How can I portion out frozen cookie dough?

Thaw in refrigerator until soft enough to portion. Portion total batch, then re-freeze. Ideally, it should have been portioned before initial freeze. At this point, unless you want to bake them all, you will be fine with a refrigerated thaw, portion, and re-freeze. Store portioned, frozen, cookie dough with as little air in the container as possible.

You can dip a knife in hot water between each slice you cut. The hot knife will make it easier to cut the dough, without thawing it.

You can also do this with an ice cream scoop, but as dough is more dense than ice cream I doubt it will be efficient enough.

I have no idea how many cookies a 3# tub of dough would make, but I'm so curious! My best suggestion is to thaw out 1 tub, bake all of the cookies and freeze them after they have cooled.

I freeze homemade cookies all the time! You can reach in and grab 1 or 2 to nibble on at a time. Most cookies almost seem better (to me) when they are frozen.

If you decide to partially thaw (you shouldn't have to entirely thaw), you might want to consider making a cookie dough log. This is similar to what you can buy in the store (Nestle's Tollhouse cookies for example are available in most big US stores in the refrigerated section).

Basically, you shape the dough into a log-shaped roll that is the diameter of one cookie (pre-cooking), wrap it tightly, and then freeze. Then, when you go to make a cookie, you can typically cut it with a knife, one cookie at a time. You might slightly warm the knife, but it's common to be able to simply cut it even with a butter knife in my experience.

This assumes they are chocolate chip cookies or similar, where you can form them easily into a log, and the dough is fatty enough to be amenable to cutting when frozen.

You can read this page for more information and other options.

I have never needed to thaw or pre-portion frozen cookie dough. I just use a sharp-bladed knife or a sharp-edged scoop to slice thin layers of dough, which immediately thaw, and roll them up and bake them.

The scoop should have a thin, sharp edge, like a melon baller or disher, or if you have one, a meat scraper.

The key is to scrape up multiple thin layers of dough rather than trying to carve out large chunks. Thin layers will thaw extremely quickly, allowing you to work with the dough almost immediately.

If using a scoop, slowly scrape up a thin layer, allowing it to curl up as you scrape, rather than trying to scoop out a solid hunk of frozen dough.

If using a knife, you need a short, thin blade which will let you slice a thin layer from the surface of the dough.

This technique works well with other frozen foods as well, especially colloidals like butter or gravy.

You can also thaw it at room temperature, and within half an hour you should be able to slice off a few pieces with a sharp knife (and some patience.) and place the rest back in the freezer.

I'm not sure how easily you can tip the cookie dough out of the tub, or how evenly you can slice it. I actually like portioning cookie dough when it's semi-frozen like this since it's easy to weigh and shave a bit off of larger pieces here and there to get uniform cookies. The other benefit is my hands don't get nearly as covered in cookie dough.

This is something I usually do with Christmas cookies, and might appeal to you since it doesn't require fully thawing the dough, but please be careful. I don't know your strength or the sharpness of your knives, so while I've never had any trouble, I want to emphasize that patience is necessary. If the cookie dough is too hard to slice when you first try it, leave the knife in the dough and give it a few minutes. If you try to force it you could cut yourself or end up tossing a chunk of cookie dough onto the floor.

An electric carving knife with a large serration will easily cut through frozen dough, vegetables and meat without the need to thaw or defrost, and without requiring you to whack at it with a cleaver or saw at it with a hot knife.