A classic cookie with a decadent flair, these white chocolate macadamia nut cookies are made with browned butter, toasted macadamia nuts, premium white chocolate, and a sprinkle of flaky sea salt. Recipe includes a how-to video!
Gourmet White Chocolate Cookies
These are not your average white chocolate macadamia nut cookies! No, these are decadently buttery cookies enriched with toasty, nutty flavor, sweet white chocolate, crunchy roasted macadamia nuts, and finishing dash of sea salt.
While it may sound complicated, my recipe is actually quite easy to make and doesn’t even require a mixer!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Flavor: Rich, nutty brown butter enriches the cookies and gives them a much deeper flavor that is reminiscent of toffee. It’s our secret ingredient here!
- Texture: Slightly crisp, golden-brown edges with thick, soft centers punctuated with crunchy macadamia nuts and pockets of creamy white chocolate.
- Ease: No mixer needed, since we are starting with melted butter (like when making my butter pecan cookies). Don’t you love it when that happens?
- Chilling: Only 30 minutes to chill, which is just enough time to clean up your countertop, preheat your oven, and prep your cookie sheets.
- Sweetness: White chocolate has a reputation for being super sweet (I talked about this when I shared my white chocolate buttercream), so we’ll use just enough chips to add sweetness without making the cookies cloying.
Ingredients
Most of today’s ingredients are pretty standard, but we do have a few important ingredients that elevate this cookie dough from classic to irresistible!
- Butter. The first step in this recipe is browning your butter. If you’ve never done this before, I walk you through the steps in the recipe and video (just below the recipe). I also have a step-by-step guide on how to brown butter, if you need more help. For extra rich flavor, try using European butter.
- White chocolate. There are a lot of ingredients that I buy generic without issue, but white chocolate is not one of them (and the same goes for baking powder or soda). Ghirardelli is my current favorite brand; you can either chop up a white chocolate bar (my preference for extra melty hunks of chocolate throughout) or just use chips.
- Macadamia nuts. I use roasted and salted macadamia nuts. If yours aren’t already chopped when you buy them, be sure to chop them into chocolate-chip-sized pieces before adding.
- Cornstarch. This is a favorite in so many of my cookie recipes, especially ones that begin with melted butter (like my worst chocolate chip cookies). It helps to keep the cookies soft and prevents them from spreading too much without drying them out (which adding more flour would do).
- Sea salt. This is optional, but I love adding a sprinkle of sea salt to the tops of my cookies just after removing them from the oven.
SAM’S TIP: Your eggs should ideally be at room temperature. To quickly bring eggs to room temperature, place them in a bowl of warm (not hot) water for 15 minutes.
This is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
- Brown the butter: Melt and cook the butter in a saucepan until it foams, sizzles, and turns brown. Remove from the heat and let cool until it is no longer warm to the touch.
- Stir in the sugars, eggs, and vanilla, then set aside while you whisk together the dry ingredients in a separate bowl.
- Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, then fold in the add-ins.
- Cover and chill the dough before scooping and rolling into 1 ½ tablespoon sized balls.
- Bake until the edges just start to turn golden brown, then remove and sprinkle with sea salt. The key to soft and chewy cookies is to slightly underbake them in the oven and finish cooking outside the oven on their baking sheets.
SAM’S TIP: For round, uniform-looking cookies, roll the scoops of cookie dough briefly between your palms before baking. You can also add a few chocolate chips to the tops after they come out of the oven. This will give your cookies a bakery-style look!
Frequently Asked Questions
Adding the sugars when your butter is warm or hot butter will melt them, leaving you with a soupy, greasy cookie dough and ultra-flat cookies.
On the other hand, if you have cookie dough that isn’t spreading enough, you may have accidentally added too much flour to your dough. This is a common mistake; make sure you know how to measure flour properly if this happens to you often.
I suppose you don’t have to! I do have a separate recipe for white chocolate chip cookies that you could try instead.
Yes, though you may need to let it sit at room temperature for a bit before scooping if you do. If you want to freeze the cookie dough, follow the instructions in my post on how to freeze cookie dough.
If you’re a big macadamia nut fan, give my coconut cream pie a try! It uses a macadamia nut-infused crust for extra flavor 🤍
Enjoy!
