These cookies get their bright green color and earthy flavor from matcha. Paired with sweet white chocolate chunks, these cookies deliver an irresistible balance of flavors. Plus, thanks to a no-chill dough, you'll have fresh matcha white chocolate cookies ready in under an hour.
Jump to:
- Reasons to Love this White Chocolate Cookie Recipe
- 📋 Key Ingredients
- 🍵 Types of Matcha
- Best Results: Baking in Grams
- Recipe Substitutions and Variations
- 🧈 Guide for Browning Butter
- 📖 Step-by-Step Instructions for Matcha Cookies
- 💡 Pro Tip for Round Cookies
- ❓ Recipe FAQ and Troubleshooting
- Matcha Cookie Storage Instructions
- More Baking Tips
- More Cookie Recipes
- Chewy Matcha White Chocolate Cookies
I was inspired to create these cookies after falling in love with matcha lattes. Now, these cookies are my go-to when I want to enjoy matcha in dessert form.
These matcha cookies with white chocolate chips are perfect for green tea lovers. If you enjoy desserts inspired by cozy, comforting flavors, here are some more ideas to try alongside this one:
- My recipe for mascarpone cookies uses pumpkin in the dough for a super soft texture. But my favorite part is the homemade mascarpone espresso frosting atop them. Fans of tiramisu and pumpkin will love this mashup of flavors.
- These coffee Oreo cookies have pieces of Oreos and chunks of chocolate in every bite. Yum! Plus, the addition of ground coffee or instant espresso powder brings a concentrated mocha sort of vibe to the cookies.
- Fans of both chai tea and coffee will love this dirty chai cake! The marbled cake layers are wrapped in a simple but elegant chai buttercream.
Reasons to Love this White Chocolate Cookie Recipe
No chill time - Like many of the cookie recipes on my site, these ones are baked right after mixing—no chilling required. Perfect for when you’re craving something sweet in a hurry!
Versatile cookie - If you're torn between chocolate chip cookies or using sweet white chocolate chips, let me tell you that this recipe is great with either, neither, or both! The matcha cookies are great without chips but a different kind of delicious if you add the chocolate of your choice.
Fast and easy - From start to finish, you can have one of these buttery matcha cookies in your mouth within an hour of starting this recipe. That's a win.
All natural excellent color - These cookies have such a stunning shade of green that'll stand out in the best way.
📋 Key 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 strong 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.
- Pure vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste – Vanilla adds a sweet taste and aroma to this matcha cookie recipe
🍵 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. A somewhat expensive but worthwhile experiment!
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.
Best Results: Baking in Grams
If you’re not already, use a kitchen scale for accuracy in baking.
While I include cups and grams in my recipe cards, weighing your ingredients and writing or following a recipe using a standard metric like grams ensures consistency.
I highly recommend investing $30 or less in a kitchen scale.
Recipe Substitutions and Variations
- Flour Alternatives: Use all-purpose flour for the best cookies, but gluten-free flour should work well as a 1:1 substitution if needed.
- Butter Options: If you don't enjoy the nutty flavor of browned butter, you can substitute it for melted butter instead. No browning required.
- Mix-Ins: Swap white chocolate chips with macadamia nuts or sprinkle a bit of sea salt for the perfect balance of sweet and savory.
- Matcha Variations: Enhance the green tea flavor by adding an extra teaspoon of culinary-grade matcha powder to the dough.
- Sugar Adjustments: For a deeper flavor in the cookies, use dark brown sugar instead of light. This yields a more caramel flavor.
🧈 Guide for Browning Butter
Browning butter helps the butter's water content evaporate while the milk solids caramelize. This process leaves behind a deliciously nutty flavor.
I also suggest you use a pan or pot that has a lighter colored bottom. That makes it easier to notice the subtle changes in your butter’s color.
If you’re new to browning butter, watch your pot closely.
Place your sticks of unsalted butter in a pot or small saucepan over medium heat.
Leave butter in pot for about 8-12 minutes, stirring occasionally until the butter begins to foam. It'll become golden brown.
Be sure to scrape all the brown bits and flecks of caramelized butter from the pan or pot. This is where the flavor is!
Once golden brown, it's ready for pouring into your mixing bowl, where it'll cool a bit while you prepare your ingredients.
📖 Step-by-Step Instructions for Matcha Cookies
Prepare Ingredients: After browning the butter, preheat the oven to 350°F. While the butter cools, measure your other ingredients.
Make Oat Flour: Pulse old-fashioned oats in a food processor or blender until finely powdered. Combine in a large bowl with flour and matcha powder, breaking up clumps with a whisk or sifter.
