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 or brown butter marshmallow crispy 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.
Reader Comments and Reviews
Hello Sally, I’m looking forward to using this recipe! But, I don’t have any cornstarch and I can’t go to the store at the current moment. Is there any adjustments I need make?
Hi Sienna, you can simply omit the cornstarch if needed.
Hi! I made these for my boyfriend and he loved them!! I was worried about the dough being too dry but they turned out perfect!! I am going to use regular chocolate chips and walnuts next!
I wanted to love these but I have such sensitive taste buds and I couldn’t eat them without tasting the baking soda 🙁 everyone else was obsessed but I have very strong taste buds and couldn’t eat them and j usually love. White cocholate macadamiasn
Also im an Advances baker and I’ve made a lot of your recipes l, this is the only one that the baking soda was too much for me
Hi Michelle, is it possible that your baking soda is expired? Sometimes that can cause it to leave a more bitter taste in baked goods. Thank you for giving these cookies a try!
Love these as cookies. Would you adjust anything when making a cookie cake?
Hi Kesha! No need to adjust anything in the recipe. You can use the baking instructions for our Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake as a guide.
I just found this recipe and decided to make em. I altered it a bit. I cut the white and brown sugar down to 1/2c each instead of the 3/4c each and did 1/2c salted butter and a 1/2c buttered flavored crisco and omitted the additional salt, i also just did 1 extra large egg instead of what recipe called for. These cookies turned out absolutely perfect. Not to sweet and crunchy edges and soft centers.
I just found this recipe and decided to make em. I altered it a bit. I cut the white and brown sugar down to 1/2c each instead of the 3/4c each and did 1/2c salted butter and a 1/2c buttered flavored crisco and omitted the additional salt, i also just did 1 extra large egg instead of what recipe called for. These cookies turned out absolutely perfect. Not to sweet and crunchy edges and soft centers.
Great recipe, but some how the cookies didn’t turn out flat like I hoped. I’m not sure what I did wrong considering I followed the recipe ;;
The cookies are a nice level of sweet, the nut helps with the flavour. Will definitely be using this again :).
Hi Cora, thank you for giving these cookies a try! When cookies aren’t spreading, it usually means that there’s too much dry ingredient (flour) soaking up all the liquid. When measuring flour, use the spoon & level method. Do not scoop the flour out of the container/bag. Doing so leaves you with excess flour in the cookie dough.
This recipe is amazing! I have celiac so I used a 1 to 1 gluten free flour mix and cookies still came out perfect. The dough was tasty and hard to avoid sneaking little bites of dough while it was chilling.
Hubby loved them and said they were just like the Subway cookies he loves. Personally I think these are so much better, but he’s happy and I am happy as well.
The cookies came out amazing but the dough was really dry and crumbly. I had to add in nearly 1/4 cup of milk to keep it together. I followed the recipe closely but I’m not sure if I did something wrong haha
These are simply delicious! Which brand of white chocolate chips and dry roasted, salted macadamia nuts do you prefer?
Hi Mimsie, really any brand should work. We love Ghirardelli brand chips!
I rarely post but, I was so amazed by these cookies that I just had to comment. I’ve been baking for over 50 years. This recipe is a definite keeper. I followed the recipe exactly and wouldn’t change a thing. They are phenomenal. I will be stocking up on macadamia nuts and white chips.
Please bear with me as I explain my situation. Two days ago I planned on making Sally’s Super Chunk White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies. I prepared the flour mixture and melted the butter. I opened a new sealed bag of Macadamia Nuts from Sam’s Club and discovered they were rancid! Yuk! I couldn’t get to the store to buy new Macadamia Nuts until the next day, so I put the flour mixture in an air tight container left it on the counter and put the melted butter in the fridge.
The following day I bought Macadamia Nuts at Target. Opened the bag and they smelled divine. So I get home and start all over using the flour mixture that I saved and remelted the butter. I always follow Sally’s recipes as written (i.e. spooning and leveling and chilling the dough). Once the dough was mixed, it seemed quite dry. I thought maybe I lost a bit of the butter with the melting, refrigerating and melting again, so I melted 1/2 tablespoon of butter and added that to the dough. I’m honestly not sure if it really made a difference.
At any rate, I chilled the dough and after 2.5 hours I began rolling the cookies into balls and baking at 350 degrees for 12 minutes. The cookies weren’t spreading, like they usually do. I waited 2 more minutes and they spread a little, but again, not like the cookies normally do.
My question is, do you think because I remelted the butter and didn’t use the flour combination until the next day it could have caused the cookies to basically stay in a mound and not spread? The cookies taste delicious, but aren’t the normal texture.
A tip for readers, even if you’re opening a new bag of nuts, make sure they are fresh before you start putting ingredients together.
Thank you,
Jennifer
Hi Jennifer, When cookies aren’t spreading, it usually means that there’s too much dry ingredient (flour) soaking up all the liquid. When measuring flour, use the spoon & level method. Do not scoop the flour out of the container/bag. Doing so leaves you with excess flour in the cookie dough. If you are ever in the middle of baking a batch and the cookies still aren’t spreading, remove them from the oven, and use a spoon to slightly flatten them out before returning them to the oven. Hope this helps!
