The bright green color of these cookies comes from matcha, giving them a fun color and earthy flavor. While delicious on their own, the sweetness of chocolate chunks or chips pairs nicely with them. Perhaps the best part of this recipe for matcha white chocolate cookies is that - like many of my site's cookie recipes - they use a no-chill cookie dough. If you're impatient to quickly eat cookies (I always am!), these can be ready in under an hour!
What is Matcha?
I've become a matcha fan as its popularity has grown in baked goods, lattes, ice cream, and a variety of other desserts and dishes.
Matcha is a kind of green tea. To make it, young tea leaves are ground down into a powder, which is typically a bright green. The world's finest matcha has origins in Japan, where farmers have grown it for centuries and also used it in traditional Japanese tea ceremonies.
Types of Matcha
For best results with color and flavor in these cookies, use a high-quality culinary grade matcha powder, not ceremonial grade.
Ceremonial grade matcha, or premium grade matcha, is more expensive and not intended for baking.
To see for myself, I tested this recipe with ceremonial grade powder, which cost a lot more and did not add flavor.
Save yourself some money and go with culinary grade matcha in baked goods. Learn more about baking with this Japanese green tea powder from Bon Appetit.
Matcha Cookie Dough Ingredients
The recipe card below contains all the steps and ingredients for these matcha cookies, but here are some highlights:
- Matcha powder - Matcha powder adds a beautiful, vibrant shade of green to these cookies. It also has a lightly earthy yet sweet flavor. After seeing other bakers online using Aiya matcha powder, that's the brand I also decided to incorporate into this recipe. There are many good brands of matcha available to home bakers.
- Ground oats from old fashioned oats - They add texture and chewiness. They even add some health benefits - like fiber, vitamins, and minerals - to the cookie!
- Baking baking powder and baking soda - Baking soda helps a cookie spread while baking, but too much soda can lead to a thin, crispy cookie. As a result, this recipe also uses baking powder. It helps the cookie rise and prevents excessive spreading.
- White chocolate chunks or chips - Matcha has an earthy, natural flavor. These cookies are delicious without any chips, but the white chocolate creates a perfect combination here. It plays well with the matcha flavor as they complement each another. I also tested this recipe with some dark and milk chocolate chips. They were tasty as well but of course had a different flavor. The matcha also didn't come through as well when paired with dark chocolate, but they were still very yummy.
- Browned butter - Browned butter provides a lightly nutty flavor. It's not strong but is noticeable and enhances the earthiness of this cookie's flavor. It also contributes to the chewy texture of these soft cookies.
Browning Butter for Matcha White Chocolate Cookies
This is a step and ingredient that enhances and deepens the taste of these cookies and takes only a few minutes. Here's how, and it's easy!
And don't worry about it changing the appearance of your cookies. If you're using a high-quality, culinary grade matcha powder, that pretty bright green color will still shine.
Brown your sticks of butter over medium heat (approximately 6-10 minutes). Stir continuously until the butter begins to foam and becomes golden brown. Once it smells nutty and becomes amber in color, remove it from the heat source.
Pour your browned butter into a heat-resistant container and place it in the freezer to expedite the cooling process for the next 15-20 minutes while you move ahead with this recipe. When you next use the butter, you’ll want it to be cool. It will likely have formed a sort of shell on its surface but be liquid-y beneath. That's fine.
If you're new to browning butter, I especially recommend watching your pot of butter closely. You want to get to the point where you see little brown flecks scattered throughout the butter. It will overall turn a more amber color, too. That's why I also suggest using a pan or pot that has a lighter colored bottom. That makes it easier to notice the subtle changes in your butter's color.
How to Make White Chocolate Matcha Cookies
After you've browned your butter, preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Measure all your ingredients besides your brown butter, which should be cooling.
Place old fashioned oats into a food processor or blender and pulse until finely powdered. Set aside in a large bowl.
Add your spooned and leveled flour to your bowl of finely powdered oats and then also add matcha powder. Break up any clumps using a sifter, whisk, or fork.
In a large mixing bowl, combine melted brown butter, white sugar, brown sugar, vanilla extract, salt, nutmeg, baking powder, and baking soda.
Start an electric mixer on a low speed to moisten, then increase speed to medium until dough is well combined, about 4 minutes. Scrape down the sides of your bowl halfway through the process to ensure all ingredients are incorporated.
Pause your hand or stand mixer and add one egg as well as half of your flour/oat/matcha mixture. Beat until smooth before adding the second egg and remaining dry ingredients. Beat for about one minute.
Mix in your sweet white chocolate chips or chunks if using.
Use an ice cream scoop and your hand, form golf-ball sized portions of your cookie dough onto ungreased aluminum baking sheets. Leave about 2 inches between each of them. Bake for 12-13 minutes.
