Christmas sugar cookie bars are an easy way to make colorful Christmas sugar cookies with all the work. These buttery sugar cookie bars are thick and delicious topped with a sweet buttercream frosting and Christmas sprinkles.

three vanilla sugar cookie bars with red icing and Christmas sprinkles stacked on top of each other, with one with a bite out on the counter

They taste just like your favorite sugar cookie just in bar form. They are the easiest way to make sugar cookies. We love cut-out sugar cookies, but don’t always have time to bake and decorate a traditional sugar cookie. This easy recipe is a great alternative.

They’re perfect for the holiday season and would be great at cookie exchanges or pot lucks.

Decorate these Christmas Sugar Cookie Bars with silky smooth buttercream frosting that can be colored red or green and topped off with festive sprinkles.

Ingredients

For The Bars

2 sticks butter, melted
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 Tablespoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
Red, white, and green sprinkles

Buttercream Frosting

4 Tablespoons butter (1/2 stick), softened
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
3 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup milk or cream
Red gel food coloring

Instructions

four photos: mixing bowl with wet ingredients; bowl stirred together; thick batter in mixing bowl; batter in bottom of 9x13 dish lined with parchment paper

Preheat oven to 350
Melt 2 sticks of butter. While butter is cooling, prepare a 9×13 baking dish by lining it with parchment paper, leaving extra to hang over the sides of the dish.
Coat parchment with cooking spray
In medium sized mixing bowl, pour cooled, but not cold, melted butter into mixing bowl.
Mix in sugar, eggs, and vanilla.
Add flour and salt.
Mix until combined.
Pour mixture into prepared dish and spread into an even layer.
Bake until the edges are set, but the middle is soft, approximately 25 minutes. They will be golden brown.
Let cool. Pull bar out of pan by pulling on parchment, and flip onto large plate or cookie sheet.

four photos making buttercream: mixing bowl with butter and shortening: mixture mixed together; red food color added to frosting in bowl; red buttercream spread on top of sugar cookie bar

Frost cooled bar and top with sprinkles.
Cut into squares and serve.

Buttercream Frosting

In large mixing bowl, mix together vegetable shortening and butter. Mix until creamy.
Alternate adding one cup powder sugar, and a little of the milk until both are fully incorporated with the shortening/butter mixture.
Add vanilla and food coloring.
Mix until smooth. If frosting is too thick, add more milk, one Tablespoon at a time. If frosting is too thin, add more powder sugar, 1/4 cup at a time. Stir until desired consistency is reached.

Bar cookies are popular because they are so easy to make. No rolling or cutting out shapes. And, they are thick, give you more sugar cookie in every bite. You’ll want to try our other sugar cookie bar recipe.

While there’s no real difference in the ingredients used to make sugar cookies or sugar cookie bars, the main difference comes in with how you prepare the cookie dough.

In the case of sugar cookies, you have the option of cutting your dough into any shape you wish – which is great for themed parties. Sugar cookie bars, on the other hand, are just plain cookie bars.

The great thing about these Christmas sugar cookie bars is the fact that you get to skip a lot of the recipe prep that usually goes into rolling cookie dough into balls or rolling out the dough to cut them into shapes using cookie cutters. Simply spread the sugar cookie batter into a single parchment-lined pan, bake and you have your cookie bars.

Can I Use a Cream Cheese Frosting?

If you have a cream cheese frosting that you love, you can certainly. use it on these bars. Cream cheese frosting doesn’t crust like buttercream, however, so you’ll want to serve and eat them faster so the frosting doesn’t get too soft on top of the bars.

These Christmas sugar cookie bars can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week or in the refrigerator.

If you’d like to make your sugar cookie bars ahead of time then I recommend freezing the individual cookies without the buttercream frosting, leaving that for just prior to serving for best taste and texture. The unfrosted sugar cookie bars will freeze well for up to 2 months. Defrost overnight in the refrigerator or at room temperature.

Can I Use a Glass Pan to Bake These Cookies?

You could, although I don’t recommend it since glass baking dishes tend to heat unevenly which means greater risk of your cookie bars being uncooked in some spots.

A conventional baking pan (like one you’d make for brownies and blondies) is always going to be the best option when baking cookie bars.

bed frosted sugar cookie squares with red and green sprinkles

Tips and Alternatives

real butter – Make sure you use real butter. Margarine (or another non-dairy spread) is not the same as butter. Also, be sure to have the butter at room temperature. It helps to leave it out the night before you intend to bake your cookie bars so that it’s soft, easy to work with, and mixes well into the other ingredients for a smooth baked cookie bar. The same applies to your cream cheese when preparing the buttercream.
grease your hands – When pressing the dough into the pan, make sure that you have greased up your hands with a little butter. This will help keep the cookie dough in place while you work it into the pan instead of it sticking to you!
If you have leftover sugar cookie dough in the freezer (whether homemade or store-bought, feel free to use that instead of making your own from scratch. That will shave down a lot of this recipe time!
Another way to save yourself some time is to make your sugar cookie dough in advance and store it in the refrigerator or the freezer (wrapped tightly with plastic wrap) until ready to make a fresh batch of these cookie bars!
Experiment with colors – Decorate your sugar cookie bars with red or green colored frosting for a Christmas themed sugar cookie bar. You could even omit the food coloring altogether for a plain vanilla frosting, using various colored sprinkles to add some brightness to your treats!
favorite sprinkles – the options are endless with holiday sprinkles. Use your favorite.
M&Ms – at Christmas you can find red and green M&M packs. These would be fun on top of the buttercream frosting.
almond extract – if you like the flavor of almond in your buttercream, you can add a teaspoon to the frosting

This is the best sugar cookie bar recipe. We love that it’s versatile and can be made year-round for a variety of holidays.

These easy bar cookies can be made into any holiday sugar cookie bars by simply changing colors and sprinkles. Use heart sprinkles and turn these into a dessert for Valentine’s Day. These funfetti bars would be fun for a birthday.

You could make pink or blue ones for baby showers. Better yet, make pink AND blue and have the guests eat which one they think the gender of the baby is.