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White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup (226 g) unsalted butter
- 1 cup (200 g) brown sugar
- ⅔ cup (135 g) white sugar
- 2 large eggs room temperature preferred
- 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 ¾ cups (340 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 Tablespoon cornstarch cornflour in UK
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 1 cups (170 g) premium white chocolate chips
- 1 cup (110 g) Macadamia nut pieces
- sea salt for sprinkling optional
Instructions
Begin by Browning your Butter:
- Place butter in a medium-sized saucepan over medium-low heat.1 cup (226 g) unsalted butter
- Once butter has melted, increase heat to just above medium heat. Stir the butter and scrape the sides and bottom of the pan frequently with a wooden spoon or heatproof spatula – the butter will begin to bubble and pop. Once the bubbling/popping slows, the butter will begin to turn brown (see image). Once it begins to brown, remove from heat and pour into a large heat-proof bowl.
- Allow butter to cool to room temperature before proceeding with the recipe.
Cookie Dough
- Add sugars into cooled browned butter and stir well.1 cup (200 g) brown sugar, ⅔ cup (135 g) white sugar
- Add eggs and vanilla extract and stir until well-combined.2 large eggs, 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- In a separate, medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda and salt.2 ¾ cups (340 g) all-purpose flour, 1 Tablespoon cornstarch, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda, ¾ teaspoon salt
- Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture, stirring until ingredients are nearly completely combined.
- Add white chocolate chips and macadamia nut pieces and stir until ingredients are well-incorporated.1 cups (170 g) premium white chocolate chips, 1 cup (110 g) Macadamia nut pieces
- Cover bowl with plastic wrap and chill cookie dough in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before proceeding.
- 15 minutes before you are ready to bake cookies, preheat oven to 350F (175C) and line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Once oven is preheated and cookie dough has chilled, drop dough by heaping, rounded 1 ½-Tbsp-sized scoops (50g) onto prepared cookie sheets, placing at least 2" (5cm) apart.
- Bake on 350F (175C) for 9-11 minutes or until edges are just beginning to turn golden brown (cookies should still be quite soft when you remove them from the oven, and may even appear slightly underbaked in center).
- Sprinkle lightly with sea salt immediately after removing from the oven.sea salt for sprinkling
- Allow cookies to cool completely on baking sheet.
Notes
Storing
Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
Marie Samaan
Sam! I’m sorry to bother you again with all these questions. I love making cookies and my biggest pet peeve is for a cookie not turning out right. So my questions are
1. Can the dough be chill longer then 20mins so like overnight ( but rolling the dough first before chilling) and leaving it out for an hour before putting in the oven?
2. Can I use White chocolate chunks instead of chips? If I’m using chucks, the temperature need to be reduced or can I stay the same?
3. For the nuts do you recommend salted or unsalted? Along with roasting them for a few mins and then put them in the dough?
4. Can dark brown sugar be used or it’s better to use light in this case
I have been looking for a great recipe for this cookie and no one ever said brown the butter. I love doing that to all the cookies I make! Other recipes said not to brown the butter so can you tell me why it’s better to do that
Sam
Hi Marie! You can chill the dough longer if need be. You may just need to leave it out for a little bit to make it scoopable, like you stated. White chocolate chunks will work just fine and you won’t need to alter the temperature. I used salted macadamia nuts, but really either one will work fine. You can certainly roast them beforehand if you’d like. Dark brown sugar will work great! It does have just a bit more flavor. Brown butter just provides an extra bit of flavor so I like to do it for these cookies. I developed the recipe with brown butter so I would recommend doing it. 🙂
R. Smith
This recipe is easy and they taste so good! Only issue I had was that mine didn’t spread but reading more comments,, I see it could be the amount of flour I had
Otherwise they’re addictive!
Sam
I’m glad you enjoyed them! Hopefully they turn out with a little better shape next time. 🙂
Julia
Honestly – all your cookie recipes are the best I have EVER tried. And these are especially good. That brown butter adds a special touch to it too!
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Julia! 🙂
Katie
I’m meeting my bf’s mom for the first time tonight and I wanted to bake him his favorite cookies so I don’t come empty handed. I’m so glad I did! They’re delicious! I halved the recipe and it yielded 13 cookies all approximately 3-3.5” I also used about 80% less sugar and a tad more salt. I also browned the butter a little darker than pictured (I looked away for half a second), it came out perfect! That toffee-esque flavor really comes through! I saved a few nuts and chocolate chunks to put on top after I sprinkled the dough balls with sea salt. They look professionally made and they’re delicious! Thanks for this amazing recipe!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Katie! That’s a great treat to bring with you. 🙂
Stephanie
I rarely ever leave reviews, but these are THE. BEST. COOKIES. I have EVER made. Like, eyes roll back every time I eat one of these cookies lol. Thank you so much!!!!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Stephanie! Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment. 🙂
jocelan tracey
These should come with a warning: You will need copious amounts of coffee/ and or milk.
