Five Steps to Sustainable Cookies

Cookies take over the world during the holidays. They’re in your Instagram feed, on your countertop, at your door, in your stocking, in your mouth and everywhere in between. In this post, I’ll tell you how to make your cookie baking, giving and storing more sustainable.

1. Mix dough Manually

Every cookie recipe calls for some type of mixing, but you should try to avoid the electric mixer if you can, especially if you go really hard on holiday cookie making. This won't save oodles of energy, but every little bit counts during the season of giant inflatable snowmen and lights that stay on for hours while everyone is sleeping. As a bonus, you'll get super toned arms. What's not to love?

2. Chill sans plastic

Some cookie recipes tell you to "wrap dough tightly in plastic wrap" before refrigerating or freezing it, but there's really no need to use plastic wrap here. Bees wrap will do the job just as well without the plastic waste.

Alternatively, you could use wax paper or a tea towel. These aren't as good for long term storage because your dough could dry out more easily, but if your dough only needs to chill out for a few hours, these will do just fine.

If you must, you could wrap your dough in plastic wrap and then reuse the plastic wrap a few times before throwing it out. This will get you more bang for your plastic buck.

3. Wait to Bake

If your house is anything like mine, Christmas cookies show up in unprecedented quantities every year and inevitably end up sitting on the countertop for a month before they're gone. Ideally, you would foresee this problem before popping your cookies in the oven and instead opt to freeze your dough to bake at a later time.

To freeze uncooked dough, roll your dough into balls, a log or a flat sheet (depending on whether you want drop cookies, slice-and-bake cookies or cut-out cookies). Then, wrap them in a tea towel or wax paper, pop them in a reusable container and store them in the freezer until you’re ready to bake. When the cookie mood strikes, defrost your dough and bake as you normally would. Easy peasy!

4. Give away extra cookies

If you didn't freeze your pre-baked dough and you've already over baked, don't let your cookies go to waste! First, give them away to everyone you know, especially people who might not be able to make cookies for themselves (think: the homeless person you pass on the streets, your grandma, your sick pal, etc.).

If you’ve pawned off a bunch of cookies and still have extras, you can freeze them. They won't be quite as flavorful in a few months as they are now, but marginal cookies are better than no cookies, people. To unfreeze the cookies, simply leave them at room temperature until they are your desired level of warmth.

5. Store Cookies sustainably

Whether you're giving cookies to the neighbors or keeping them all for yourself, don't put these pups in plastic bags. This might seem obvious for the aesthetic reasons, but rejecting single-use baggies is also the most sustainable choice.

Instead of using plastic bags, store your cookies in a tin or other reusable container. This way, you’ll finally have an excuse to use those bougie festive tins you see at holiday parties and all over your Insta. It’s truly a win-win.