Tessa's Recipe Rundown
Taste: Creamy white chocolate and toasty macadamia nuts, all in a classic brown sugar cookie base.
Texture: Soft and chewy center, crispy edges, and full of crunch thanks to the white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts throughout. It’s texture heaven!
Ease: Super simple! You don’t even have to chill the dough (though they’re even more delicious if you do!)
Why You’ll Love This Recipe: It’s a classic, with all the tastes and textures you love.
This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure policy.
Calling all white chocolate lovers: this White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookie recipe is for you!
These cookies are soft and chewy in the middle, crispy at the edges, and packed with a delightful crunch from the buttery macadamia nuts combined with sweet white chocolate chips, making them the ultimate cookie perfection.
Reader Love
Made these cookies exactly following the recipe and they came out perfect! I have been trying to perfect the bakery style cookie and this recipe did it!
–
Sprinkle of Science
How to Make White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
Ingredient Highlight: Macadamia Nuts
- I use unsalted macadamia nuts to allow the white chocolate to shine. You may be able to find them with other nuts in your local supermarket, in the bulk section in a store like Whole Foods or Sprouts.
- You can also buy unsalted macadamia nuts online here.
- You can also use salted macadamia nuts for that ‘salty-sweet’ flavor.
Cookie Tips:
- Measure your flour correctly by weighing it with a digital kitchen scale instead of using measuring cups which are far less accurate. So much so, that you may end up with DRY, crumbly dough and HARD, tough cookies that don’t spread and lack flavor. Learn how to measure your flour correctly here.
- Don’t reduce the sugar. Sugar does so much more than simply sweetening your cookies. It helps in spread and leavening, caramelization, and creating tender cookies that stay soft for days. Learn more about sugar’s role in baking here.
- Ensure your butter is at a COOL room temperature when creaming. Butter that is too warm won’t aerate properly, resulting in sad, flat cookies. Your sticks of butter should give slightly when pressed with your finger but still hold their shape. Your butter should be 67°F.
Pro Tip: Always Scrape Down Your Bowl!
If you’ve ever baked a near-perfect batch of cookies, only to have the last few cookies look like a little explosion happened in the oven, hidden pockets of butter were likely the culprit. Always scrape down the sides and bottom of your mixing bowl several times.
What Kind of Baking Sheet is Best for Cookies?
- A light-colored aluminum half-sheet pan is my favorite for baking cookies.
- Avoid dark nonstick pans as cookies will brown too much.
- Check out my Baking Pans 101 post for side-by-side pictures from my pan experiments and recommendations for the best pans available.
Storage Recommendations
Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days. To keep them extra soft, add a flour tortilla to the container.
How to Freeze Cookie Dough:
Freeze the pre-portioned balls of White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies dough in a freezer-safe container or Ziptop bag. Bake directly from frozen, lowering the oven temperature to 325°F and adding a few minutes to the bake time. Learn more about freezing cookie dough here!
FAQs
Yes, a hand mixer will work just as well as a stand mixer. Just don’t use the whisk attachment (for either!).
Yes – simply double all ingredients to make approximately 56 large White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies. This works best with a stand mixer.
No – but chilling the cookie dough for 24-72 hours will yield a thicker, chewier cookie with a more developed, well-rounded flavor. I recommend chilling for at least 24 hours if time permits. If you can’t, no worries; you’ll still get delicious results without the chill period.
Email This Recipe
Enter your email, and we’ll send it to your inbox.
Ingredients
- 3 cups (381 grams) all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 2 sticks (226 grams) unsalted butter, at cool room temperature
- 1 cup (200 grams) lightly packed light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs plus 1 egg yolk, at cool room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups (255 grams) white chocolate chips
- 1 1/2 cups (210 grams) chopped
macadamia nuts , unsalted*
Instructions
- If baking right away, preheat the oven to 350°F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
- In a large bowl, use an electric mixer on medium-high speed to cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the eggs and yolk, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla. Slowly beat in the flour mixture. Stir in the white chocolate chips and nuts with a rubber spatula.
- If time permits, wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 24 hours but no more than 72 hours. Let dough sit at room temperature until it is just soft enough to scoop.
- Using a large (3-tablespoon) spring-loaded scoop, drop balls of dough onto prepared baking sheets, spacing at least 2 1⁄2 inches apart.
- Bake for 11-12 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool for 5 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely. Cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.
I don’t consider myself a baker, so learned 2 this today. Creaming the butter and sugar really is important (who knew…) and chilling the dough helps. These were amazing when you do this correctly.
That’s so exciting, Cindy! Happy to hear you learned something new and had delicious results 🙂
I didn’t have any macadamia nuts, but I did have a boatload of cashews that my husband couldn’t resist at Costco. 🤦🏼♀️ In addition to some white chocolate chips, I had a few milk chocolate chips and some Trader Joe’s caramel sea salt chips. These cookies are so good — crispy edges with a chewy center. Yum! I would also love macadamia nuts and all white chocolate as the recipe was written.
These are so soft and delicious. Thank you for another great cookie..
Hi,
I was wondering if I could add dried cranberries to this recipe? My favorite cake bakery has these cookies but with cranberries, and they are sooo good. Would I have to adjust the amounts of sugar or anything, if I added the dried cranberries? I like the description of yours better (crispy edge, chewy soft center), and I can’t wait to try them!
Hi Denise! Sure, feel free to swap out some of the white chocolate and/or nuts for the dried cranberries, to keep the total mix-ins about the same. Let us know how it goes 🙂
Amazing Cookies!
Fantastic recipe! The description at the top of the recipe describes these cookies perfectly, as they are both crispy at the edges but soft on the inside, with that chewy texture. Love them!
I kept a batch in the fridge for about 2 days and baked them off and they came out just as good as the “fresh” batch. Make these cookies!
So glad to hear you loved this recipe, Josh! “Marinating” your cookie dough in the fridge is always a great idea to enhance flavor and texture, happy you tried it!
Absolutely wonderful! Adjusted for altitude and baked from a round, unflattened ball. I also added the zest of a lime, which adds a distinct and unusual flavor. Half that amount might have been more nicely subtle. I think we’ll see this recipe again!
Ooo sounds incredibly delicious!
Too much sugar and not chewy at all- a disaster
Perfect recipe! Everyone loved my WCMN cookie based on this recipe. Thanks, Tessa
Hi! I would love to try this recipe I’m just not sure what kind of macadamia nuts I should use. Salted or unsalted, roasted or raw?
Just made these because I got macadamia nuts at Costco, SUUUUCH A GOOD COOKIE RECIPE!
texture is marvelous, cooking time on point and the ratio of add ins is spot on – going to be making these a lot, but no sharing! om nom nom
O.M.G. I have just found the ultimate cookie recipe ever! Thank you so much 🙂 I made a batch of these for work, everyone loved them, and today I made another batch for work only substituting macadamias with pecans (purely only because I needed to use them) . But they are so easy- took 1 hour max from start to finish. Next I had better make your blondes 🙂