutella? Check out these Brownie Parfaits with Nutella Syrup or Chocolate Cake Donuts with Nutella Glaze.
More fun cookie recipes
Recipe Details
Nutella Stuffed Sugar Cookies
Old fashioned soft and chewy sugar cookies stuffed with creamy chocolate and hazelnut Nutella. Trust me, this combination is as delicious as it sounds!
Ingredients
Instructions
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Line a baking sheet (that can fit in your freezer) with parchment paper. Spoon out either 1-2 teaspoon of Nutella (about the size of a quarter, for smaller cookies) or 1-2 tablespoon of Nutella (about the size of a half dollar, for larger cookies) and place it on the parchment paper. If possible, try to keep Nutella in ball or oval shapes. The amount of Nutella balls you need will depend on how big you're making the cookies (see recipe notes). Place tray with Nutella in the freezer while preparing the dough.
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In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set bowl aside.
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Using a stand mixer (or hand mixer + large bowl) cream together the butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes.
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Drop mixer speed to low and add the vanilla extract and egg to the creamed butter, mixing thoroughly.
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Remove bowl from mixer. Using a spatula, slowly add the dry ingredients in with the butter mixture until fully incorporated. Dough should be soft and slightly dewy when ready.
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Cover bowl and place dough in the refrigerator to chill for 1 hour.
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Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Add the remaining 1/2 cup granulated sugar to a small mixing bowl and set nearby.
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Remove dough from refrigerator and frozen Nutella from freezer. For smaller cookies, scoop out about 1-2 teaspoons of cookie dough and flatten into a circle about 1-2 inches wide. For larger cookies, scoop out about 1-2 tablespoons of cookie dough and flatten into a circle about 2 inches wide. Repeat this step so you have two flat pieces of cookie dough. Put a piece of frozen Nutella between the two dough pieces and pinch the sides closed (see above video for example). Roll cookie into a ball shape, then toss in the bowl of sugar, coating the outside. Place finished cookie ball on prepared baking sheet. Repeat this step until all dough and Nutella is used, placing cookies about 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. Note: as you work, you may need to pause to freeze the Nutella again so that it keeps it's shape.
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For smaller cookies, bake cookies for 10-12 minutes or until the top of the cookie begins to crinkle and the bottom sides turn a light golden brown. For larger cookies, bake 14-16 minutes or until top of the cookie beings to crinkle and bottom sides turn a light golden brown.
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Let cookies rest on the baking sheet for 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely. Cookies can be stored in a sealed container on the counter for up to 4 days. Cookies are best after "resting" for one day after baking.
Recipe Notes
For smaller cookies, this recipe should yield about 14-16 cookies. For larger cookies, it should yield about 10-12.
Yummm! These look amazing! I’ll definitely have to try to whip up a batch.
Thanks Genie!
I’m making it for my birthday treats at school
Awesome Jaeli! I’d love to hear how the cookies turn out 😀
Oh heck yes, gimmme them alllll! These look perfect.
Thank you Melanie!
Hello, my cookie dough had turned out gooey, is this meant to happen?
Hey Caila! The dough should be pretty manageable and not very sticky. Can you confirm that you used 2 & 3/4 cup flour and 2 cups sugar for the dough?
These are the absolute BOMB!!! And I would make cookies every day too if i could!
YES, someone that understands the struggle! 😀 Thanks Nic!
Yum! These look absolutely delicious!!!
Thanks Kim!
I’d make cookies every day too if I could – no questions asked
especially if they would be stuffed with nutella
I know, right? Nutella makes everything better.
Ahhh! Soft and gooey, I need these now! What a great idea!
Thanks Kacey! 😀
These look SO good!! We love Nutella!!
Nutella is <3 😀 Thanks Lindsay!
I don’t know how you were able to take any of those pictures. They would have been gone in two minutes flat at my house. We’re Nutella crazy over here. 🙂
Truth be told, this was my second batch… the first ones didn’t make it 😀
i am certainly sharing this on pinterest and making later! who doesn’t need more nutella in their life?!
I know, right?! Thanks Roni!
These look sinfully delicious! And a little more classy than eating nutella with a spoon out of the jar like I normally do 😉
That’s too funny – I usually do the exact same thing! This is just a fancy schmancy way to eat Nutella I guess 😀
You are so clever Chrisy! Love these cookies:) Pinning!
Thank you Ilona! 😀
Wow, sugar cookies are my absolute favorite so the fact that you stuffed them with nutella is blowing my mind!
Thanks Sara! 😀
You had me at Nutella! These look relish and I’m definitely pinning these for a rainy day. Thanks!
Thank you! 😀 If you make them I hope you like them!
Ahhhh! MUST. MAKE. NOW(!)
These cookies are ALL kinds of awesome! Yum!
These look SO yummy! I was wondering how you stuffed the Nutella inside, good description!
