Having diabetes can make the holiday season feel more frantic than festive, especially when searching for diabetic Christmas desserts that people actually want to eat. As a dietitian, let me let you in on a little secret: you can enjoy delicious, easy Christmas desserts and treats, even if you’re working hard to manage your blood sugars. While traditional desserts can lead to blood glucose spikes, these diabetic-friendly Christmas treats have all the flavor and fun you need, with a lot less sugar.
From apple desserts to peppermint cookies and eggnog mousse, these blood sugar-friendly sweets are the perfect sweet addition to your diabetic-friendly Christmas recipes. So you don’t have to sacrifice flavor for health, I’ve rounded up the best diabetic Christmas desserts that balance sweetness with nutrition, so you can feel good about your macros while joining in on the holiday fun.
Lavishly dusted in powdered sugar, buttery pecan-packed Mexican wedding cookies are synonymous with celebration. These melt-in-your-mouth cookies are equally beloved in regions around Mexico and the U.S., a staple at weddings, holiday parties and virtually any festive gathering. Texture-wise, the cookies are a lot like shortbread—crumbly rather than chewy, thanks to the fact these tasty treats are baked without eggs.
With their resemblance to snowballs, Mexican wedding cookies are just begging to be included in your Christmas cookie swap, but are delicious any time of year, boxed up as edible gifts or dunked into a cup of milky tea.
We’re counting down the top Christmas cookies—here’s one of them! To join the countdown and for more festive fun, sign up for our Holiday newsletter.
Why are they called Mexican wedding cookies?
Also called Mexican wedding cakes, these nutty, buttery delights are sometimes called Russian tea cakes and polvorones. Look across the world, and you’ll encounter similar cookie recipes: Pecan sandies, Italian wedding cookies, Greek kourabiedes and qurabiya, to name a few. Ingredients vary (more than anything, it’s the nuts used), and sometimes they’re round, while other versions, like this Mexican wedding cake cookie recipe, are crescent-shaped.
The precise origins of this sweet treat are lost to the mists of time. Many food historians believe these cookies have medieval Middle Eastern roots, with recipes spreading to new regions via trade routes across the centuries. They also think the recipe traveled to Mexico with the Spanish in the 16th century. There’s speculation that the name Mexican wedding cakes replaced Russian tea cakes around the 1950s, at the height of the Cold War. Whatever you call them, they’re delicious!
Mexican Wedding Cookie Ingredients
TASTE OF HOME
Butter: I like using salted butter to balance out the sweetness in these cookies. Add 1/4 teaspoon of salt to the recipe if you opt for unsalted.
Confectioners’ sugar: Creaming the confectioners’ sugar with butter helps give Mexican wedding cookies their wonderfully delicate texture. You also roll the still-warm cookies in confectioners’ sugar when they come out of the oven.
Vanilla extract: Along with pecans, vanilla is the main flavor that floods your taste buds when biting into a Mexican wedding cookie. Since it’s so prominent, use the best vanilla extract you can. Almond extract is a lovely substitution, or combine half of each.
Pecans: Both regular and toasted pecans are phenomenal in this recipe. Lightly toasting the pecans for a few minutes in the oven will give them a deeper, richer flavor.
Christmastime gives you loads to look forward to: decorating the tree, making snow angels, listening to your favorite holiday songs on repeat and breaking out those once-a-year Christmas candy recipes. While we love gooey cinnamon rolls before opening gifts and Christmas cookies with a mug of hot cocoa, there’s nothing like biting into a rich fudge square or snapping off a piece of crunchy, nutty brittle.
This roundup has festive candy treats for all skill levels, whether you have experience cooking sugar for chewy caramels or want a simpler melt-and-mix style candy. You’ll find the holiday flavors you crave around Christmas, like peppermint, cinnamon, eggnog and chocolate. You can also use this holiday season to iron out common chocolate truffle mistakes or teach yourself to make your favorite copycat candy bars for gifts.
Making these homemade Christmas sweets can be a fun activity to do with your friends and family. Spend time creating and decorating the treats together, and then set out supplies for these creative food gift wrapping ideas to package them into delicious and memorable presents!
