White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
These white chocolate macadamia nut cookies are incredible. And all three of my kids agree! My five-year-old even said, “These are the best cookies in the whole entire world.” Which is saying something, because he’s had a lot of cookies! The salty flavor of the crunchy macadamia nuts perfectly complements the sweet white chocolate chips, and this cookie has both chewy centers and crisp edges. In both flavor and texture, these cookies are 10/10.
If you love white chocolate chip cookies, you’ll love my White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies, Biscoff White Chocolate Chip Cookies, and my Cookies and Cream Cookies. These white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies would also be a delicious mix-in for Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream!
Why This Recipe Works
- Best white chocolate macadamia nut cookie recipe. If you love the Subway white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, you’ll love these. I’ve tested this recipe to get the balance of sweet white chocolate and salty macadamia nuts perfect. Your search for a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie recipe is over!
- Easy cookie recipe. As cookie recipes go, this one is very straightforward. Cream butter and sugar, add in the rest of your ingredients, and mix. The dough just needs to be chilled for 30-45 minutes, and then you can bake and enjoy. Easy!
Ingredient Notes
- Unsalted butter: A must for delicious cookies! Besides adding richness and flavor, butter adds tenderness and structure to cookies.
- Egg: This cookie recipe calls for one whole egg. Eggs help to bind ingredients and make chewy cookies. You’ll notice this recipe calls for your egg to be at room temperature, as well as the butter. Having both of these ingredients at room temperature helps them mix together better.
- Vanilla extract: The flavor base for many cookies is vanilla. I find that vanilla is an ideal flavor for complementing the macadamia nuts and white chocolate chips in this cookie.
- Cornstarch: This may seem like an odd ingredient, but cornstarch helps cookies stay soft. It can also help them not spread too much, which is useful for this recipe.
- Macadamia nuts: You can’t have white chocolate and macadamia nut cookies without macadamia nuts! I like to use roasted and salted macadamia nuts because I love the combination of salty and sweet in these cookies, but you could use unsalted as well. We’ll roughly chop the macadamia nuts before mixing them into the dough.
- White chocolate chips: White chocolate is the second half of this classic cookie pairing. I’ve used white chocolate chips here because the smaller pieces distribute more evenly throughout the cookies so there’s more chocolate in each bite, but you can use white chocolate chunks instead.
Step-by-Step Instructions
How to make white chocolate macadamia nut cookies
- Prep pan. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- Mix butter, sugar, and wet ingredients. In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, or in a large mixing bowl with an electric hand mixer, cream together ½ cup of room temperature butter, ½ cup of granulated sugar, and ¼ cup of brown sugar for 1-2 minutes on medium speed. Add one large room-temperature egg and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract to the butter-sugar mixture and mix to combine.
- Add dry ingredients. On top of the wet ingredients, add 1⅓ cups of all-purpose flour, ½ teaspoon of baking powder, ½ teaspoon of baking soda, ½ teaspoon of cornstarch, and ¼ teaspoon of salt. Mix to combine, but don’t overmix.
- Fold in the good stuff. Add 1 cup of roughly chopped roasted, salted macadamia nuts and 1 cup of white chocolate chips to the cookie dough. Gently mix them in until combined. I recommend doing this bit by hand, so it’s nearly impossible to overmix and you can really scrape the bottom of the bowl.
- Chill dough. Allow your white chocolate macadamia nut cookie dough to chill in the refrigerator, covered, for 30-45 minutes. Twenty minutes before you pull the dough out of the refrigerator, preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Scoop and bake. After the dough is chilled, scoop dough into balls roughly 2 tablespoons in size (a 40 size cookie scoop is perfect for this). If the dough is too stiff to work with, let it warm up for a few minutes first. Place cookie dough balls on the prepared baking sheet with at least 2 inches between each cookie, as they will spread a bit. Bake cookies at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 10-12 minutes. You can put the cookie dough back in the fridge in between baking.