Thanks Olivia! 😀
These look so good! I don’t have enough Nutella in my life…I should probably make these this weekend.
Can NEVER have enough Nutella 😀 If you make them, I hope they turn out great!
I almost have no words…..almost 😉
These look so simple and DANGEROUS! I have a feeling they wouldn’t last very long in my house!!
Thanks Ariana! They’ve already vanished from my house :O
What a fantastic recipe. The cookies look so buttery and moist and the dash of nutella totally puts them over the edge! Pinning!
Thanks Joanie! 😀
I just recently discovered I like Nutella. I tried it years ago and wasn’t a fan, but now I love it! These sugar cookies look delicious. Pinning for later!
Thanks Kathy! If you make them, I hope you like them 😀
Do you have any photos of the cookies being made? I’m having trouble visualizing a few of the steps.
Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of making the cookies, but I can try to help clear things up. Which steps did you mean?
Question: When they go in the oven, are they flat, or balls???
Look Great
Hey Michelle! When they go in the oven, they should be balls – then they’ll bake out flat 🙂
thanks for asking the question Michelle… I was having a hard time picturing it as well. We order the 5kg container of nutella from Italy. Only takes us about 11 months to go through it. My boys make me proud. looking forward to making these next week
Thanks for this recipe, which is extremely versatile! You can use all kinds of other add-ins and they all turn out delicious: broken up Heath bars, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, nuts, …
I’m wondering if that’s a type-o and tsp, is supposed to be TBSP? I put 1-2 tsp of Nutella inside the sugar cookie and it wasn’t even close to how gooey yours are. Also, you say work fast, but you have to work like lightning fast since the Nutella starts to melt immediately coming out of the freezer. I had to work in small batches and was really disappointed that there was just a teeny tiny Nutella pocket (I thought maybe it would spread out, but no go). Sad Panda.
Hey Violet! I’m so sorry the cookies didn’t turn out like you were hoping. The filling is correct at 1-2 tsp, if only so that it fits easily in a standard cookie scoop (which is usually 1 tbsp.) You could totally pack in more Nutella if you wanted – it would just be more of a challenge to work with, as you saw with how quickly the Nutella starts to melt once it’s out of the freezer. For the photo I picked a cookie that had spread significantly while baking – very gently patting the tops of the baked cookies fresh out of the oven could help create this effect, too.
i want to know if its going to be too sweet? i like things that are well balanced.
cause i see its 2 cups of sugar plus 3/4 of nutella.
Thank you for your time reading!
Hey Linda! I tend to like sweet cookies, so I might be a little biased. Sugar cookies are also typically sweet. Maybe I can try to compare it this way – can you name a cookie that you feel as a balanced sweetness?
I tried just your sugar cookie recipe and they are awesome, now I will try the nutella filling. Thank You for a wonderful recipe !
I’m so glad you liked them Gina! I hope these turn out just as good 😀
I just made these, they turned out so well and taste delicious! I’ll be selling them at a bake sale and I think they will be a hit 🙂
I’m so glad they turned out great Ann-Marie! I hope everyone loves them at the bake sale 😀
I’m not sure what I did wrong… Mine came out cakey and stayed puffed up! They’re still delicious, but not the chewy bombs I was hoping for. 🙁
Hey Anne! I’m so sorry they didn’t turn out like you were expecting. When you say they were puffed up, is this after baking? Sometimes you can gently press down on the tops to help them flatten, but then you have to be careful that the Nutella doesn’t escape. I’ll have to make these again soon and see if I can figure out a better way to guarantee they always bake in the right shape.
Hello!!
I don’t have any baking powder.. Will it be ok? ? thanks!
Hey Morgan! Do you happen to have some cream of tartar? You can make your own baking powder with it (see here: http://www.myrecipes.com/how-to/cooking-questions/substitute-for-baking-powder). Otherwise, you can use a tiny bit more (about a pinch or two) of baking soda to make up the difference. The texture of the cookie will be a tiny bit different, but still good 🙂
Delicious! Thank you for sharing your recipe. When my cookies cooled, I dusted them with powdered sugar.
Glad the cookies turned out! Love the idea of using powdered sugar for dusting, too 😀
made these a couple of weeks ago and they were awesome- can i replace the granulated sugar with soft brown sugar or would that affect the consistency too much? thanks!
Hey Jordan! Sorry I’m so late in getting back to you. If you’re still curious, you can read more about the pros and cons of using white vs brown sugar here: http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/12/faq-difference-brown-white-granulated-sugar-baking-cookies.html Ultimately you probably want to use white sugar over brown sugar for this recipe, but the cookies would still be “good” if you used brown sugar.
Ok, so I made these and mine turned out a little smaller than the recipe said (I ended up with 4 cookies with no filling) and they turned out HUGE. the second batch I only put 8 cookies on the pan and they STILL blended together to make one giant cookie. I followed the recipe exactly so I’m not sure what happened. Still tasty though!
