Whole Grain Pie Crust Cookies
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.
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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! [bctt tweet="Got 15 minutes? Make Pie Crust Cookies. Just unroll pie crust for #lowersugar treats #HealthyKitchenHacks via @TspCurry @TspBasil" via="no"]
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
- Yield: about 2 dozen 1x
Description
Last minute home-decorated cookies are only 15 minutes away. These have less sugar than regular sugar cookie cut-outs.
Ingredients
- 1 box (2 per package) refrigerator pie crust
- Toppings: dried cranberries, raisins, cinnamon imperials, chocolate chips, colored sugar, Vanilla Sugar
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.
Deanna, So happy you enjoyed making the pie crust cookies! They are so easy it's almost embarrassing! 😉 But as a kid who has fond fond memories of my Grandma giving me cinnamon sugar dusted pie crust as a treat, it was too fun not to try! Happy to have found your blog, and hope to visit often!! Off to follow you on all of those fun social media outlets! ~Michaela
Likewise - so lovely to discover your blog via SRC and love hearing about the memories these cookies bring back to you 🙂 Off to check out those Chocolate Pudding Cookies -sounds yummy!
What a neat idea. I remember always make cinnamon "crisps" with leftover pie crust with my mom growing up. I'm going to have to try this 🙂
Cinnamon crisps have such a lovely ring to them 🙂
These look so fun! This would be great with the kids!
Yes, my daughter totally loved making them. (Which I'm realizing now I forgot to add her photo - think I'll do that right now!)
Love this! Brings back so many happy memories of making pie crust cookies with my mom with the scraps from her apple pie crusts. I decorated them with cinnamon and sugar. It was one of my earliest baking experiences and one that instilled a love of baking that remains today.
I love love hearing about people's baking & cooking memories - that's a wonderful one for sure 🙂 I remember my mom use to let me experiment with basic ingredients to make a cake which usually came out like a kind of tasteless shortcake but the memory is a happy one for sure.
What a fun idea!! My son would love these. 🙂
I love this idea!
Umm - and I'm drooling over those chocolate chai snickerdoodles you did 🙂
Great Cookie~ Happy Holidays~ Lynn @ Turnips 2 Tangerines
How cute! I bet they're delicious too! Happy Holidays!
How freaking cool is it that you did this? I am really humbled that you used my recipe, and so glad that it worked so well on these beauties! I will have to try it myself. "I’m not one of those dietitians that says skip the cookies and eat an apple instead." I want you to be my dietitian!
It's a great recipe, lady 🙂
Pie crust cookies?!?!?!?! Why have I never thought of doing this, *especially* since these remind me so much of a little treat my mom would make when we were growing up! She would cut pie crusts into strips and sprinkle cinnamon sugar on them, then bake them off. We loved it. These so remind me of that, I'll have to try it sometime!
I love that this recipe triggered so many fun memories of people's moms letting them do something similar when they were younger - so fun 🙂
Oh yum. I would eat all of these! Love that you made flavored sugar to top them!
Now this is the perfect last-minute-I-need-a-cookie recipe! Thanks for sharing. And making own sugar flavors - how fun and festive.
What a cool idea, and I love the photo of your sous chef! xoxo
Thanks Karen - I forgot to include that pic until later yesterday 🙂 BTW, totally digging the lime meltaways you made.
Hi Deanna - I was the lucky one who had your blog this month and I just loved your rosemary and thyme shortbread - thanks for the inspiration! 🙂
Aww, thanks - I'm so glad you liked that recipe - it's definitely one of my all time favorite cookie recipes to make! Loved your variation of it too 🙂
I always seem to have leftover pie crust after a baking session, and these are the perfect way to use it up! So fun.
Deanna! Always looking for shortcuts in cooking and this one is top on the list. Didn't realize about using refrigerator pie crust to make cookies. Great idea! My kids are all off on 'vacation' from school (for two weeks~ oh lala ) this Friday night, going to make these. Thanks ! Your daughter is beautiful, BTW 🙂 Happy Holidays.
I know - I never ever thought to use pie crust for cookies tho it looks like several people said they would do this with pie scraps with their moms when baking pies when they were growing up. So fun - enjoy and Joyeux Noel!!
Genius and delicious all rolled into one cookie 🙂 Really intrigued to experiment with flavored sugars!!
Wait, are you telling me all I have to do to make cookies for my Hanukkah party Sunday is buy pie dough and use my dreidel cookie cutters to cut it up? Why in the world have I been searching for sugar cookie recipes?! 😉
Heck yeah! And the girls will love making them just the same 🙂
How cute and easy! Loving the vanilla sugar. I need to utilize the vanilla bean more often. I too, will never say skip the cookies! It's all about the balance.
I have heard that store bought pie crust is one of the worst processed foods for you... so I LOVE to make my own! It's so easy! I use a food processor to cut in the butter which makes it especially simple. These cookies sound so yummy! I love the flavored sugars!!