Neapolitan cookies are chewy and soft, flavored with delicious strawberry, rich chocolate, and buttery vanilla. They're beautiful cookies perfect for birthdays, showers, and potluck parties!
I love a good Chocolate Pudding Mix Cookie or classic Vanilla Pudding Mix Cookie. This neapolitan cookie recipe adds in strawberry flavor and its lovely.
This neapolitan sugar cookie situation is the best of not just one but THREE wonderful worlds. There is nary a more classic combination than chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla. Neapolitan cookies look so amazing and are actually pretty quick and easy to make! Several different flavorings and methods were tested to get this recipe just right.
They are made from one base dough divided into three different flavors, then combined into one delicious cookie. The dough is beautiful and looks like perfect little scoops of neapolitan ice cream!
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What To Expect
- Ease: This recipe is one step up from beginner, you definitely need to pay attention to the measurements and directions. It gets quicker and easier every time with practice!
- Taste: You can taste the chocolate, vanilla, AND strawberry in these cookies. Delicious!
- Time: It takes 25-45 minutes to make and bake these cookies depending on how quickly you divide and scoop the dough. The more practice you have the faster they go.
🛒 Ingredients
- Butter - sweet cream, salted, room temperature. Not melted!
- Sugar - both light brown and white granulated are used.
- Cocoa Powder - I usually use Hershey's Cocoa Powder or the generic store brand.
- Almond extract - adds extra flavor to the vanilla cookie dough.
- Strawberry Jello mix - not sugar-free, just regular strawberry jello mix. This is the flavoring for the pink dough, and worked the best out of all the flavoring methods tested. See substitutions below if you want to use an alternative.
- Egg - large
- All purpose flour - measured correctly and not packed.
- Baking Soda
See the recipe card below for full list of ingredients and quantities.
✏️ Substitutions & Variations
- Strawberry Jello Powder - this is not readily available to everyone outside the USA. Powdered freeze-dried strawberries will also work, the flavor won't be quite as strong though! Strawberry bisquick powder was also tested, but was not found to be a good alternative.
- You can leave out the almond extract and add more vanilla extract. The almond adds a nice subtle flavor that's delicious.
- Unsalted butter can be used, but salted definitely tastes best!
🧑🍳 Instructions
Step 1. (above) In a mixing bowl combine room temperature butter, white sugar, and brown sugar. Mix with electric hand mixer or stand mixer with paddle attachment on medium/high speed about 3 minutes, until light and creamy, scraping sides of bowl as needed.
Step 2. (above) Add egg, vanilla extract, and salt and mix until well combined and fluffy.
Step 3. (above) Add baking soda and flour last,½ cup at a time, mixing slowly until well combined. It will be soft and sticky, not crumbly at all. Divide the neapolitan cookie dough into three equal portions, as even as you can if you don't have a scale, or the doughs may be crumbly or sticky once the flavors are added in.
TIP: To separate the dough into 3 equal portions, make sure you use a kitchen scale! Otherwise, the ratios may be off and some of the dough may be too dry or too wet.
Step 4.(above) For the vanilla dough, place the first section of cookie dough in the original mixing bowl (no need to wash it first, it just had normal dough in it.) Add the almond extract and 3-4 Tablespoons of flour. Mix until well combined. Remove from bowl, wrap in plastic wrap/cover and set aside.
Step 5.(above) For the strawberry cookie dough, place the second portion of dough in original mixing bowl (no need clean between doughs as long as you scrape it well with a rubber spatula) with the strawberry jello powder and 3 Tablespoons of flour. Mix well for 1-2 minutes, until it's no longer crumbly. In the beginning it has a sandy crumbly texture, keep mixing! Remove the dough from bowl and cover/wrap in plastic and set aside.
Step 6.(above) Place the last portion of dough into the bowl (no need to wash the bowl as long as you scrape all of the strawberry dough out first), and add cocoa powder. Mix well for 1-2 minutes until it's soft and no longer crumbly.
Remove, cover, and preheat oven to 350 Fº.
Step 7.(above) Separate the strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate flavored doughs out into 3 separate bowls.
Step 8.(above)Take a small piece of dough (about 1.5 teaspoons) of each flavor and roll into small rolls, a little larger than the size of a tootsie roll. Press together lengthwise.
Step 9.(above) place into a cookie scoop (this is a 1.5 Tablespoon cookie scoop) to make a round ball or roll with hands into a ball. It's okay if you can't see a color, that just means it will be at the top of the cookie once out of the scoop like in image 10.
Step 10.(above) Repeat the process until all dough is used, about 20 cookies.
When all of the dough is used, place cookie dough balls onto prepared baking sheets and bake at 350 Fº.
📌 Top Tips For Success
- Mix the strawberry dough thoroughly, 1-2 minutes. Otherwise it will seem crumbly and sandy.
- Make the three flavors of cookie dough in the order instructed in the recipe. Vanilla, then strawberry, then chocolate. You can make them in the same bowl without cleaning in between flavors if you make them in that order. Hooray for less dishes!!
