Santa’s Christmas Trash Cookies

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Santa’s Christmas Trash Cookies are everything!  These cookies pretty much have everything you could ever want in Christmas cookies and more!  Which is why they are called ‘trash’ or ‘kitchen sink’ cookies.

Santa also loves these Red Velvet Santa Cookies, Best Soft Sour Cream Cookies, 1 Dough – 3 Kinds of Chocolate Cookies for the Holidays, Santa’s Reindeer Chow and these Holiday Cranberry White Chocolate Blondies!

Why You’ll Love These Santa’s Christmas Trash Cookies

Trash never tasted so good!  A sweet and salty cookie recipe is a perfect match and always has you coming back for more. Have you noticed?

Imagine biting into soft, chewy cookies smooshed with loads of mini white and chocolate Reese cups, white and chocolate chips, pretzels, potato chips, sea salt and festive sprinkles!

Seriously, you get the best of both worlds with epic sweet and salty yumminess in these holiday ‘junk food’ cookies!

No chill time! These are quick and easy to make and come together in under 30 minutes!

Santa would be proud of these Christmas trash cookies and will be rushing down the chimney to get to these and how about these Ultimate Trash Brownies?  Can’t you just see it?  So fun to celebrate with all the colorful candies and sprinkles galore!

Ingredients You Need

Santa’s Trash Cookies Recipe

• unsalted butter, room temperature
• granulated sugar
• brown sugar
• egg
• all-purpose flour
• baking soda 
• salt
• crushed potato chips
• crushed pretzels
• mini white chocolate Reese cups
• mini chocolate Reese cups
• milk chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips or semi-sweet chocolate chips
• m&m’s, I used red, green and blue
• white chocolate chips
• sprinkles of choice
• optional: sprinkles of flaky sea salt for tops of cookies

Instructions How to Make Christmas Trash Cookies 

1. Preheat oven to 350º and line two baking cookie sheets with parchment.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt until combined, set aside.
3. Using a mixer on, in a large bowl cream together butter and sugars for 1-3 minutes on medium speed until light and fluffy. Once the mixture turns pale yellow in color and has a light and fluffy texture, you’re done. Do not over-cream mixture.
4. Beat in egg until combined.
5. Add dry ingredients to wet and mix until together until combined. (Dough will be very thick.)
6. Add in potato chips, pretzels, m&m’s, reese cups, chocolate chips, and sprinkles and mix together.
7. Using a medium sized cookie scoop, scoop cookie dough onto parchment paper and slightly press them down onto baking sheets and sprinkle with sea salt. Add additional pretzels, chips, candies and sprinkles to tops of cookies for decorative touches. If you want the cookies thick, don’t press down as much, you can control how thick you want them. Sprinkle with some sea salt if you wish.
8. Can also chill dough until ready to use, scoop the dough balls and store them in fridge until ready to bake.
9. Bake until edges are just starting to get golden, 7 to 8 minutes.
10. Remove from oven and let cool 2 to 3 minutes, then transfer to cooling rack to cool completely.

Adding sea salt really takes these to another level.  Just a light sprinkle is all you need.  It magically enhances the sugar flavor in the cookies and we can’t get enough of it!

Sweet & Salty Combos for our Christmas Trash Cookies!

The possibilities of adding in whatever you might have in your kitchen cupboards as far as the add-ins, you can literally go bonkers!

• Sweet Factor: As an example, if you’re more into caramel instead of peanut butter with the with the sweet and salty factor, you could add in Rolos instead of peanut butter cups.
• Salty Factor: If you want to switch out the potato chips with roasted peanuts, salted pistachios or almonds, go all out and customize these cookies to your heart’s content! ‘Tis the season, after all!  The more the merrier!

How to Keep Pretzels Crunchy in Cookies?

• The trick to keeping pretzels crunchy in cookies is to add them to the dough just before baking. This prevents the moisture from the eggs and other liquid ingredients from soaking into the pretzels.

