These white chocolate macadamia nut cookies are soft-baked style with extra chewy centers. Melted butter maintains a delicious buttery flavor while an extra egg yolk adds chewiness. They’re absolutely PACKED with white chocolate and salted macadamia nuts.
Everything Old is New Again!
My website’s archives are filled with over 1,000 recipes. Some of my earlier recipes are total hidden gems, but there are others that I’ve felt needed some work. I’ve been working behind the scenes updating older recipes as I find necessary. Most notable updates: peanut butter cupcakes, monkey bread, and yellow cupcakes.
Today’s white chocolate macadamia nut cookies are part of this project. I craved a thicker cookie with softer, chewier centers and a distinct buttery flavor. There wasn’t much in this recipe that really needed to change, so I just made a couple minor tweaks.
They’re now perfect.
Video Tutorial
These are the BEST White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
And here’s why:
- Major chunks—lots of nuts and white chocolate
- Classic comforting flavors
- Extra buttery
- Soft-baked style
- Chewy centers
- Slightly crisp edges
- Easy to freeze
Re-Testing This Recipe
This recipe is a cross between my coconut macadamia nut cookies and my chewy chocolate chip cookies. Like the original recipe first published in 2012, I use melted butter instead of softened butter. I love using melted butter in cookies because it produces an extra buttery flavor as well as a chewier texture. However, it’s not as simple as swapping melted butter for softened butter. (Of course it’s not. It’s BAKING! So particular!)
You see, melted butter—a liquid—creates spread. If there isn’t enough flour to absorb the added liquid, the cookies will spread all over the baking sheet. On the other hand, if there’s excess flour, the cookies will taste dry. Finding the balance between too wet and too dry is a total roll of the dice! Speaking of dry ingredients, I add 1 teaspoon of cornstarch here. This ingredient adds a little extra softness. I don’t add cornstarch when making the coconut macadamia nut cookies because the coconut acts as a really soft dry ingredient, so cornstarch just isn’t necessary there.
The original recipe also used an extra egg yolk. I love this addition! See my chewy chocolate chip cookies if you’re curious about it. Basically, an extra egg yolk = extra richness and extra chew. Both good things.
Two final changes: I add a little more baking soda for additional volume because the original cookies typically over-spread. I also switch the amounts of sugar. Here we use an equal amount of granulated sugar and brown sugar. In addition to sweetening, brown sugar creates a soft and more flavorful cookie and granulated sugar creates spread. Balancing them helps produce a chewy, yet crispy edge cookie.
Best Macadamia Nuts to Use
I LOVE using salted dry-roasted macadamia nuts in white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. The roasted salty flavor pairs beautifully with the extra sweet white chocolate morsels—you won’t regret it!
3 Cookie Tips to Improve Your Next Batch
- Spoon & Level the Flour: The amount of flour makes or breaks a cookie recipe—literally. Spoon and level that flour or, better yet, weigh your flour.
- Chill the Cookie Dough: Chilling the cookie dough, especially since we’re using melted butter, is an imperative step in this recipe. The colder the dough, the less the cookies will over-spread into greasy puddles. You’ll have thicker, sturdier, and more solid cookies.
- Bake 1 Batch at a Time: You get the best possible results when the oven only concentrates on 1 batch at a time. If you need to bake more than one batch at a time, rotate the baking sheets from the top rack to bottom rack a couple times through the baking process to encourage even browning. And turn the sheets around as well. Ovens have hot spots!
If you can’t get enough of sweet white chocolate, try my white chocolate brownies and white chocolate peanut butter cookies next!
Print
Super-Chunk White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
- Prep Time: 2 hours, 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes
- Yield: 30 cookies
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
These white chocolate macadamia nut cookies are soft-baked style with extra chewy centers. They’re absolutely PACKED with white chocolate morsels and salted macadamia nuts. Chilling the cookie dough is imperative, so set aside at least 2 hours.
Ingredients
- 2 cups + 2 Tablespoons (265g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup (12 Tbsp; 170g) unsalted butter, melted + slightly cooled
- 3/4 cup (150g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 3/4 cup (150g) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg + 1 egg yolk, at room temperature
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 heaping cup (210g) white chocolate chips*
- 1 cup (120g) roughly chopped macadamia nuts*
Instructions
- Whisk the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. Set aside.
