If you’ve got 15 minutes you can make Whole Grain Pie Crust Cookies! *Bonus* These Pie Crust Cookies are lower in sugar than regular sugar cookies.

It’s Healthy Kitchen Hacks Wednesday – the day we share our favorite time-saving kitchen tricks and cooking shortcuts to help you make healthy and delicious meals.

You can see all our Healthy Kitchen Hacks here. To get exclusive healthy kitchen hacks – only available to our email subscribers – sign up HERE.

Now…onto today’s featured Healthy Kitchen Hack:

EQUIPMENT NEEDED (affiliate links):
Baking sheet: Nordicware Baker’s Half Sheet Pan
Parchment paper:  If You Care FSC Parchment Baking Paper or Pre-Cut Parchment Paper Sheets

PIE CRUST COOKIES (VIDEO):

When I was growing up, my mom used to give my sisters and me her scraps of pie dough after she’d rolled out her pie crust. We used cookie cutters to shape the dough into cookies, sprinkled them with cinnamon-sugar, and baked them into sweet Pie Crust Cookies.

Now that I’m a mom, these easy, peasy cookies have ‘saved’ me many times since – anytime I need a quick batch of cookies. My kids can even make them start-to-finish. (And there’s no flour involved, so the mess is kept to a minimum!)

And yes, I use store-bought pie crust. Pillsbury is my favorite brand. Pie Crust Cookies are also lower in sugar and calories:

• 1 undecorated Pie Crust Cookie – About 60 calories and 0 grams sugar
• 1 undecorated regular sugar cookie – About 80 calories 5 grams sugar

Deanna makes her Pie Crust Cookies (pictured above) using this Whole Grain Pie Crust and decorates them with this heavenly homemade Vanilla Sugar. (We’ve updated this post since it was first published in 2014.)

How to Make Pie Crust Cookies

Here are the simple steps.

1.Unroll the refrigerated pie crust dough, no need to flour the counter. Cut out cookies using cookie cutters.

2. Just peel away dough and the cookies remain.

3. Place cookies on parchment paper-lined baking sheets. Decorate with colored sugar – this is the only added sugar – so sprinkle as lightly or as liberally as you please. Add dried cranberries, cinnamon imperials, or chocolate chips (as above) or other candies/dried fruits.

4. Bake just 8 minutes. Fill your cookie jar!  Got 15 minutes? Make Pie Crust Cookies. Just unroll pie crust for #lowersugar treats #HealthyKitchenHacks via @TspCurry @TspBasil Click To Tweet

Happy holiday baking! Here are a few more of our favorite Christmas cookies…..

ROSEMARY & THYME SHORTBREAD
CHERRY CHOCOLATE CHIP JUBILEE JUMBLES
LOW SUGAR GINGERBREAD COOKIES

Pie Crust Cookies

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• Author: Serena Ball
• Yield: about 2 dozen 1x

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Description

Last minute home-decorated cookies are only 15 minutes away. These have less sugar than regular sugar cookie cut-outs.

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Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 1 box (2 per package) refrigerator pie crust
• Toppings: dried cranberries, raisins, cinnamon imperials, chocolate chips, colored sugar, Vanilla Sugar

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Instructions

Let pie dough sit on the counter for 15 minutes to warm a bit after being in the refrigerator. This will help dough unroll smoothly. Meanwhile, line 2 rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper.

Unroll dough on (un-floured) counter. Using cookie cutters, cut out shapes. (No need to flour cookie cutters before cutting shapes.)

Place cookie shapes on prepared baking sheets. Top with toppings.

Bake in a 400° oven for 8 minutes, until edges just begin to turn golden.

Notes

Cookie shapes larger than about 4-inches, may take an extra minute to bake.