Ways to Customize these Trashy Cookies with Candies and Sprinkles for Other Holidays  

• Easter – switch out to pastel colors.
• Valentine’s Day – switch out to red and pink colors.
• Halloween – switch out to orange, yellow and brown colors.
• Thanksgiving – switch out to fall colors…Get my drift?  Yea…I got you! 

Storing Trash Cookies

• Room Temperature/Refrigerator – Store in an airtight container for up to 1-2 weeks or in the fridge for up to 2 to 3 weeks.
• Freezer friendly – These cookies will keep for up to 3 months. To freeze baked cookies, place the cooled cookies in an freezer bag or air-tight container and freeze for up to 3 months.

Santa’s Christmas Trash Cookies have been a holiday tradition for generations of children – and a unique way to use up leftovers!

These amped up chocolate chip cookies contain a few simple ingredients like flour, sugar, and butter to form a delectable combination of Christmas in each cookie.

Whether it’s the taste or the creative spirit that’s behind them, Santa’s Christmas Trash Cookies are a sweet way to remember this special time of the year.

So why not gather up the family, raid the pantry, and get baking this holiday season? Christmas is a time of togetherness, and there’s no better way to celebrate than by taking part in this timeless tradition.

For more holiday cookies, check out my cookie page…you’ll find tons!

Share on Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook!

Favorite Cookies You Keep Coming Back For!

• Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Best-Ever White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
• Christmas Cowboy Cookies
• Soft Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies! Pure Nirvana!
• Ultimate Chocolate Cookies
• “Phenomenal” Milk Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies
• Grinch Sugar Cookies
• Christmas Tree Pull Apart Cupcakes Cake
• Easy Melted Snowman Cookies

Santa’s Christmas Trash Cookies

Kim Lange

These cookies pretty much cover everything you could ever want in cookies and more, which is why they are called ‘trash’ cookies. Imagine soft, chewy cookies smooshed with loads of mini white and chocolate reese cups, white and chocolate chips, pretzels, potato chips, sea salt and festive sprinkles! Trash never tasted so good!

4.67 from 139 votes

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 7 minutes mins

Course Dessert

Servings 16 Cookies

Calories

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• 14 tablespoons unsalted butter room temperature
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• ½ cup brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda make sure it's not expired
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ⅓ cup crushed potato chips
• ⅓ cup crushed pretzels
• ½ cup mini white chocolate reese cups
• ½ cup mini chocolate reese cups
• ⅓ cup milk or semi-sweet chocolate chips
• ½ cup m&m's I used red, green and blue
• ⅓ cup white chocolate chips
• ¼ cup sprinkles of choice
• Sprinkles of flaky sea salt for tops of cookies

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 350º and line two baking sheets with parchment.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt until combined, set aside.
• Using a mixer on, in a large bowl cream together butter and sugars for 1-3 minutes on medium speed until light and fluffy. Once the mixture turns pale yellow in color and has a light and fluffy texture, you’re done. Do not over-cream mixture.
• Beat in egg until combined.
• Add dry ingredients to wet and mix until together until combined. (Dough will be very thick.)
• Add in potato chips, pretzels, m&m's reese cups, chocolate chips, and sprinkles and mix together.
• Using a medium sized scoop, scoop onto parchment paper and slightly press them down onto baking sheets and sprinkle with sea salt. Add additional pretzels, chips, candies and sprinkles to tops of cookies for decorative touches. If you want the cookies thick, don't press down as much, you can control how thick you want them. Sprinkle with some sea salt if you wish.

  Can also chill dough until ready to use, scoop the dough balls and store them in fridge until ready to bake.
• Bake until edges are just starting to get golden, 7 to 8 minutes.
• Remove from oven and let cool 2 to 3 minutes, then transfer to cooling rack to cool completely.

Notes

Can add more potato or pretzels (up to 2/3 cup of each, if you wish for more saltiness)

Feel free to modify any candies with whatever candies you wish.

Add some vanilla extract if you wish.

Keyword christmas, cookies, M&Ms, potato chips, pretzels

Tried This Recipe?Let us know how it was by commenting below!

Recipe slightly modified from Delish