Soft and Chewy White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
These White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies have slightly crisp edges with soft and chewy centers. Loaded with extra white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts, these are guaranteed to be your new favorite cookie!
Are you a fan of white chocolate macadamia nut cookies? If so, then get ready because I’m about to share the best recipe you will every try!
Not only are these cookies super soft and chewy, but they’re jam-packed with white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts. Which is exactly how any cookie should be if you ask me. Plus, they bake up beautifully every single time!
This recipe also makes quite a few cookies, about four dozen. You can easily cut this recipe in half and bake just two dozen cookies or you can freeze some of the cookie dough to save for later. I’ve included instructions on how to do each in the recipe!
Recipe Ingredients
These cookies start out with some of your usual dry ingredients like all-purpose flour, baking soda, and salt. For the wet ingredients you will be using butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract. And of course, there’s a hefty dose of white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts in these cookies too!
A few notes on some of the ingredients to ensure that these cookies turn out perfect for you:
- Butter: When it comes to the butter, I always stick with unsalted butter. If you only have salted butter on hand you can just reduce the salt to 1/2 teaspoon.
- Macadamia Nuts: There are 1 and 1/2 cups of chopped macadamia nuts in this recipe. You can use raw macadamia nuts or roasted and lightly salted ones. Either option is fine!
- Eggs: Your eggs should be at room temperature just like the butter. This will help ensure that they mix together thoroughly with the wet ingredients.
How To Make These Cookies
To make this white chocolate macadamia nut cookie recipe, you’ll start by whisking together your flour, baking soda, and salt. This will help ensure that the baking soda and salt are mixed evenly throughout the cookie dough. Once the dry ingredients are mixed together, set them aside and prepare the wet ingredients.
For the wet ingredients, start by creaming together two sticks (or 1 cup) of butter with some brown sugar and granulated sugar. This should only take about 1 to 2 minutes, you just want these three ingredients to be thoroughly mixed together. Next, beat in two eggs, one at a time, then mix in the vanilla extract.
Once the wet ingredients are mixed up, add the dry ingredients to your wet ingredients and mix the two together until just combined. Finally, toss in the white chocolate chips and chopped macadamia nuts and mix them in on low-speed until they’re fully incorporated into the cookie dough.
After the dough is mixed together, it should look like the picture above. At this point, I recommend chilling the cookie dough for at least 2 hours. Chilling your cookie dough allows the flavors in the cookies to come together and it also prevents your cookies from spreading too much as they’re baking in the oven.
Once the dough is chilled, scoop it with a 1.5 tablespoon cookie scoop onto baking sheets, making sure to leave some room between each ball of cookie dough. You should get close to 4 dozen cookies in total.
Then, just bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes or until the tops are set. After the cookies have cooled slightly, you can transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely. Or just eat them, the choice is yours!
Baking Tips
- When measuring your flour, don’t scoop it out of the container with the measuring cup. Instead, stir the flour around, spoon it into your measuring cup, and level it off with the back of a knife.
- Make sure your butter and eggs are at room temperature before getting started. If you forget to set your eggs out ahead of time, you can place them in a bowl of warm water for 5 to 10 minutes.
- To make less cookies: You can easily cut this recipe in half to just make two dozen cookies. If you do, you can reduce the dough chilling time to 1 hour.
- To reduce the dough chilling time: Scoop the cookie dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, cover, and chill the balls of cookie dough for 30 minutes.
More Cookie Recipes To Try!
- Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Lemon Cookies
- Apple Oatmeal Cookies
- Snickerdoodle Cookies
- Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 and ¾ cups (345 grams) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (230 grams) unsalted butter softened
- 1 cup (200 grams) light brown sugar packed
- ½ cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup (190 grams) white chocolate chips
- 1 and 1/2 cups (200 grams) chopped macadamia nuts
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large mixing bowl using a handheld mixer, beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar together for 1 to 2 minutes or until well combined. Mix in the eggs one at a time, then mix in the vanilla extract, making sure to stop and scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Mix in the dry ingredients until just combined, then mix in the white chocolate chips and chopped macadamia nuts on low-speed until fully incorporated into the cookie dough.