- Whisk the melted butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, egg, egg yolk, and vanilla extract together until combined. Pour into dry ingredients and mix everything together with a silicone spatula until completely combined. Fold in the white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts. (You can use a mixer for this step if needed.)
- Cover and chill the dough in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours and up to 4 days. If chilling for longer than 2 hours, allow to sit at room temperature for at least 20-30 minutes before rolling and baking because the dough will be quite hard.
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside.
- Roll cookie dough into balls, about 1-1.5 Tablespoons of dough per cookie (I like to use this medium cookie scoop), and arrange 3 inches apart on the baking sheets. Bake for 12-13 minutes or until lightly browned on the sides. The centers will look soft.
- Remove from the oven and allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: You can make the cookie dough and chill it in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Allow to come to room temperature then continue with step 4. Baked cookies freeze well for up to 3 months. Unbaked cookie dough balls freeze well for up to 3 months. Bake frozen cookie dough balls for an extra minute, no need to thaw. Read my tips and tricks on how to freeze cookie dough.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Glass Mixing Bowls | Whisk | Silicone Spatula | Baking Sheets | Silicone Baking Mats or Parchment Paper | Medium Cookie Scoop | Cooling Rack
- White Chocolate Chips: I usually use closer to 1 and 1/4 cups white chocolate chips, about 210g. For looks, you can press a few extra chips into the tops of the warm cookies when they come out of the oven.
- Macadamia Nuts: I used salted dry-roasted macadamia nuts. You can use unsalted, raw, and/or whichever macadamia nuts you love most. Salted dry-roasted adds incredible flavor though.
- Be sure to check out my top 5 cookie baking tips AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking tools.
you guys have to try this recipe so good omg please try
which white chocolate chips would you recommend? I used one brand and it gave “rubber” flavor
Hi Sonia, really any brand should work. We love Ghirardelli brand chips!
Second time I have made these. I substituted a nut mixture with macadamias, cashews, almonds, pepitas, dried mango and dried cranberry for just macadamias. Just outstanding. Perfect cookie of this kind. Crisp, chewy, delicious.
This recipe made incredible cookies! I only used 1/2 cup of mini white chocolate chips and I would do the same again – not too sweet and felt balanced with the level of saltiness. These are disappearing quickly!
Wonderful recipe and great extra tips
Is it possible to do 1.5x the recipe rather than doubling it? If so, how many eggs would it be?
Hi Sara, you could, although with the full egg + egg yolk it may be easier to simply double the recipe and freeze and leftover dough for another time. Our general rule for halving an egg is to crack it open, beat the yolk and white together with a fork, measure the volume (should be a few Tbsp), then use half.
I loved this recipe so much! I did a few alterations based on previous cookies I’ve made and the cookies turned out PERFECT!
First alteration: I mixed the sugars and melted butter first THEN added in the egg, egg yolk, vanilla extract, AND (second alteration) 1 tablespoon of plain yogurt.
Last alteration: I slowly added, in parts, the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients with speed on low. Thank you so much!
I never leave comments on recipes, but I had to on this one just to say that these are perfect. I used brazil nuts instead of macademia because it’s what I had on hand, but left the rest of the recipe as is. They came out gorgeous! Will 100% use this recipe again.
Delicious cookies! I subbed the butter for coconut oil and it worked perfectly.
Would it work out to make these cookies using the chewy chocolate chip cookie recipe and just subbing white chocolate and macadamia nuts for the chocolate chips. I’m concerned about the additional 50 grams of sugar in this recipe. I generally don’t like things to be too sweet.
Hi Tina, you can try reducing the sugar by 50g here. Let us know how it goes!
They were spectacular!! Followed the recipe exactly and everyone loved them!
Taste, texture were perfect. A winner!!
Was a great recipe as always. I used arrow root instead of cornstarch and they turned out fantastic. Thanks for the recipe!
The cookies were too thick and cooked to be raw in the middle even after 15 minutes baking. Not good.
