Gluten-free Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies

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Gluten-free Oatmeal Butterscotch cookies are the best oatmeal cookies with butterscotch chips! They’re a little crunchy, a little chewy, and the butterscotch chips provide the perfect sweetness! Another name for these yummy cookies is oatmeal scotchies!

I’ve been making these gluten-free butterscotch oatmeal cookies for many years. These are my husband’s favorite cookies of all time! My oldest son would say the same and he requests them for his birthday every year!

A while back my oldest was sharing about my blog with some friends, and he tried to find this gluten-free oatmeal butterscotch cookie recipe to show his friends, and then told me he couldn’t find it on my website. I told him it’s because I still hadn’t shared it! He was shocked since I’ve made these cookies dozens of times over the years and told me I should get them up soon!

So here I am finally sharing these gluten-free oatmeal scotchies with you!

Notes on Ingredients for these Gluten-free Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies:

• Oats: As always, I recommend you use only certified gluten-free oats, and further recommend they are oats grown with purity protocol standards as they are the safest for those of us with celiac. My go to is always Gluten Free Harvest rolled oats (also available as organic) but there are other brands too. You can see this list of gluten-free oats from my Gluten Free Watchdog for more info on purity protocol oats. 
• Butterscotch Chips: Many brands make butterscotch chips labeled gluten-free. Just double check ingredients for malt, as at least one brand was including malt in their butterscotch chips in the past. I always use Guittard butterscotch chips which I buy at my local Winco stores or via Amazon here.
• Butter: I don’t recommend substituting the butter. It gives the best flavor in these cookies! You will melt the butter completely for this recipe, not just soften it.

These cookies could be made dairy-free EXCEPT that I haven’t found any GOOD dairy-free butterscotch chips. There is one brand available on Amazon, but they do NOT taste like butterscotch chips so I don’t recommend them.

If you need to bake dairy-free cookies, I would instead recommend you make these gluten-free oatmeal chocolate chip cookies which are dairy-free too. 

How to make oatmeal butterscotch cookies:

Start by melting the butter. I usually do this in a microwaveable bowl, microwaving in 30 second increments. Be sure to cover with a paper towel or it tends to splatter butter all over the microwave.

To your mixing bowl, pour in the melted butter, then add brown sugar, sugar, egg, and pure vanilla extract and mix. I use my stand mixer for this, on medium speed for one minute to mix well.

Add the baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and gluten-free all-purpose flour blend. Mix on low just until mixed.

Stir in the oats and the butterscotch chips. You can do this by hand or with mixer on low. 

Line your cookie baking sheets with parchment paper – this helps the cookies not stick and also bake evenly. 

Decide whether you want medium or large sized cookies. For large cookies, grab a #20 cookie scoop and use it to scoop 8-9 cookies per sheet. Each cookie dough ball scooped with this size scoop will be 3 Tablespoons sized and weigh about 2 ounces if you prefer to weigh. You’ll get about 22 large cookies doing it this way.

For medium cookies, grab a medium cookie scoop (#40) to scoop your cookie dough balls. They will be 1 1/2 Tablespoon sized cookie balls that weigh about 1 ounce. You’ll get about 30 medium cookies doing it this way.

Bake in a preheated oven set to 375 degrees. Large cookies bake for about 13 minutes. Medium cookies baked for about 8-9 minutes.

These will be crunchier and drier the longer they bake, so error on the side of underdone.

When they’re done baking, remove from oven and place on cooling racks to cool completely.

If you need to use the same cookie sheets for next batch, allow the sheets to cool before using again or the cookies will spread more on the hot sheet.

I will usually reuse a parchment sheet once, but after that I toss and use a new one.

Any cookies not eaten on day one are best stored in an airtight container or sealed Ziploc bags.

You can also freeze the baked cookies to defrost and enjoy later! I used to place a few frozen cookies in my husband’s lunch in the morning and they’d be perfect by lunchtime.

I’m not sure the actual origins of oatmeal scotchies recipes as they are truly everywhere now.

I was first introduced to these cookies about 20+ years ago when I was in college. I was working at a guest ranch in Montana (yes, a la City Slickers) and we had a fabulous baker there named Pam. She baked all the best cookies, but I fell in love with these oatmeal butterscotch cookies she made. I had zero self-control when she would make these and put them out for lunch!

I was lucky enough to get her recipe at the end of the summer and enjoyed making them for many years.  Pam’s recipe was my tried and true oatmeal butterscotch cookie recipe for many years, but once I was diagnosed celiac and had to convert everything to gluten-free, I found this was one of my recipes that just didn’t convert well straight away.

Trying to make these oatmeal butterscotch cookies gluten-free proved very challenging! Many batches and tweaks later, I finally nailed it. My notes say that it was try #10 before I finally felt these were perfect! 

I hope you and your family or friends enjoy these gluten-free oatmeal butterscotch cookies as much as we do! 

If you love butterscotch flavor, then be sure to try some of the other recipes I have that use butterscotch chips. My gluten-free Scotcharoos are one of my most popular recipes and always eaten quickly wherever I bring them.

I also make these gluten-free butterscotch rice crispy treats all the time. I love no bake treats like both of these!

If you make these oatmeal butterscotch cookies and love them, please come back and give this recipe a 5 star rating in the recipe card! Feel free to comment with tips or to share any successful substitutions you made.

Gluten-free Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookie Recipe:

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