- Let cookies cool. Allow cookies to cool on the baking pan for 10 minutes before removing them to a wire rack to cool completely (or eat one warm if you can’t resist). Enjoy!
Recipe Tips
If you forgot to take out your butter and egg ahead of time, or you’re simply in a hurry, here are a couple of tricks for bringing them up to room temperature. For an egg, let the egg sit in warm (not hot!) water for 5 minutes. For butter, heat up some water in a glass container, then empty out the container and place it over the butter for 10 minutes. This works even faster if you slice your butter into smaller pieces.
While researching my recipe for macadamia nut cookies, I came across a lot of fun and tasty-sounding ideas for variations, like white chocolate macadamia nut cookies with cranberries, coconut, or cherries. Add in anything you like, just make sure your add-ins add up to 2 cups in total. You could also swap macadamia nuts for cashews, or use a different kind of chocolate—a milk or dark chocolate macadamia nut cookie would be delicious! If you do make a variation on these classic white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, let me know how it went in the comments!
For perfectly round cookies, immediately after removing your cookies from the oven, use a biscuit cutter around the baked cookie to pull in the cookie edges.
Make Ahead, Storing, and Freezing
Make Ahead: You can store the dough for these white chocolate macadamia nut cookies in the fridge for up to 2 days. This will make the dough very stiff, so let it sit at room temperature for 15-20 minutes before rolling into balls and baking. The cookies will also be good for 3-5 days, so you can make them in advance to serve.
Storing: Store leftover cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for 3-5 days. Leftover cookie dough can be stored in the fridge for 2 days, or frozen for up to 3 months.
Freezing: You can freeze both the cookie dough and the baked cookies. To freeze cookie dough, portion it into dough balls and lay them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Freeze until solid, then transfer the balls of dough into a freezer-safe container or ziplock bag and freeze for up to 2 months. If you bake these straight from frozen, just add an extra minute to the bake time. See my post on Freezing Cookie Dough for more information.
Want to freeze extra cookies? Check out my post on Freezing Cookies for all the tips and tricks you need!
Recipe FAQs
Absolutely! To freeze baked cookies, allow cookies to cool completely. Then, wrap cookies individually in plastic wrap, and store in an ziplock bag or airtight container in the freezer up to 2 months. For more information, see my Freezing Cookies post!
It’s not clear who invented white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, although a company named Blue Chip Cookies claims to have invented them, and the flavor combination seemed to gain popularity when Mrs. Fields started producing white chocolate and macadamia nut cookies. Either way, before the 1980s macadamia nuts were a rare ingredient in the United States, but when they became more readily available in the 80s they gained popularity as an ingredient and the rest is history!
Macadamia nuts have some health benefits, but in general, cookies are not considered a “health” food.
Both white chocolate and macadamia nuts are mild in flavor, making them complementary to each other. White chocolate tends to be a little sweeter than other kinds of chocolate, which pairs nicely with salty macadamia nuts. That being said, milk chocolate and dark chocolate also taste great with macadamia nuts!
More Cookie Recipes
- 7 Layer Bar Cookies
- Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
- Walnut Brownie Cookies
- Turtle Cookies
- Chewy Monster Cookies
White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter - room temperature
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup light brown sugar - packed
- 1 large egg - at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup macadamia nuts - roughly chopped (I used salted macadamia nuts)
- 1 cup white chocolate chips
Instructions
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- In bowl of a stand mixer cream the butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar for 1-2 minutes on medium speed. Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix to combine.
- Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cornstarch, salt and mix to combine.
- Fold in the macadamia nuts and white chocolate chips. Cover the dough and chill for 30-45 minutes.
- 20 minutes before you pull the dough out of the refrigerator, preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Scoop into 2 tablespoon sized balls (I used a size 40 cookie scoop), place on the baking sheet, leaving 2 inches between each ball. These cookies will spread some so want to have room to accommodate that.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool on the pan for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Enjoy!
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