Hi Bri, thanks so much for giving these cookies a try. When cookies don’t spread, it’s usually because there is too much flour soaking up the wet ingredients. Be sure to spoon and level (or use a kitchen scale) to measure your flour so that it isn’t over measured. You can also use the back of a spoon to gently flatten out the cookies if you notice they are not spreading throughout bake time. This post with 5 tips to improve your next batch of cookies may also be helpful to review. Thanks again!
Such an amazing recipe!!
A much loved recipe in my household.
Definitely will make them again!
Regarding the sugars:
How much can I reduce the amount of the brown and granulated sugars, equally, that won’t effect this recipe?
Hi Cys, while you can certainly experiment with reducing the amount of sugar, keep in mind that it plays an important role in the taste, texture, and structure of the cookies. We’d start by reducing a small amount, then adjusting more/less for future batches.
Followed this recipe exactly as written. Dough was too dry. Came out terrible, not recommended
I made these cookies and they were a Big hit in my house. Just the perfect flavor and thickness. Fabulous!!
These are excellent just the way they are
Do I have to Chill the dough? I want a quick recipe.
Hi Elliana, chilling the dough is important to keep the cookies from spreading. Here are all of our no-chill cookie recipes.
Thank you! Do you have any no-chill white chocolate macadamia nut cookies? They are mine and my Grandpa`s favorite and I’ve never made them!
You could use the dough from these no-chill giant chocolate chip cookies and add the mix-ins from this recipe. See notes for details on making smaller cookies with that dough!
I would like to make these mouthwatering cookies for a wedding. I will need to make more than 1 batch. Could I double the recipe? And is freezing the cookies after baking ok?
Hi Marcy, you can double this dough recipe. Baked cookies freeze well for up to 3 months. Enjoy!
i love all your recipes <3
Would skipping 1 teaspoon of cornstarch be a big deal? I have everything but that.
Hi Karen, you can omit if needed. The cookies will still be plenty soft and chewy.
I forgot to add the baking soda. After I made the cookies, I read your commentary on them above and that you added a little more baking soda and I thought, “baking soda??” Well, they turned out great, even without the soda. They didn’t spread out much during baking, which was a good thing. Great recipe.
Hi Sally, my friend’s favorite cookies are white chocolate chip and hazelnut – is there any reason I couldn’t sub hazelnuts for the macadamias in this recipe? Thank you!
Hi Asli, you can absolutely do that! Same amount of chopped hazelnuts.
What high altitude adjustments do you suggest?
Hi Kathy, we wish we could help, but we have no experience baking at high altitude. Some readers have found this chart helpful: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/high-altitude-baking.html
I would love to bake these cookies but I currently only have granulated sugar and maybe half a cup of brown sugar. I was wondering if I can just use up all of the brown sugar I have and add a little extra granulated sugar, would that work with these?
That should be fine, Gabi!
This a great recipe that yields delicious, soft cookies. Anyone who disagrees is not following the recipe properly!
These cookies are amazing and even better with some substitutions. I swapped the butter for browned butter and added extra to make up for the moisture lost to the browning process (1 extra tablespoon per 1 stick).
I also toasted the sugar but didn’t account for the moisture that would be lost there. The dough came out a touch dry. So I whipped up another batch that was slightly wet and mixed them together. It evened out. It was very forgiving of the extra mixing that was required to compensate for my mistake.
I baked a larger cookie (4 inches across when fully baked) that was baked in 13-15 minutes.
My family loved this recipe!
Thrilled to find this cookie recipe. Just reading your description made my mouth water! So happy I found your site. Will be a regular follower!
Happy baking, Sherry!
What is the nutritional info? Calories etc….
Hi Jodi, We don’t usually include nutrition information as it can vary between different brands of the same ingredients. Plus, many recipes have ingredient substitutions or optional ingredients listed. However, there are many handy online calculators where you can plug in and customize your exact ingredients/brands. Readers have found this one especially helpful: https://www.verywellfit.com/recipe-nutrition-analyzer-4157076
I just calculated the calories as 179 per cookie. This is based on a 30 bookie yield for the ingredients as shown 🙂
Would doubling this recipe be okay or do I need to make adjustments?
Hi Cooper, you can double this dough recipe. Enjoy!
Do you add salt in above recipe if using salted macadamia nuts?
We use salted macadamia nuts (with the added salt in the dough), but you can use unsalted, raw, and/or whichever macadamia nuts you love most.