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 my teeth into. Best of all, they’re loaded with sweet butterscotch chips!!
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. I’m like Goldy Locks and her porridge with oatmeal cookies, but I finally nailed my perfect oatmeal dough base.
I have four other oatmeal cookie dough bases, as well as countless other cookie recipes that use oatmeal. These cookies gave me everything I wanted.
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.
Conversely, if there aren’t enough oats used, I find myself wanting more texture and more chewiness.
They’re 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.
Conversely, 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.
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
- Granulated sugar
- Vanilla extract
- Old-fashioned oats
- All-purpose flour
- Cinnamon
- Nutmeg
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Butterscotch chips
How to Make Oatmeal Scotchies
Cream together the egg, butter, sugars, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Stop, scape down the sides of the bowl, and add the oats, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and salt. Beat to just incorporate.
Add the butterscotch chips in last and gently mix to combine.
Using a cookie scoop or your hands, form the cookie dough balls. I made 20 medium-sized cookies and suggest using a cookie scoop so they’re all uniform.
Place cookie dough balls on a plate and chill for at least 2 hours.
Before baking, flatten each mound slightly with the heel of your hand so they cook through evenly.
Pull them from the oven at the 9 to 10 minute mark. They’ll look quite under-done and glossy, but these cookies in particular firm up dramatically while cooling on the trays. Don’t wait until the tops look done to pull them because they’ll set up far too firm and crunchy, and the bottoms will get much too dark.
And then they won’t be Soft and Chewy. They’ll be Crunchy and Crispy, which isn’t my thing.
Do I Have to Chill the Dough?
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, up to 5 days. Bake as many mounds as you want at one time, and keep the remaining dough in the fridge.
Can I Use Quick Oats?
No, quick oats are more finely ground that old-fashioned oats and will make your oatmeal scotchies dry.
How to Store Oatmeal Scotchies
Store cookies airtight at room temperature for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Alternatively, 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.
Tips for Making Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies
Make sure to add a little salt to the cookie dough. It won’t make the oatmeal butterscotch chip cookies taste salty, it just enhances the overall flavor and balances out all the sugar.
When measuring the butterscotch chips, I measured 1 heaping cup. Don’t be skimpy on the butterscotch!
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.
Enjoy!
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Soft and Chewy Oatmeal Scotchies Cookies
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!!
I’m making these today for a softball tournament tomorrow. I’m not playing, just watching and cheering.
I really appreciate that so many of your cookie recipes can be frozen for future use. It makes homemade cookies so quick and easy!
Almost every single cookie recipe can be frozen in dough ball form, then baked later. I have some dough balls in my freezer from 6 months ago. They’re still perfectly fine when I bake them :)
These were also a hit! I made them with chocolate chips instead of butterscotch (thought I had butterscotch, turns out not!) and the guys LOVED them.
Thank you for helping me bring smiles to other people!
Thank you for helping me bring smiles to other people! <--- I could say the same to you! Love when my recipes are a success and people love them and everyone is smiling! Good call on just rolling with the choc chips, too :)
These cookies look and sound amazing! Have you ever tried using vanilla beans in this recipe? I have some vanilla beans that I need to use and I’ve been craving oatmeal butterscotch cookies! I can’t wait to try these!
You can almost always use the scrapings of vanilla beans rather than vanilla. I’m sure they’d be great.
Or try this! https://www.averiecooks.com/homemade-vanilla-extract/
These are seriously amazing. The only thing I did differently was add a tbsp. of milk to make them stay soft and chewy for days, but other than that I followed your recipe and they turned out phenomenally. Thank you so much, my nephew doesn’t like any cookies but butterscotch chip for some reason and I don’t like most recipes, and am glad to have found one that I like as much as he does! And my dad is going nuts on them, too! Snuck 6 right off the pan before the second pan was done cooking lol Thanks again!
Sounds like they were a big hit with everyone and that’s wonderful! And 6 right off the pan sounds like a good day to me :)
Holy freaken cow these are the best oatmeal cookies I’ve had in a LONG time. I am so thankful to pintrest for showing me this wonderful baker (and cookies!!!)
Thank you, Emily. Glad you love my recipes and that you’re so pleased with these cookies!
I just discovered your blog and I am really enjoying it (diet next week, right?) I love making cookie dough and freezing it so it can be baked in smaller portions, as needed. Would it work to freeze the cookie balls for this recipe. Would freezing the dough work for most recipes? Thanks!
Yes freezing most any raw cookie dough for 3 to 6 months works just fine!
These look yum! Do you absolutely HAVE to use the rolled oats? I have EVERYTHING on the ingredients list except the oats – I only have instant in the house! We have an impending snowstorm arriving on our doorstep tomorrow morning so a trip to the store is not happening, but the idea of being snowed-in has me feeling the urge to bake.
Quick oats are finer ground and therefore behave more like flour and so it’s more like adding flour to the dough, not oats. You can try it but you will likely need to adjust the amount of flour used. Lmk how it goes!
I gave it a go. Reduced the flour from 3/4 to 1/2 cup. They were tasty, but they spread and flattened (and I did chill them, per directions). I think just swapping out the rolled for instant oats would have worked fine and reducing the flour wasn’t necessary. I know rolled oats are better, less processed, and if I’d had them, I would have used them! Flat or not, they’re not going to last long, lol.
Glad they turned out tasty for you! I think it’s one of those things you just have to sort of eyeball your dough in the mixing bowl and make a game time decision as to what to do if you play around with the type of oats but now you know for next time :) And sounds like they won’t last long :)
Hi Averie’. I really enjoy your blog!
Last night I posted a page called ‘Sharing Recipes from Some of My Favorite Bloggers. And I chose this wonderful cookie recipe as one of my featured recipes. I included one of your photos – along with a link to this page.
To me, recipe blogs are all about ‘sharing’ – and I wanted to share your ‘Soft and Chewy Oatmeal Scotchies’ because I used to love, love, love them when I was young, And, like you, I haven’t eaten (or made them) in years!
I got the pingback & thanks for the linkup!
Oh my goodness, Averie, the whole family was raving about these cookies at our Christmas dinner last night. First, the smell was savored before even biting into a cookie! Then the texture, the vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg combo, the chewiness…! They are my favorite new recipe! Never baked with butterscotch before, but I’m glad that you’ve introduced me to it. Happy Christmas!
Thank you for trying them and so glad the whole family was raving! That’s a great feeling when you’re the baker and you’ve impressed everyone – so congrats! Thanks for LMK they’re you’re new faves and welcome to butterscotch. Awesome, isn’t it!
I made these cookies and they turned out great! My kids loved them, too. Great change up from the standard chocolate chip, oatmeal, and sugar cookies! Thanks so much.
So glad they were a hit with you and the kids! Thanks for LMK & trying the recipe!