Lemon Rosemary Olive Oil Cookies
Bursting with bright citrus flavor and a subtle hint of fresh rosemary, these delicious olive oil cookies are fluffy and soft, with a cake-like texture. They’re perfect any time of year, but they make an especially good treat during the spring and summer when fresh herbs are at their best.
Why you’ll love these cookies
If you love a good lemon dessert, these cookies should be right up your alley. They’re made with lemon olive oil (although, you could easily use a basic olive oil and add some extra lemon flavor through extract), and the rosemary plays so well with the citrus notes.
They’re not like my usual drop cookies. Instead, these little cookies are soft, pillowy balls with an almost cake-like texture. Making them a fun and unique treat. They work really well in the summer, but they are satisfying year round, especially when citrus is in season during the winter.
If you like this recipe, you have to try my lemon curd cookies, lemon butter cookies (don’t worry they’re still dairy free!), or lemon poppyseed cake. And, if you love a savory lemon recipe, try my lemon rosemary chicken, lemon ginger chicken soup, or honey lemon pepper wings.
Ingredients & substitutions
- Lemon olive oil – If you don’t have lemon olive oil, you can add 1 teaspoon lemon extract to your cookie dough.
- All-purpose flour – I haven’t tested this recipe with any other types of flour. I wouldn’t recommend changing this unless you are an experienced baker.
- Eggs – I have also not tried this recipe with egg replacements, so I cannot guarantee their results.
- Rosemary – If you want to leave this out or try a different herb, that should work just fine.
- Sugar – Sugar is an important ingredient in baking. It does more than just add sweetness. Sugar adds moisture and contributes to the spread of the cookies, so I don’t recommend changing the amount or type of sugar in this recipe.
Making changes to a recipe can result in recipe failure. Any substitutions listed below are simple changes that I believe will work in this recipe, but results are not guaranteed.
The following is a detailed overview of the recipe steps with added tips and tricks for recipe success. For a simplified and printable version, including ingredient amounts and more formal instructions, see the recipe card below.
How to make this keyword
Mise en place. Preheat your oven to 350˚F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Then, gather and measure all of your ingredients.
Mix the dry ingredients. In a small mixing bowl, whisk the flour with baking powder, baking soda and salt until evenly combined. Set aside for later.
Mix the wet ingredients. Then, beat the olive oil, sugar, lemon zest and rosemary together with an electric mixer (you can use a hand mixer or stand mixer), until smooth and evenly combined. Then, add the lemon/vanilla extract and then eggs, one at a time.
Mix it all together. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet ones and mix until combined. Then, scoop and roll the cookies into 1 1/2 tablespoon-sized balls and place them on the baking sheet. Sprinkle the tops with sugar (you could also roll the cookies in sugar).
Bake the cookies. Pop your cookies into the oven for about 11 – 13 minutes, or until the cookies are set and no longer wiggly on top. Remove them from the oven and all them to cool on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup lemon olive oil (or good quality olive oil)
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest (2 teaspoons if using regular olive oil)
- 1/2 heaping teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350˚F (180˚C), and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
- In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat the sugar, olive oil, lemon zest and rosemary until smooth. Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract.
- Slowly add the dry ingredients. Beating until combined.
- Roll cookies into tablespoon-sized balls, placing them on the baking sheet about 1-inch apart. Sprinkle each cookie with a bit of sugar.
- Bake for 11 – 13 minutes. Remove from oven and allow the sheet to cool for a few minutes before transferring cookies to a cooling rack.
These look absolutely amazing! I have book club coming up next weekend and I may just have to make these 🙂 Thanks for the great recipe!
anchoredtosunshine.com
Thanks Amanda! I hope that you love them as much as I do! Enjoy your book club 🙂
Lemon and rosemary…you can’t go wrong with that combination. These look absolutely beautiful! That store sounds like so much fun. I could probably spend hours in there. I wonder if you can make your own lemon olive oil by adding a sliced lemon to a bottle of olive oil.
I would think th A lemon rind strips would work
Melissa, these cookies look AMAZING! I LOVE rosemary. And it’s so great that you used olive oil instead of butter. Seriously, I agree, butter just takes forever! Oh, and I also love rosemary.
Did I mention that I love rosemary?
Haha. I love rosemary so much too! I wish I could add it to everything!
These are so good! I just made a batch with my 9yo son and all my kids are gobbling them up. I would actually prefer a stronger Rosemary flavor… I wonder if infusing the oil with it would do the trick. Thanks so much for a wonderful out of the ordinary recipe! I’m looking forward to sharing with my diary-free friends 🙂
In fusing the oil would be a great idea! I’m glad you liked the recipe. If you do try infusing, I’d love to hear about it! 🙂
Very interesting, very tasty! I only had one (Extra large) egg. Which seem to work fine. And it went extremely quick.