Christmas cheesecake recipes bring together everything that makes holiday dessert baking feel magical: decadently creamy textures, nostalgic flavors and festive twists that will shine on any table. This collection has all that and more, spanning from timeless classics like traditional cheesecake and chocolate swirl to more seasonal specialties like peppermint and bourbon pecan. These festive cheesecake recipes are top-tier in taste and visual appeal, so you can wow your guests all season long.
To make preparation simpler during the busy holiday season, many of these holiday cheesecake recipes provide guidance for make-ahead steps, freezing and long-lasting storage, ensuring each dessert stays creamy and fresh. Adaptations are easy to incorporate: Swap in gluten-free graham crackers or cookies for a gluten-free dessert, use a sugar alternative or change up the toppings to what you have on hand. These ingredient swaps work seamlessly with these recipes, so you can rest assured that you’ll be serving up a sweet slice that works for your family and friends. For a thoughtful finishing touch, try serving your seasonal cheesecake desserts with an espresso, a cup of tea or a festive holiday cocktail.
You’ll need just four ingredients to make these delightful lemon snowflake cookies. Confectioners’ sugar highlights the cracked tops to give them their snowflake appearance. —Linda Barry, Dianna, Texas
We love how incredibly soft and chewy these white chocolate cranberry cookies are. Best of all? No dough chilling time required!
These white chocolate cranberry cookies offer tidings of comfort and joy to any Christmas cookie tray. Each cookie is thick and incredibly soft with sweet white chocolate chips and tart dried cranberries dotted throughout. Their red and white coloring looks so festive for the Christmas holiday, but they’re so good that we eat them all year round!
Ingredients for White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies
Butter: The key to making a fabulous cookie is starting with softened butter. If you forgot to soften it, fret not: here’s how to soften butter quickly.
Brown sugar: Brown sugar adds more moisture to the dough than white sugar, resulting in a chewier, softer cookie.
Egg: One egg binds all the ingredients together perfectly.
All-purpose flour: All-purpose flour is the goldilocks of flour for cookies. It’s not too soft like cake flour, but not too tough and dense like bread flour. All-purpose flour adds just the right amount of structure to a cookie while still allowing it to be soft.
White chocolate chips: Overwhelmed by the amount of white chocolate chips at the store? Our Test Kitchen pros found that the best white chocolate chips are Ghirardelli Classic White Chips.
Dried cranberries: We love the beautiful maroon hue, tart taste and pleasant chew that dried cranberries add to these cranberry white chocolate cookies.
From no-bake fudge and truffles to spiced cakes and chewy cookies, these easy Christmas desserts make enjoying sweet treats simple and stress-free all season long.
For many years, my next-door neighbor gifted my family a beautiful, homemade Yule log cake to enjoy on Christmas—meringue mushrooms and all! It was extra-special to me because, in my chaotic house, we relied on easy Christmas desserts that could be made in a flash. But I’m not complaining. As this collection shows, quick Christmas treats are just as festive, beautiful and delicious as more labor-intensive ones. Christmas dinner is great, but no-fuss holiday desserts are the real stars of the day.
We compiled simple Christmas dessert recipes that can be prepped in 20 minutes or less and are full of seasonal flavors. There are rich, chocolaty treats that taste like hot cocoa, red and white swirled minty bites, and pretty Bundts that practically decorate themselves. If the oven is full, try a no-bake treat, like fudge or truffles. And, of course, we include Christmas cookies, from jammy thumbprints to sugary snowballs and buttery shortbread. All that’s left is to make a batch of homemade eggnog and enjoy the holiday.
Expect a sweet, festively red maraschino cherry in the center of each of these melt-in-your-mouth cherry snowball cookies.
Every good Christmas cookie tray has variety, often including at least one type of confectioners’ sugar-covered bite. With a tender cookie and gorgeous cherry in the middle, these cherry snowball cookies are a strong contender for the coveted tray spot. Plus, four ingredients make them so easy and cost-effective—a must when there’s so much time and money spent on the other Christmas cookies.