Mix Wet Ingredients: In a large bowl, mix the cooled brown butter, brown and white sugars, vanilla, salt, nutmeg, baking powder, and baking soda. Beat with an electric mixer on medium for about 4 minutes, scraping the bowl as needed.
Add Eggs and Dry Ingredients: Pause your hand or stand mixer and beat in one egg and half of the dry mixture. Add the second egg and remaining dry ingredients, mixing until smooth.
Add Mix-ins: Fold in white chocolate chips, chunks, or any mix-ins you plan to use.
Shape and Bake: Scoop golf-ball-sized portions of matcha cookie dough onto ungreased baking sheets, leaving 2 inches of space between. Bake for 12–13 minutes.
Cool the Cookies – Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring them to wire racks to cool completely.
💡 Pro Tip for Round Cookies
Immediately after baking, use a cookie cutter or even the open side of a glass that's slightly bigger than the cookies to gently slide them into a more circular shape.
❓ Recipe FAQ and Troubleshooting
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.
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 that could be the cause.
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.
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 of the cookies 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.
Matcha Cookie Storage Instructions
- Room temperature - These soft cookies will stay fresh at room temperature (around 70°F) for about 3 days.
- Refrigerating - Instead of refrigerating them between servings, I'd recommend freezing them. Bring them out in small quantities at a time if you plan to share them over the course of more than 3 days.
- Freezing - These thick cookies also freeze well for up to three months in an airtight container. I add wax or parchment paper between the layers as I stack them. To enjoy, let them come to room temperature before serving.
For the feeling of freshly baked, warm chocolate chip cookies, you may also gently warm them for a few seconds on low speed in the microwave.
Freezing Cookie Dough Balls - If you’ve previously made this dough and are pulling it from your freezer, add 1-2 minutes of baking time, depending on your preference for thicker cookies that are chewy vs. thinner ones.
More Baking Tips
Below are some general tips to keep in mind when baking these white chocolate matcha cookies and any recipe, really:
- Periodically check the freshness of your leavening agents. Mix a pinch of baking powder with hot water to see if it reacts. For baking soda, you can mix a pinch of it with a few drops of something acidic, like vinegar or lemon juice. If your leavening agents have no reaction (i.e. you see no fizzing or bubbling), it means they also won’t help your ingredients rise during the baking process.
- Before diving into the recipe, clear your workspace and set out all your ingredients in front of you. This will make it less likely that you’ll forget to leave something important out of your mixing bowl!
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More Cookie Recipes
Chewy Matcha White Chocolate Cookies
These matcha white chocolate cookies have a chewy texture and perfect balance of sweetness alongside earthy notes from the green tea flavor.
- Prep Time: 18 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 24 cookies 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Cuisine: American
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 teaspoons matcha
- 1 cup (190 grams) firmly packed light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon 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
- Place the sticks of butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir occasionally as the butter melts, foams, and begins to turn golden brown, about 8-10 minutes. Keep a close eye on the butter to avoid burning. When it smells nutty and turns amber in color, remove the pan from the heat.
- Pour the browned butter, including any browned bits at the bottom, into your mixing bowl while you prepare the rest of the recipe.
Baking Your Cookies
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
- Prepare the dry ingredients: Place the old-fashioned oats in a food processor or blender and pulse until finely powdered. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and add the flour (spooned and leveled), matcha powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg. Sift or whisk to remove any clumps and set aside.
- Combine the wet ingredients: In your mixing bowl where the brown butter is cooling, add brown sugar, white sugar, and vanilla extract. Beat on low speed to combine, then increase to medium speed and mix until smooth and creamy, about 2-3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Incorporate the eggs and dry ingredients: Add one egg to the wet mixture and beat until fully incorporated. Mix in half of the dry ingredients, then add the second egg and the remaining dry ingredients. Beat on medium speed until a cohesive dough forms, about 1 minute.
- Fold in chocolate: If using, stir in the white chocolate chunks or chips with a spatula until evenly distributed.
- Portion the dough: Use a cookie scoop or your hands to form golf-ball-sized portions of dough (about 2 tablespoons each). Place them onto ungreased aluminum baking sheets, spacing them about 2 inches apart.
- Bake the cookies: Bake for 12-13 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown and the centers look just set.
- Cool the cookies: Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, or until firm enough to handle, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
These nutritional values are approximate and can vary based on specific ingredient brands and measurements.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 237 kcal
- Sugar: 12.9 grams
- Sodium: 117 mg
- Fat: 14.5 grams
- Saturated Fat: 8.9 grams
- Unsaturated Fat: 5.6 grams
- Carbohydrates: 24.9 grams
- Fiber: 1.2 grams
- Protein: 3 grams
- Cholesterol: 43 mg
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!