- Cover the cookie dough tightly and transfer to the refrigerator to chill for at least 2 hours.
- Once the dough is almost chilled, preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C). Line large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats and set aside.
- Using a 1.5 tablespoon cookie scoop, scoop the cookie dough onto the prepared baking sheets, making sure to leave a little room between each one.
- Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until the tops of the cookies are set and the edges are lightly browned. Remove from the oven and allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheets for 5 to 10 minutes, then carefully transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
Perfect recipe and great tips as well! I didn’t need to tweak it at all (VERY unusual for me). Macadamia nuts are so expensive that I really hoped the cookies would turn out — and WOW, did they! Thanks a million!
So glad you liked the cookies, Barbara!
I’ve been looking for a recipe like this for soooo long and these cookies are absolutely amazing!! Thanks so much for a great recipe!
Made these for the first time today – just 1/2 the recipe this time. My husband loves macadamia nuts and regular chocolate chips. I made them with a large scoop and spaced accordingly. They turned out great!
LOVE this recipe! I just did it for the first time and O.m.goodness! I added 1/4 c more of the brown sugar as personal preference and did 2c white chocolate since I don’t have the macadamia tho put in. They came out moist and chewy! Thanks for posting this I’ll be sure to do this again!!
The BEST cookie recipe I’ve ever used! They turned out perfectly soft and chewy – husband says they are better than his fave cookies we normally buy at the store. Thanks so much!
What kind of macadamia nuts are you using? Dry roasted, raw, unsalted? Thanks!
I use dry roasted macadamia nuts. I typically buy them at Walmart and the brand is Mauna Loa.
Looks like a great recipe. Thank you! I have a couple questions, would be most grateful if you could answer.
Can I add dried cranberries and if so how much?
Can I roll them into balls and then freeze to bake later?
Yes, you can add dried cranberries. I would probably use 1 cup each of the cranberries, nuts, and white chocolate chips then add more if you think it needs it. You can freeze the balls of cookie dough and just bake from frozen for an additional 1-2 minutes.
Hi! I am a baking novice – should the cookie scoop be rounded or flat when scooped? Thanks!
I scoop the cookie dough on the baking sheet and roll them into balls before baking them.
I live in high altitude and was wondering if you know what adjustments (if any) I would need to make for these?
I don’t have any experience with high altitude baking, but some readers have found this guide helpful: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/high-altitude-baking.html.
These are sooo good and addictive. I can’t ever eat just one.
Glad you liked the cookies, Michele!
Merry Christmas, Danielle!
I just made your Yummy recipe and the cookies turned out PERFECT!!!
I live on a small island in the Caribbean and Macadamia nuts are $18.00/lb, so I was so happy that your recipe was “THE ONE”…
I wish I could post photos because I took them in each stage, but to all readers and bakers, this is truly an easy recipe to follow, but most of all, the cookies taste fabulous.
Thank you, Dixie! I’m so glad the cookies turned out great for you! You can always feel free to e-mail me pictures or if you have Instagram you can share it and tag me there 🙂
Would it be alright if I used gluten free free flour instead?
I honestly haven’t ever tried these with gluten-free flour. If you have a gluten-free flour that you’ve been able to successfully substitute 1:1 for all-purpose flour, then it may be fine.
I followed the recipe perfectly. Found the dough to be stiff but refrigerated it as I like to follow recipes to the letter on my first attempt. My first sheet came out as buttons so then I followed your advice & flattened the rest. They came out fine after that. Taste wonderful too! But I think that the fridge time was not necessary. I might reduce the flour by 1/2-1/4 cup next time. And yes, I did spoon out the flour as you recommended.
Glad the cookies worked out well for you, Jill! I find my cookies spread a lot if I don’t chill the dough, but you can skip the dough chilling next time if you prefer.
I followed this recipe exactly but something wasn’t quite right. I don’t think I should have chilled the dough for 2 hours because I ended up with small lumps. It could have been the temp of my fridge or the oven since all of the other reviews are so excellent
Did you scoop your flour from the container or did you spoon & level it? If you still have any cookie dough, you can flatten it with your hand before baking and that should help.
Hi there, I like crunchy cookies. Can you recommend a temperature and time for me to bake them using your recipes?
