If your family is anything like mine, everyone has their fav cookie. My husband’s —  hands down his mom’s sugar cookie recipe. These lemon drops are my son’s favorite. My oldest daughter counts on these coconut macaroons at Christmas and my youngest – she loves a good Snickerdoodle (got a good recipe? I’d love to try it!). And me – I love oatmeal chocolate chip cookies – but I like them chock full of stuff. Enter this everything but the kitchen sink oatmeal cookie. 

This oatmeal cookie has as much of the good stuff as you can handle adding. All while being not “too oatmealy” or too much like a chocolate chip cookie. 

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What’s a kitchen sink cookie?

A kitchen sink cookie is one that you goes you can put everything in it but the kitchen sink. Certainly, I’ve dated myself by calling it that.  And to quote The Holiday, “I like corny.”

So the cookie (because that’s why you’re here)…

It’s got all the usual cookie ingredients like butter, sugar (two kinds), flour and such. But it benefits from a few extras:

• oatmeal
• peanut butter
• cinnamon
• mix-ins like chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, dark cherries, coconut, toasted pecans or walnuts, hazelnuts, chopped candy bars – the combos are only limited by your Willy Wonka imagination.

The different types of oats

Saunter down the cereal aisle and be prepared to be overcome with the oatmeal possibilities. For this ultimate oatmeal cookie recipe, you are looking for “old fashioned oats”. 

Brush past any container called “quick cooking oats” or “steel cut oats”. Now is not the time to save time or get too fancy. We are making an old fashioned oatmeal cookie that happens to have a tich of fancy.

Old fashioned oats (or rolled oats) take a little longer to cook (about 30 minutes) but it’s the chewy texture and nutty flavor they offer that help distinguish this cookie. Old fashioned oats are larger in size than a quick or instant oat and that is what we’re after. 

Step-by-step instructions

• Figure out the mix-ins you want to add. You’re going to need about 2 ½ cups of whatever you want to put in. I usually do upwards of 3 with chocolate being on the heavier side (1 ½ cups) and the rest between nuts and something else.
• Gather up all your ingredients together. Have those room temperature butter and eggs ready to go and your non-sugar dry ingredients incorporated in a bowl.

1. Cream the butter (1).
2. Mix up the butter and sugars together (2) with either a stand or hand mixer – until they’re all nice and friendly. I like using the paddle attachment if you’re using a stand mixer.
3. Introduce your eggs to the sugar/butter combo and mix until incorporated (3).

1. .Mix in the dry ingredients like the oatmeal and flour and baking powder/soda until blended.
2. Add in the mixins. If 2 ½ cups looks a little stingy, add some more. You’re can’t mess these beauties up!
3. Scoop out a healthy tablespoon of dough onto either a parchment lined baking sheet. Because why make a mess! No parchment? Use a cooking spray to help release the cookies after baking as I did here. Btw – this is the best cookie scooper in the world.
4. Bake until golden and slightly undercooked.

Also feel free to press some extra ingredients on top. Plus, it looks pretty.