Pistachio Cookies

Chewy pistachio cookies packed with natural pistachio flavor from real pistachios.

These Italian pistachio cookies have a wonderfully chewy texture, strong pistachio flavor, sweet chocolate chunks, and crunchy pistachios throughout. If you're a fan of pistachios, these may just become your new favorite cookies!

No artificial flavors or instant pistachio pudding mix to be seen here, these pistachio cookies are the real deal. Just like my Pistachio Muffins, these delicious cookies get their pistachio flavor from pistachio paste in the cookie dough, as well as chopped pistachios throughout the cookies.

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• Instructions
• What is Pistachio Paste?
• Variations
• Equipment
• Storage
• Summary
• Recipe

Ingredients

These easy pistachio cookies require just a few simple ingredients - no instant pudding mix or artificial flavorings.

• Butter - You can use salted or unsalted butter for this cookie recipe, depending on your preference, either will work out great. There's no need for the butter to be room temperature as we'll be melting it anyway.

• Sugar - We'll use white sugar to make these nice chewy cookies, you could also use brown sugar but it may overpower the pistachio flavor, so I like to stick to white.

• Pistachio Paste - Also known as pistachio butter. This is an ingredient I use in all my pistachio recipes, such as my Pistachio Cake. It allows you to get a really intense pistachio flavor without having to use any artificial additives or flavorings. You can buy it readymade or if you have a food processor you can easily make it from scratch with this recipe.

• Egg - This cookie recipe uses the whole egg, use a large egg and free range if you can.

• Vanilla - You can use vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste.

• Almond Extract (optional) - If you want to really boost the flavor, you can also add a dash of almond extract - but this is totally optional.

• Flour - All-purpose flour works best to create soft cookies that still have a good bite.

• White Chocolate Chips - I added white chocolate chips as I think they complement the pistachios nicely, but you can leave these out or even swap them for another mix-in.

• Pistachios - Of course, we want some lovely nutty pistachios in the cookies. We'll put chopped pistachios in the dough and also on top of the cookies. It's easier if you buy them shelled so you don't have to pick them all out individually.

As it uses real pistachio nuts rather than pudding mix, this pistachio cookie recipe won't come out bright green like some of the other recipes you may have seen, but if you are looking for that green color, like in. my Pistachio Cake recipe, you can easily just add a drop of green gel food coloring to get the desired effect. Perfect for St. Patrick’s day!

See recipe card for ingredient amounts and full directions.

Instructions

These perfect pistachio cookies come together quickly in just a few simple steps.

• Preheat your oven to 350°F / 180°C and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

• Roughly chop the pistachios and set them aside.

• Melt the butter in the microwave and then mix together with the sugar and pistachio butter in a large bowl. You can do this by hand, or with an electric mixer on medium speed.

• Add the egg and vanilla and mix until combined. (If you want to add some almond extract to your cookie for an extra boost of flavor, add it now).

• Sift together the dry ingredients, including the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Stir together and then add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients.

• Mix everything together until a soft dough forms.

• Add the white chocolate chips and roughly ⅔ of the chopped pistachios (this doesn't have to be exact). Mix until they are evenly distributed.

• Use a tablespoon or a small cookie scoop to scoop walnut-sized balls of cookie dough and roll them in your hands to make perfect balls.

• Roll the top of the cookie dough balls in the remaining chopped pistachios and place them onto the lined baking sheet, evenly spaced out with enough room to spread.

• Bake cookies in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes or until the edges start to turn golden brown. The bake time will vary depending on how crispy you want the cookies.

• Once baked, remove the cookies from the oven and let them rest on the baking sheet for at least 10 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. The cookies will still be fragile, so I like to use a cookie lifter to transfer them to the cooling rack easily without damaging them.

• If you want to, sprinkle the cooling cookies with a little sea salt as soon as they come out of the oven.

• You may want to use two separate cookie sheets, that way while one batch of these cookies is cooling, the next batch can be in the oven already.

Top Tip: For perfectly round cookies - use a circular cookie cutter to gently 'scoot' the edges of the cookies as soon as they come out of the oven until you have the perfect cookie shape.

What is Pistachio Paste?

Pistachio paste, or pistachio butter, is made from 100% pistachios. The pistachios are roasted and then put through a food processor, the processor will break the nuts up into ground pistachio, then pistachio flour, and then eventually the oils will release and it will start to turn into a thick paste.

I have a post all about how to make pistachio butter easily at home. But you can also buy it readymade. If you can't find it at your local market or grocery store, you can order it online. I use pistachio paste in many pistachio desserts, such as my Pistachio Cannoli and Pistachio Cupcakes.

Variations

Pistachio Chocolate Chip Cookies - I made these pistachio cookies with white chocolate chips, but you could definitely swap these for milk chocolate or dark chocolate for a more chocolatey flavor.

Citrus Hint - For a little hit of citrus, add some lemon zest to your pistachio cookies at the same time as the pistachio butter.

Holiday Flair - You could add some dried fruit along with the chopped pistachios to make something like a pistachio cherry cookie, or even cranberry pistachio cookies - perfect for the holiday season!

Equipment

• Cookie sheet (or two cookie sheets if you'll be making your cookies in batches)
• Large mixing bowl
• Mixer (optional) - you can definitely make this recipe by hand with just a bowl and a wooden spoon, but you can also use an electric mixer or a stand mixer with a paddle attachment.
• Cookie lifter - helps to easily lift the soft cookies from the baking sheet to the cooling rack
• Circular cookie cutter - to scoot the edges of the cookies into a perfect round shape.

Storage

Store your delicious pistachio cookies in at room temperature in an airtight container lined with paper towels. They will be good like this for 5 days.

Summary

These easy-to-make pistachio cookies are the perfect nutty treat to whip up at this time of year.

With all their real pistachio flavor, this is a really good cookie recipe for the pistachio lover in your life - for a yummy snack, to serve at parties, or even to package up and give as gifts.

Happy baking!

Recipe