You will never go back to store bought once you try these. Easy fast and dam delicious!!
Hi! I am looking forward to trying this recipe! Would you recommend any adjustments for high altitude? I live at 7000ft. Thank you!
Hi Nikita, I wish we could help, but have no experience baking at high altitude. Some readers have found this chart helpful: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/high-altitude-baking.html
I live a bit over 8000 ft and made the following changes:
-Add ~2 Tbsp flour
-Decrease both sugars by ~2 Tbsp
-Decrease baking soda by 1/4-1/2 tsp
-Baked for 10 minutes (but that will vary based on your oven)
I didn’t measure these changes super accurately, but the cookies turned out great!
I love this recipe but for some reason my macadamia nuts have a strong flavor, what would be recommended to calm the flavor?
Hi Jannet! Macadamia nuts have a unique flavor, don’t they? Perhaps you could use less macadamia nuts to fit your tastes next time!
They came out perfect! How many calories per cookie?
Hi Margaret, 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 use this all the time as my base for cookies now. I have adjusted flour and put in oatmeal. I have use raisins, cran raisins and coconut.
Have you ever tried adding dried Cranberries to this recipe?
Hi Ellen, cranberries would be delicious in these cookies!
I think you will love the addition of dried cranberries because it cuts down a bit of the sweetness. Love, love, love!
Made and baked this cookie recipe exactly as written. The cookies turned out great, a little crispy on the edges and chewy in the center. It’s a Blue Ribbon Winner!
I was just wondering I just made the dough and I found it to be not dry but the consistency to be thick the chips and nuts are hard to work in. Waiting for the dough to come out of the fridge to bake with my grandson. Does this sound like the consistency it should me ?
Hi JoAnn, The dough is pretty thick (you can see a good visual in the video). They may not stick to the dough because of the melted butter, but that’s normal so just do your best to combine them.
If doubling the recipe, would you use 2 eggs + 2 yolks or just 3 eggs?
Hi Catherine, we would stick with the recipe with 2 eggs + 2 yolks. Enjoy!
This recipe is easy and the cookies are delicious!
Can I add some freeze dried fruit to this recipe? Say strawberries? How much should I add?
Hi Mary, I’m sure that would be fine. I haven’t tested it to be certain, but I would try 1 cup first. If using freeze-dried strawberries, that would be about 25g.
Wondering if I could brown the butter in this instead of melting and leave the rest of the recipe as is? Thank you!
Used half the total sugar & 1/4 cup plain (1%) Greek yogurt for some of the butter. These cookies turned out great!
Family loved these! Could the batter work as regular chocolate chip cookies too?
Absolutely! This recipe is based off our chocolate chip cookies recipe.
These were too sweet for me, I expected a rich salty and sweet cookie, and I just tasted sugar, even after my bite I still had such a strong sugar after taste.
Macadamia nut white chocolate chip cookies are supposed to be sweet. Recipe calls for unsalted butter and only 1/2 tsp salt in the recipe!
First let me say I’m a huge fan of all of your recipes and you are my go to for all baking recipes! I’d like to make these for my husband, but I’m not a fan of big chunks of nuts so can I do a real fine chop on the macadamia nuts or would that not work?
Hi Lexi! You can definitely chop the nuts smaller if desired. Just be careful not to chop them too small because if they turn into a powdery texture, they will incorporate into the dough and change the texture.
How many cookies does this recipe make?
And can I halve it for a smaller batch?
This recipe yields about 30 cookies. You can cut it in half if you wish.
Thanks for adding the weight of the ingredients. That helps a lot!
Wow! Just made these cookies and they are waaayyyy too sweet!!! Can I just reduce the white sugar to 1/2 c or will that throw off the other ingredients???
Hi Janet, sugar plays a large role not only in taste but in the final texture and structure of baked goods, so reducing the sugar will likely change the crispiness and chewiness of the cookies. You can certainly try experimenting, but we’d recommend starting small and then adjusting for future batches as needed.
I love this recipe, but I often find these too sweet for my palette as well, but when I adjust the sugar down by a quarter, it doesn’t effect the recipe much. I do this with pretty much all the recipes in the site.
I made these cookies with my 82 year old mom today. They were just delicious!! My Dad ate 3 cookies and they were not even cooled yet!!! We chilled the dough for 2 1/2 hours and the dough was really hard when taken out of the fridge just like the recipe said the dough would be. I didn’t wait the 20-30 minutes for the dough to soften, I just broke it down some and rolled up the balls…………………and it still turned out perfect!! Thank you so much for sharing the recipe!!!
Just a side note. I made these cookies a second time with my Mom. This time I took the finished dough and rolled it in balls before I chilled it. It was much easier for my Mom to pop them in the oven when she was ready to bake them. I’m making them again today!!!
Great idea. I’m making them today. I’ll give that a try. It’s always so hard to scoop the chilled dough.