Russian tea cakes, crescent-shaped Mexican wedding cookies and pecan-studded snowball cookies are the usual players on a Christmas cookie tray, but every single one includes some kind of nut. These cherry snowball cookies are nut-free, so whether you’re feeding someone who’s allergic or just simply doesn’t like them, these are the best choice.
Ingredients for Cherry Snowball Cookies
Butter: Bring two sticks of butter to room temperature. You can soften butter quickly by cutting it into smaller cubes or shredding the sticks on a (very clean!) cheese grater. The smaller pieces will come to room temperature much quicker than whole sticks.
Confectioners’ sugar: Instead of granulated sugar, we use confectioners’ sugar to sweeten the cookie dough, which makes for a much more tender, melt-in-your-mouth cookie. Make sure you have enough to coat the outsides of the cookies too.
All-purpose flour: The cookie’s texture is integral to the eating experience. It can’t be too dry or it will fall apart after the first bite. Measure the flour properly so you don’t accidentally add too much to the measuring cup.
Maraschino cherries: Stores will sell maraschino cherries with or without stems. For ease, buy the de-stemmed cherries to save time later on. Drain the cherries from their juice and cut each one in half.
These chocolate thumbprint cookies are simple but tasty, satisfying any chocolate lover’s sweet tooth. Rolled in walnuts and sealed with a kiss, they’re delightful on their own, but especially when served with a bowl of maple walnut ice cream.
Cute, easy and fun to make, this chocolate thumbprint cookie recipe delivers a tasty dessert option that’s wonderful with a glass of cold milk or mocha frappe, or even tastier when served with a bowl of your favorite ice cream. While they do require a chill time of up to an hour and have the added step of a filling, they’re easy to pull together for a little treat. The crumbly nut outside and the chocolate-kiss-filled inside make them a bit showy, making them a nice cookie to include in your holiday cookie bake-off.
Ingredients for Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies
Butter: Soften your butter fully prior to using it in this recipe.
Sugar: Regular granulated sugar is fine here.
Egg: You’ll be separating the egg to make these cookies.
Milk: This recipe calls for 2%, but you can use whole milk or even cream here if that’s what you have on hand.
Vanilla extract: This extract helps to give the chocolate thumbprint cookies a rich, caramel-like flavor.
Dry ingredients: All-purpose flour and baking cocoa make up the bulk of the cookies, and the salt brings out the best in the other ingredients.
Walnuts: You can substitute another nut, but the walnut taste is excellent with the chocolate.
Filling: You’ll be using confectioner’s sugar, additional butter, milk and vanilla extract here, as well as chocolate kisses.
Whenever I’m putting together a Thanksgiving dessert table, I always make sure to have a nice variety. Of course, there are Thanksgiving pies for the purists, but there are also a few fall desserts to add options and confections for those who just want a small bite of something sweet. So, when we saw these chocolate-covered strawberry turkeys on TikTok, I knew they’d be perfect for the latter. They’re an adorable, few-bite confection for every Thanksgiving dessert table.
These turkey strawberries are made from pretzels, marshmallows, strawberries and milk chocolate. They’re mostly sweet, a little salty and completely festive for the occasion. Arrange them in cupcake liners and serve them among the other desserts. Fair warning: They may outshine the pumpkin pie.
Ingredients for Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Turkeys
Pretzel sticks: Look for the mini, thin pretzel sticks here, and avoid buying the thick pretzel rods.
Mini marshmallows: The mini marshmallows create the look of the turkey’s thighs. If you can’t find mini marshmallows, cut up a big marshmallow into mini-sized pieces.
Milk chocolate chips: Milk chocolate creates the lightest turkey brown hue. You can use dark chocolate, but it won’t resemble a golden brown turkey as much.
Coconut oil: Coconut oil adds shine to the melted chocolate. You can also use vegetable or canola oil here if desired.
Strawberries:Clean the strawberries thoroughly, hull them and dry them very well. I would dry them a few times over to prevent water from mingling with the chocolate.
White baking chips: Once the turkeys are assembled, we’ll dip the “legs” in white chocolate to create the leg bones. It’s the perfect finishing touch!
Good Food, Good Meat, Good God, Let's Eat! 