Thanks
You could increase the bake time by a few minutes or increase the oven temperature for 375°F and increase baking time by 2-3 minutes. If you prefer them thinner, you can cut down on the dough chilling time too.
Best cookies recipe ever. Thank you for sharing this recipe!
Thank you, Patricia! Glad you liked the cookies!
Help these cookies are my familys all time fav so I want to try this recipe but only have salted butter, so would I just cut out the salt, or do I just go buy unsalted butter??
You can use salted butter if that’s what you have on hand. When you use salted butter in place of unsalted butter a good rule of thumb is to reduce the salt by 1/4 teaspoon for each stick of butter in a recipe. I would reduce the salt to 1/2 teaspoon and you should be good!
Hello,
I was wondering if you could use unsalted brown butter?
That should be fine! If you brown the butter, just make sure to let it solidify and come to room temperature before using it.
These cookies were absolutely amazing- one of the best I have eaten! My siblings (including my sister who is a cookie connoisseur) were going crazy over them and wanted to eat all of them! Very simple to make and extremely tasty- 10/10 would recommend 🙂
So happy to hear that, Nadia!
I am looking for macadamia cookies like as Subway. I tried baked today using your recipe. My cookies looks alike as subway cookies however my cookies is not chewy, bit disappointed. Anyhow my cookies using your recipe taste much better. I didnt add white chocholate though as I dont really want it to be too sweet. Overall, I love the cookies! Thanks for the recipe.
That’s strange, Aini. I find the cookies to be pretty chewy, did you let them cool completely? Glad you liked the taste though!
I have to say you have the best cookie recipes ever!! I made these and the snickerdoodle and followed your recipes to the T and they came are perfection! Cant wait to make more of your deserts. Thank you for sharing your gift of baking! ?
Thank you, Samantha! So glad you liked the cookies!
hi daniele, what xan i substitute for macadamia nuts? tia!
You can leave them out and just use 2 cups of white chocolate chips. Or you can use another nut or something else like dried cranberries.
The cookies were perfect and sooo yummy!
Glad you liked the cookies, Kayla!
Raw macademia nuts? Our local groceries don’t carry any except roasted,salted. Suggestions on what kind and where to purchase?
I use dry roasted macadamia nuts. I typically buy them at Walmart and the brand is Mauna Loa. Hope that helps!
This cookie is soooo perfect and delicious. My first time making them and definitely was a success.
So glad you liked the cookies, Brianna!
Can you use bread flour by any chance?
Yes, you can. It will make the cookies chewier though.
Can this cookie be made with wheat flour instead of white?
Hi, Juanita! I find that using just wheat flour can tend to dry out baked goods. I’ve had success using half whole wheat flour and half all-purpose flour in recipes though and can’t tell too much of a difference, so I think that would be fine in these cookies. You may be able to use white whole wheat flour, but some brands tend to not be as good as others.
Which is best, light brown or dark brown sugar? Does it matter? Looking forward to making them.
I typically use light brown sugar just because it’s what I keep on hand. Either one will work fine though!
These cookies are simply AMAZING and they are relatively easy to make! I made half a portion to try the recipe out, but should have made with full amounts as they are so delicious that we ended up eating most of them in the evening. The few remaining pieces were perfect with the weekend morning coffee, but we regretted eating so many in the evening, while cookies were still warm from the oven, as they tasted even better in the morning, when completely cooled off 🙂
These cookies would definitely be great with a cup of coffee, Hedi! So glad you liked them!
I love this chewy “fallen” cookie, crispier on the outside just a bit. I decreased the flour by 1/4 cup, and used 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 teaspoon baking. I dished them onto the cookie sheet before refrigerating, and reduced the time to 15 minutes, making it a faster process. Delish!
So glad you enjoyed the cookies, Jane!
Jane,
Did you use 1/2 tsp of baking soda and 1/2 tsp of baking powder? If so, why did you alter the recipe? Also, the same question for the reduction of the flour.
Thank you,
Brenda
Oh gosh, it’s been WAY too long since I last had a white chocolate macadamia cookie! These are seriously SO perfect-looking, Danielle! Love those crispy edges and soft middles!! 🙂
It had been way too long for me too before I made these 🙂 Thank you, Sarah!