How to Freeze, Defrost & Bake Cookie Dough

Cookie dough freezes extremely well and is the perfect sweet treat to keep stashed in your freezer to instantly satisfy those sweet tooth cravings. This guide explains How to Freeze Cookie Dough in balls, as cut-outs, and in a whole container.

Whenever we make anything, we make extra and stash it in the freezer. Including stashing extra cookie dough in the freezer to use later.

For me, it is so much easier to make an extra large batch of cookie dough and keep them in the freezer for when we need them. Or want them. Need. Want.

It’s all pretty much the same thing when it involves a cookie fix, am I right?

Freezing Supplies You’ll Need

• Cookie Dough: have a batch of your favorite cookie dough ready to go!
• Cookie Scoop: I like to use a cookie scoop to make my cookie dough balls uniform in size, and it makes quick work of scooping and rolling all of the dough.
• Parchment Paper or Wax Paper: great for lining the pan so the cookie dough doesn’t stick.
• Cookie Sheet or Baking Tray: I flash freeze my cookie dough balls on a baking sheet before putting them in the freezer.
• Gallon Sized Ziploc bag or Air-tight Container: whatever you choose to use to store your frozen cookie dough in, make sure it is freezer-safe.
• Permanent Marker or Label Maker: useful for labeling the frozen cookie dough with the contents, recipe directions, and date.
• Rolling Pin and Cookie Cutters: only needed if you plan to make cut out cookies for your freezer.

How to Freeze Cookie Dough (3 Ways!)

Here are detailed instructions on how to freeze cookie dough balls and cut-outs, plus how to freeze an entire batch of cookie dough. The method will differ slightly depending on what types of cookie dough you’re freezing.

Option 1: Freezing Cookie Dough Balls

Any cookie recipes that have you shape the dough into balls is called a “drop cookie” recipe. This includes chocolate chip cookies, snickerdoodles, gingersnaps, peanut or almond butter cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, etc.

1. Prep: Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper (this prevents sticking). I like to use parchment paper to line the pan when freezing the cookies, so do that first. Then, roll the entire batch of cookie dough into balls just like you would if you were baking them. Place them on the parchment-lined sheet pan in a single layer.
2. Flash freeze: Cover the pan tightly with plastic wrap, then stick the pan in the freezer and freeze just until the cookie dough balls have hardened (about 1 hour).
3. Transfer to a freezer bag or container: Before filling the bag, label it with the recipe name, date, cooking temperature and time details. Transfer the hardened cookie dough balls to the freezer bag and freeze for later.
4. To bake: For best results, thaw the frozen dough balls just until the dough is pliable but not overly soft. This will allow your fresh-baked cookies to be normal shaped instead of domed because they didn’t spread enough.

Option 2: Freezing Cookie Dough Cut-Outs

You can do all the hard work of preparing the recipe, rolling the dough, and cutting the cookies out. Then, all that you have to do later is bake and enjoy!

Popular cut-out cookies you can freeze include certain types of sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies, shortbread cookies, linzer cookies, and more.

1. Roll out and cut: Follow the same instructions as above, but instead of rolling the cookie dough, pre-cut your batch of cookies.
2. Flash freeze before freezing: After you flash freeze the cookie dough on the parchment lined baking sheet, store the cookies in the same way as cookie dough balls.
3. To bake: The best way to bake cut out cookie dough cookies is if they’re slightly cold still. It’s typical in a cut out cookie recipe to chill the rolled dough and cut out shapes prior to baking them anyway. Baking from the chilled state, you’ll have nice edges because the cookies won’t spread, which in this case is a actually a bonus.

Option 3: Freezing a container of cookie dough

If you don’t want to go to the trouble of rolling the cookie dough balls or cutting out the cookie with cookie cutters before freeze, you can still freeze the cookie dough in bulk by shaping it into thin rectangle or disc.

1. Seal: Transfer the prepared cookie dough to a gallon sized zip-top freezer bag.
2. Flatten: Press the cookie dough flat so it fills out the gallon bag and is in a thin rectangular shape, rather than a big hunk of cookie dough.
3. Freeze: No need to flash freeze cookie dough when using this method!
4. To bake: Since you didn’t roll the cookie dough into balls, you’ll need to thaw it overnight in the fridge before shaping and baking as instructed in the recipe.

Katie’s Tip: Freezing the cookie dough in bulk takes longer to thaw, but if you flatten it to the shape of the bag it will thaw much faster. Why? Because the cookie dough is thinner and more surface area is exposed.

How Long Does Frozen Cookie Dough Last?

According to Bob’s Red Mill, frozen homemade cookie dough will last 6 to 12 months in the freezer. My family goes through frozen cookie dough much faster than that though, so I’ve never had to throw it out!

Can You Bake Cookie Dough Without Defrosting it First?

The answer is: Yes, sort of. Whether or not you can bake frozen cookie dough depends on the type of cookies.

Baking Frozen Cookie Dough balls

Drop cookies will be frozen in round balls and won’t achieve the necessary spread if you try baking frozen cookie dough. Here’s why:

• If you don’t thaw the cookies from their frozen state before baking, the baking time will be much longer since the cookie dough is so cold.
• With a longer baking time, the edges of the cookies could get dried out, over cooked, burnt, or just crunchy before the middle has a chance to finish baking.
• In addition that, the cookies won’t spread in their typical way and you can end up with unevenly baked cookies or odd shaped cookies.

Baking Frozen Cookie Dough Cut-Outs

When baking frozen cut out cookies, you won’t have the same concerns that you have with drop cookies.

They’re much thinner with a larger surface area than drop cookies, so they thaw much quicker when baked!