I’m pretty sure they are the sweetest cookie ever created. The sea salt is a critical element.
I adore them.
Sam
I am so happy you enjoyed so much , Jocelan! Thank you so much for commenting, I appreciate it! 🙂
Liz
Hi Sam! Looking for some guidance. I made this dough ahead a few days ago and froze them already rolled out. Today I took one out to trial it before I bake the batches. I was testing to see if I can bake them from frozen or if I should let them thaw a little. The cookie didn’t really spread much- it was really puffy. It became golden brown on the outside but still little raw on the inside. I even added an extra minutes. My thought is that I should set these on the counter for a bit before baking them. Is this something you recommend? Do you recommend doing anything with heavier batters if frozen ahead? Thanks!
Sam
Hi Liz! I’m so disappointed to hear this happened! I think there are 2 possible things going on here. If they didn’t spread there may have been too much flour in the dough, which would cause them to not spread and cook unevenly. The cooking unevenly could also be from your oven being too hot, but this is a less likely cause. You should be able to bake them from frozen without these issues, but it’s worth a shot to let them come to room temperature so you don’t have to throw away all of that dough and hard work. 🙁
liz
Thanks, Sam! I don’t think it could be the flour- I measure it with a scale 🙂 It could be my oven. I have two thermometers in there and they don’t match temperatures! i’ll do another test 🙂 thanks again
Erika
I pretty much exclusively make chocolate chip cookies and this time I tried something different for workplace cookie swap. The cookies turned out really tasty! I really liked the browned butter touch. Thanks for always sharing wonderful recipes!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Erika! 🙂
Laura
Absolutely delicious!! The browned butter takes it to the next level and that tiny sprinkle of sea salt adds just a little something extra. I halved the recipe just to try it and still got 16 (3″diameter) cookies. This one’s a keeper and going into my “Favorites” book. Thanks Sam!
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed, Laura! Thank you so much for letting me know how it turned out! 🙂
JanG
These taste great! But why did they not spread any? I had to flatten slightly?
Sam
I’m glad you enjoyed them so much, Jan! The most likely culprit of cookies not spreading is too much flour in the cookies. I hope this helps. 🙂
Debbie Rice
Delicious and easy
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them, Debbie! 🙂
Ida
I had never browned butter before, but definitely taste it in these. Cool trick. And thanks for the video! These were exactly the thick and soft result I was looking for. Delicious! I wish I’d remembered the salt topping in the first batches that came out, and I’ll more coarsely chop the nuts next time. Yum!
Sugar Spun Run
I am so happy that you enjoyed them and the flavor of the brown butter, Ida! Thanks for trying my recipe! 🙂
Kristina Horne
Hello!
First I just wanna say I love ALL your recipes! They are so good and seriously so fool proof! I have a few questions. 1. DO you have to do the brown butter? and 2. Whats the need for chilling? Will they overspread if the dough is too soft?
Thank you!!
Sam
Hi Kristina! Thank you so much for trying my recipes, I really appreciate it! So, you do not have to brown the butter (though I really recommend it for flavor). The chilling is necessary both to keep the cookies from spreading too much and to help the flavor develop, too. I hope that helps! 🙂
Macaiah
Holy cow these are delicious!
Sam
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Macaiah! 🙂
Jen
Hi Sam!
I love your recipes! I’m planning to make these white chocolate macadamia nut cookies but would like them to be jumbo—about 1/2 cup of batter. Aside from the baking time would I need to alter the recipe?
Thanks so much!
Sugar Spun Run
Hi, Jen! This recipe yields approximately 28 cookies if I measure them using a 1 1/2-Tbsp-sized scoop. If you wish for them to be jumbo you want to get as many cookies out of one batch of dough so you may want to consider doubling the recipe. The only other thing would be the bake time, you will want to keep an eye on them as the time will be longer than what is indicated. I hope that you enjoy them! 🙂