- For the beautiful stripes, make sure to roll the cookie dough into little logs about the size of tootsie roll candies, line them up side by side, and then either roll into a ball with your hands or press into a cookie scoop and scoop onto a baking sheet.
- Don't overbake! These cookies need 8-10 minutes in the oven, tops.
- Use real vanilla extract, and regular strawberry gelatin powder. I have not tested this recipe using sugar free powder, the measurements would not be the same and the taste might be different.
❓Frequently Asked Questions
Butter, sugar, flour, salt, vanilla, eggs, a leavening agent like baking soda, and flavorings: cocoa powder, almond extract, and strawberry jello powder.
When testing this recipe, various flavoring methods for the strawberry-flavored cookie dough were used.
Freeze-dried strawberries, Nesquick Strawberry milk powder, and strawberry jam all worked but not as well as Strawberry Jello powder. It gave the dough the color, texture, and most importantly, the FLAVOR needed.
That being said, if using a substitution, using freeze dried strawberries blended to a powder would be the best substitution.
Room Temperature: 5 days in an airtight container.
Frozen: Up to 3 months baked.
You can also freeze the raw cookie dough balls and bake them frozen at 350 ℉ for 12-14 minutes.
Usually chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, but different flavors can replace one of the original three like almond, matcha, coconut, etc. if you like to get creative!
🍪 More delicious cookie recipes to try:
These are some of the best cookie recipes of ALL TIME. Some of them are unique cookie recipes, some are old favorites!
Did You Try This Recipe? ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Make sure to leave a star rating and a comment below the recipe card. I love hearing from you, and it is so helpful to other readers! Better yet, share it with family and friends. Thank you!!
📝 Printable Recipe
Neapolitan Cookies
Ingredients
Base Dough:
- ¾ cup salted butter, softened (1.5 sticks)
- ½ cup white granulated sugar 105g
- ½ cup brown sugar 105g
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 cups all purpose flour 265g (not packed)
For the Vanilla dough:
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
- 3 Tablespoons all purpose flour 23g
For the Strawberry dough
- 3 Tablespoons all purpose flour 23g
- 3 Tablespoons strawberry jello powder 42g
For the Chocolate dough
- 3 Tablespoons cocoa powder 18g
Instructions
Base Dough:
- In a mixing bowl combine room temperature butter, white sugar, and brown sugar. Mix with electric hand mixer or stand mixer with paddle attachment on medium/high speed about 3 minutes, until light and creamy, scraping sides of bowl as needed.
- Add egg, vanilla extract, and salt and mix until well combined and fluffy. Add baking soda and flour last,½ cup at a time, mixing slowly until well combined. Should be sticky and not crumbly at all. Divide dough into three equal portions, preferably with a kitchen scale.
For vanilla dough
- Place the first section of cookie dough in the original mixing bowl. Add the almond extract and 3 Tablespoons of flour. Mix until well combined. Remove from bowl, wrap in plastic wrap/cover and set aside.
For strawberry dough
- Place the second portion of dough in original mixing bowl (no need clean between doughs) with the strawberry jello powder and 3 Tablespoons of flour. Mix well for 1-2 minutes, until smooth it's no longer crumbly, and the sandy texture disappears. Remove from bowl and cover/wrap in plastic and set aside.
For chocolate dough
- Place the last portion of dough into the bowl (no need to clean between doughs) and add cocoa powder. Mix well. Remove, cover, and preheat oven to 350 Fº.
Assemble
- Take a small piece of dough (about 1.5 teaspoons) of each flavor and roll into small rolls. Press together lengthwise and then either place into a cookie scoop to make a round ball or roll with hands into a ball. Repeat until all dough is used.
- Place cookie dough balls onto prepared baking sheet 10-12 per sheet and bake at 350Fº for 8-10 minutes. Let cool and serve.
Sara says
Hi Don, I’m sorry to hear this recipe didn’t work out for you. I can assure you all recipes published are tested thoroughly, and none of the results reported were as you described, aside from the Jello creating a sugary texture in the dough, which melts as it bakes.
You’re right, this cookie recipe dough is not supposed to be crumbly at all, but a play dough texture. I’m not sure where it went wrong for you. I have not used Dutch process cocoa powder for this recipe, and have not tested how it would effect the texture.
Christine says
Hi Sara,
I tried to make these cookies and followed instructions from a different recipe. I used freeze-dried strawberries and some red food coloring, and the pink dough turned dark red like red velvet instead of pink. Would you recommend I use the strawberry jello powder instead for a pink color? When I baked these for the first time, I didn't have a mixer and just used a mixing bowl and manually mixed the ingredients.
Sara says
Hi Christine, a few different methods were tested when developing this recipe, including freeze dried strawberries. The best results in my opinion for both flavor and color came from the strawberry jello powder. I really wanted the freeze dried strawberries to work out but the jello powder was the winner in the end.