I’m sorry that happened Dalia! I’ll have to check the recipe again and see if I can recreate what happened. This recipe is a bit tricky! I’m glad it still tasted good though, even as a giant cookie 😀
I just made those last night and they are so good they melt in your mouth
I filled them with pieces of my favorite chocolate bar and they turned out great
Thank you so much for the recipe
LOVE the idea of adding candy bars! Thanks for writing in, so glad you liked the recipe 😀
Making these now and going to make 1/2 “Nutella bellies” and the other 1/2 “jelly bellies” using raspberry jam. The jelly ones could be a bit too gooey. We’ll see…
Turned out awesome! Though the jelly ones were a tad messier to roll thus causing the dough to be tinged pink, it turned out to be an advantage because then we could tell the two varieties apart.
LOVE your idea Carly! I’m so glad they turned out well 😀
So yummy! I thought they were awesome after a few minutes out of the oven…I’m looking forward to them settling for a day…is it possible for them to get any better?!
I came up with a trick while making my second batch. I patted out all of the bases, THEN I took the Nutella out of the freezer and assembled them. For my first batch, it took me awhile to do the cookie bases, and the Nutella became a melted, sticky mess! So doing the bases first made it easier 🙂 Thank you for this amazing recipe!
I love this tip, Barbara! I’ll have to try it the next time I make these 😀 Definitely sounds like there’d be less mess!
These cookies were amazing and the recipe was very easy to follow. I am a private chef but don’t really enjoy baking. I made about 6 dozen of these for my mom’s senior group as Christmas gifts. They were a huge hit.
I’m so glad they turned out so well! 😀 Thanks for writing in!
Not sure if I did it wrong. When my dough came out of the fridge, it was chunky and would roll properly. It was crumbly and it was hard to put the Nutella in without it crumbling.
Because it was so crumbly, my cookies turned out super big so I left them in the oven for longer which made them super hard.
What am I doing wrong??
Hey Cindy! So sorry to hear the dough wasn’t working 🙁 I’ve made these cookies a few times, and haven’t run into crumbly dough (yet). I did a little searching online and found this article – http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/37125/crumbly-cookie-dough – but I’m not sure how much it’ll help since this recipe doesn’t really have a lot of liquids. The article does say that resting the dough for longer (up to 4 hours) might help keep the flour hydrate and keep the dough from being crumbly.
What does 2 & 2/3 cup flour mean?
Hey there! It means 2 cups plus another 2/3 cup.
These cookies are one of my favorites! A trick I’ve recently tried… roll the dough into a ball (I used a cookie scoop) and then, using your finger, make an indent into the ball. Push frozen nutella piece into indent (I actually just keep the nutella in the freezer the whole time and pull them out one by one) and close cookie around nutella. Roll cookie again before rolling in sugar!
LOVING this tip! Thanks, Alyssa 😀
Can you use coconut oil instead of butter?
Hey Shayne! I haven’t personally tried doing this, but this article might help? https://www.thespruce.com/can-coconut-oil-substitute-for-butter-995440
Nevermind! Just realized the freezer part.
What do you need to preheat the oven to? These look amazing.
How exactly did you freeze the nutella? Did you put the entire container in the freezer or make small balls and freeze them?
Hey Amanda! To freeze the Nutella, you scoop it out and freeze the individual pieces that will be added to the cookie. Check out the recipe video above, it shows you how to do it 😀
Hello. Thank you for making this recipe. I don’t know what went wrong with mine, but the dough stayed crumbly the whole time. Please let me know if you know what happened.
Oh man, these cookies turned out AMAZING, and they were a hit when I brought them to work. Perfectly delicious, the sugar cookie was soft and with the nutella surprise, so so good. I had also frozen the dollops of nutella a bit first (maybe just ~30min in the freezer) because I was afraid it would all just spread/melt together. It also helped with assembling the balls before baking because I could easily just pick them up and stick them in the dough. Thank you so much for the recipe!! Going to make these again for this weekend’s holiday party! Cannot wait!
What does 2 & 2/3 cup flour mean?
I made the cookies today and on my god they were delicious. Too good. Thanks for sharing such an amazing recipe.
I tried these yesterday and brought them to school with me today. They turned out great and all my class mates loved them! Not one thing went wrong when I made them (although in the end it took five damn hours for me to make them, including freezing and refrigerating). I’m going to make these again in the future! Thanks for this delicious and easy recipe!
Geetings from Germany
Hey there can you freeze these ? I just made them they look incredible but I’m serving them for Xmas which is a week away.
These cookies are amazing! I followed the recipe exactly and it made 16 amazing cookies! The sugar cookie itself has an amazing flavor and add in that pocket of Nutella and oh my! This recipe is definitely going to be in the mix for my family get togethers now! Thanks so much for posting!