They look very pretty!
I wonder what the texture of the dough is when you make this recipe. I have made it several times and it is pretty sticky. I spoon the dough onto the pan and the cookies taste great. But the recipe calls for rolling the dough into balls. Do you chill it first? Or do I just need to add flour?
Thanks!
I didn’t chill the dough. Sometimes things just don’t work the same way for so many reasons. I would try just adding about 1/4 cup of flour if you want to roll them, but you definitely don’t have to roll them. Rolling is more for looks anyway.
I’ve made these a couple of times and the dough was very sticky both times. Next time I’ll pipe them, rather than add more flour. They are absolutely delish! Thank you.
Wondering the same thing! Super sticky.
I loved these! Made them with the woman I am a caregiver for. I ended up making them a little bigger, with 1 tsp of vanilla extract and brown sugar. A total of 16 cookies were made and within 13 minutes, some of the best cookies I’ve ever had were made! Will be making these again!
I’ve churned these out a couple times! So good!
My first batch had the lemon and rosemary flavor in only some bites, so I wanted my second to have it evenly distributed in the cookie. I made rosemary-infused olive oil made with the instructions from Spruce Eats. Using only the infused olive oil was, unsurprisingly, way too strong, drowning out the 4t lemon peel (which I grated as small as possible to have that flavor more even as well), but I loved how much more evenly the flavor was distributed. The dough was very wet for me as well, but I squeezed it from a bag, almost like you would frosting when decorating a cake, and the texture still looked lovely. I’m loving experimenting with this recipe, but now I’m out of rosemary 🙁
These are some of the best cookies I’ve ever had in my life! And I even used dried rosemary! Will be making lots more. Thank you!
Was looking for a quick fix for my usual bedtime treat (white chocolate with lemon, olive oil, and sea salt) and ohhhh boy did these deliver. SO EASY!! Clean up was a breeze and they are delicious.
I think next time I might add a bit more lemon and try a stronger olive oil… hmm maybe with basil instead of rosemary… ohh or poppyseeds… or lavender!! So many options! I added a smidgen of sea salt to the sugar topping mix which was a lovely little pop of flavour.
5 stars from this late night sweet snacker.
These were delicious!! Used extra virgin cold-pressed olive oil and extra lemon zest, and rather than sugar on top I made a lemon glaze to bring out the lemony flavour.
They took a bit longer to bake only because I wasn’t sure about how big tablespoon size was. Overall I will definitely be making them again!
Love the simplicity of this recipe. I am new to baking cookies. I loaded up mine with lots of zest and rosemary. The cookies came out flavorful but a bit cake like. I used 2 extra large eggs – should I reduce to 1 if extra large? In addition, many of mine were giant in size and I baked for 11-12 mins, not wanting to dry it out. Should I increase bake time? How can I make these more cookie, less cakey?
I just made these, and everything about making them is true. However, I am about the rosemary. and I went easy on the amount added based on your description. I have a big fresh rosemary plant and could have used more, but I’m left with lemon cookies only and would be embarassed to present them as lemon-rosemary.
Recipe is tagged vegan but has eggs?
Sorry about that, it has been fixed! Thanks for pointing it out.
Wonderful recipe, one of my favorites. I always add a little extra zest and rosemary. Massaging the lemon zest and rosemary into the sugar before you add the oil helps distribute the flavor more evenly. I love these cookies.
I used egg substitute and they worked great. I use the equivalent of three eggs because it wasn’t coming together. It was pretty sticky so either drop them by spoonful or flower your hands well when you roll them into balls. The flavor was fantastic. A little more cakey than the ones my friend made with eggs. I don’t know what else the difference was.
These were very good but not fantastic, rather bland. IMO, they need a lot more lemon zest (maybe some lemon juice?) and more rosemary. I baked 1 batch with the sugar on top and 1 without it, and I feel that the extra sugar topping was unnecessary. In my convection oven, these needed 15 minutes. Next time I’ll trying adding cardamom, cinnamon, all spice… any warming spices.
These taste great but I can’t see how they can be rolled – they’re much to wet and sticky. Even using my smallest scoop they immediately spread on the sheet pan. I noticed that my 2nd batch had tightened up some, so maybe next time I’ll try refrigerating the batter for 15 minutes before I bake the cookies.
Tip – if you have the time, about 30 minutes before you make the batter try combining the minced rosemary and lemon zest w/the sugar and mix well. This seriously enhances the flavors. Even doing this right before measuring and mixing the ingredients helps.