After cooling for about 5 minutes on cookie sheet (or until cookies are firm enough to handle), transfer cookies to cooling rack.
Tip for Shaping Cookies
Want cookies that are nice and evenly round?
As soon as the cookies are out of the oven, use a round cookie cutter or even the open side of a glass that's slightly bigger than the cookies. Use it to gently slide the cookies into a more uniformly circular shape.
No-Chill Dough for these White Chocolate Chip Cookies
Some cookie recipes insist on resting your cookie dough before baking it. This generally means setting it in the refrigerator for a few hours or even overnight before popping your cookies into the oven. The end result can be a more flavorful cookie.
However, life happens, and sometimes you don't have time to wait. Here, resting the dough is not necessary.
You can learn more about the merits of resting your dough in this post from Bon Appétit. The bottom line is that if a recipe does ask you to rest your dough, you shouldn't breeze past these instructions.
But luckily, no resting needed here!
Matcha and Matcha Cookie FAQ
Among many factors, brown sugar and browned or melted butter can help produce cookies with soft centers.
Also, toward the end of baking, remove your cookies from the oven once the edges are set but the centers still look slightly undercooked. The residual heat will continue to cook them as they cool on the baking sheet, which keeps them nice and chewy and more soft than crisp.
Aside from the obvious issue of over-baking these matcha chocolate chip cookies, the matcha powder may be the problem.
If you're not using a good quality matcha powder (more on that below), that could be the cause. The Minimalist Baker has a helpful round-up on matcha powder recommendations.
Culinary matcha, which I use in this recipe, is designed for lattes and baking, to name a few use cases.
Conversely, ceremonial matcha is blended solely for the purpose of drinking it in beverages like matcha lattes. It's a delicate flavor that isn't meant for high heat in baking and gets lost against other flavors. I do not recommend using it in this recipe. You can read more about the different grades here.
These cookies stay fresh for 2-3 days at room temperature in an air-tight container.
Another option is to make all and form all the cookie dough balls at once. Set some aside in an airtight container in the freezer. Bring them out to bake whenever you'd like.
You can also store these cookies fully baked in an airtight container in your freezer for up to 3 months. Bring them from the freezer so they can warm up to room temperature.
More Cookies to Try
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Chewy Matcha White Chocolate Cookies
The bright green color of these chewy matcha white chocolate cookies is so fun. Matcha's subtle, earthy flavor pairs well with the chocolate.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes/batch
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 20 - 25 cookies 1x
- Category: Dessert
Ingredients
- 1 and ¾ cups (170 grams) old fashioned oats
- 1 and ¾ cups (230 grams) all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
- 2 ½ sticks of butter (284 grams) unsalted butter for browning
- ½ cup (120 grams) white sugar
- 5 tsp matcha
- 1 cup (190 grams) firmly packed light brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- ½ tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- 2 large eggs (about 50g), straight from the fridge
- Optional mix-ins: 1 cup (about 150 grams) of your favorite chocolate chips or chunks
Instructions
Browning your butter
- Brown your sticks of butter over medium heat (approximately 10 minutes). Stir occasionally until the butter begins to foam and becomes golden brown. Monitor your butter closely to avoid any burning. Once it smells nutty and becomes amber in color, remove it from the heat source.
- Pour your browned butter into a heat-resistant container and set aside to cool while you move ahead with this recipe.
Baking your cookies
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Place old fashioned oats in a food processor or blender and pulse until finely powdered. Set aside in a large bowl and introduce your spooned and leveled flour to the bowl. Then add matcha powder. Break up any clumps using a sifter, whisk, or fork.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine melted brown butter, white sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, salt, nutmeg, baking powder, and baking soda. Start on a low speed to moisten, then increase speed to medium until dough is well combined, about 4 minutes. Scrape down the sides of your bowl halfway through the process to ensure all ingredients are incorporated.
- Pause mixing and add one egg as well as half of your flour/oat mixture. Beat until smooth before adding the second egg and remaining flour and pulsed oats. Beat for about one minute.
- Mix-in your chocolate chunks or chips if using.
- Use an ice cream scoop and your hand to form golf-ball sized portions of your cookie dough onto ungreased aluminum baking sheets, with about 2 inches between each of them. Bake for 12-13 minutes.
- After cooling for about 5 minutes on cookie sheet (or until cookies are firm enough to handle), transfer cookies to cooling rack.
Betty D
Just made a batch of these. Love them! You can definitely taste the matcha, unlike some other recipes. But my favorite part is the CHOCOLATE 🙂 I used half white, half dark chocolate chunks. Yum! Thanks Susan
Susan
Awesome! They're nice with a mix of chocolate in them for sure!