If you’ve ever hosted a cookie exchange, you know the problem: six dozen cookies, one oven, and a kitchen that hits 85 degrees by noon. The air fryer fixes that. It preheats in 3 minutes, bakes a tray of cookies in 6 to 8, and leaves the oven free for the ham.
These 12 air fryer Christmas cookies are the ones I make every December. Some are classics you’d expect on a holiday tray, like Mexican wedding cookies and Italian butter cookies. Some are copycats people lose their minds over, like Girl Scout Tagalongs and Publix sugar cookies. And a few are just fun, like s’mores cookie cups and a peanut butter pizzookie you eat with spoons.
Every one of them bakes in a basket or oven-style air fryer, and most are done in under 20 minutes start to finish. I’ve grouped them by type, with a note on which ones travel well for gifting and which are best eaten the day you make them.
Air Fryer Cookie Tips Before You Start
- Use parchment with holes, or cut your own. Solid parchment blocks airflow and the bottoms stay pale. Perforated air fryer liners or a sheet with a few slits work best.
- Bake in small batches. Four to six cookies per basket, with an inch between them. Crowding means uneven browning.
- Drop the temperature 25 degrees from the oven recipe. Air fryers run hot and the fan speeds browning. Most cookies bake at 325°F instead of 350°F.
- Chill the dough. Cold dough spreads less under the fan. Ten minutes in the freezer while the air fryer preheats is enough.
- Weigh the basket down. If your parchment lifts, the fan will blow it into the heating element. A few dough balls on each corner hold it flat.
- Pull them early. Cookies keep cooking on the hot basket for a minute after you turn it off. Take them out when the edges are set and the centers look slightly underdone.
- Cool on a rack, not in the basket. The basket holds heat and the bottoms will over-brown.
Classic Christmas Cookies
The ones everyone expects to see on the tray. All four of these ship and store well, so they’re the backbone of a gift box.
1. Air Fryer Mexican Wedding Cookies Buttery pecan shortbread rolled twice in powdered sugar. Also called polvorones or snowball cookies, and they’re on every cookie exchange table for a reason. They keep for two weeks in a tin and look like little snowballs in a gift box.
2. Easy Air Fryer Italian Butter Cookies The bakery-style piped cookies with a rich, crumbly texture, dipped in chocolate and rolled in sprinkles. Pipe them into rosettes or fingers, bake 8 minutes, and dip. These are the ones that make a cookie box look professional.
3. Air Fryer Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies Soft and chewy with tart dried cranberries and sweet white chocolate. The red and white looks right on a holiday platter, and the dough freezes so you can bake a few at a time all month.
4. Air Fryer Double Chocolate Chip Cookies Rich, fudgy chocolate cookies loaded with chocolate chips. Crisp edges, soft centers, done in 8 minutes. Every cookie tray needs one all-chocolate option, and this is it.
Copycat and Crowd-Pleaser Cookies
These are the ones people ask about. Bring one of these to an exchange and you’ll be sending the recipe link all week.
5. Copycat Publix Sugar Cookies The thick, soft, sprinkle-covered sugar cookies from the Publix bakery case. Swap in red and green sprinkles and they’re Christmas cookies. They stay soft for days, which makes them one of the best cookies on this list for shipping.
6. Air Fryer Girl Scout Tagalongs Shortbread, a thick layer of peanut butter, and a chocolate coating. Cookie season is months away in December, so a homemade box of these is a gift people don’t expect. Keep them chilled until you hand them over.
7. Taylor Swift’s Chai Sugar Cookies (Taylor’s Version) Soft sugar cookies spiced with the contents of a chai tea bag and glazed with cinnamon eggnog icing. The recipe Taylor shared years ago, adapted for the air fryer. If there’s a Swiftie on your list, this is their cookie.
8. Air Fryer Banana Bread Cookies Four ingredients: bananas, oats, peanut butter, chocolate chips. The healthiest cookie on the list and the one kids will help make. Good for the morning-after-the-party breakfast, too. Best within three days, so bake these close to gifting day.
Bars, Cups, and One Pan Dulce
Not technically cookies, but they belong on the tray. Bars cut into neat squares and pack tighter in a box than round cookies do.
9. Air Fryer Maple Pecan Bars Buttery shortbread crust with a gooey maple pecan topping. Pecan pie flavor in a bar you can eat with your hands. Cut small; they’re rich. These keep a week and travel well with parchment between the layers.
10. Air Fryer S’mores Cookie Cups Graham cracker cookie cups filled with chocolate and topped with a toasted marshmallow. Twenty minutes in a silicone muffin pan. These are a party cookie, not a shipping cookie: make them the day of and serve slightly warm.
11. Easy Air Fryer Peanut Butter Pizzookie One giant peanut butter cookie baked in a skillet, with crispy edges and a gooey middle, topped with ice cream. Not a gift cookie. This is what you make for the family on Christmas Eve after the cookie boxes are out the door.
12. Air Fryer Conchas Mexican sweet bread with a crackly sugar shell. Conchas are a Christmas morning tradition in a lot of households, served with hot chocolate or café de olla. Make the dough the night before, shape and bake while the coffee brews.
How to Package Air Fryer Cookies for Gifting
Pick cookies that travel. From this list, the best shippers are Mexican wedding cookies, Italian butter cookies, Publix sugar cookies, cranberry white chocolate cookies, double chocolate chip cookies, and maple pecan bars. Tagalongs ship fine if the weather is cold. Skip the s’mores cups, pizzookie, banana bread cookies, and conchas for anything that goes in the mail.
Cool completely first. Warm cookies steam inside a sealed container and go soft. Give them an hour on the rack.
Separate soft and crisp. Soft cookies (sugar cookies, cranberry) will turn crisp cookies (Italian butter, wedding cookies) soft overnight. Use separate tins or a sheet of parchment between layers.
Pack tight. Cookies that slide break. Fill gaps with crumpled parchment or a few extra cookies.
A mixed dozen that works: 3 Mexican wedding cookies, 3 Italian butter cookies, 3 Publix sugar cookies with red and green sprinkles, and 3 maple pecan bars. Two soft, two crisp, one chocolate-dipped, one bar. It looks like a bakery box and every piece holds for a week.
For a cookie exchange, bring the Tagalongs or the Publix sugar cookies. Those are the two people photograph.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you really bake cookies in an air fryer? Yes. An air fryer is a small convection oven. Cookies bake faster and brown more evenly than in a regular oven, as long as you drop the temperature about 25 degrees and bake in small batches.
How many cookies fit in an air fryer at once? Four to six in a standard 5- to 6-quart basket, eight to ten in an oven-style air fryer. A dozen cookies takes two or three batches, about 20 minutes total.
Do I need special parchment for the air fryer? Perforated air fryer liners work best because they let air circulate under the cookies. Regular parchment works if you cut a few slits in it and weigh the corners down with dough.
Can I make these ahead for a cookie exchange? Most of them. Bake the wedding cookies, butter cookies, sugar cookies, cranberry cookies, chocolate cookies, and pecan bars up to a week ahead and store airtight. Freeze the dough for any of the drop cookies up to 3 months and bake from frozen, adding 2 minutes.
Which of these cookies are best for shipping? Mexican wedding cookies, Italian butter cookies, Publix sugar cookies, and maple pecan bars. They’re sturdy and hold for a week or more.
What temperature do you bake cookies at in the air fryer? Most cookies bake at 320°F to 325°F for 6 to 9 minutes. Each recipe above has its own time and temperature; follow the individual post.
Looking for more? See all air fryer dessert recipes and copycat recipes on Fork to Spoon.
