Pistachio Pudding Cookies

Thick buttery pistachio pudding cookies packed with vanilla, melting white chocolate chips, and chopped pistachios, all colored green like a true pistachio! The best part? They come together in 20 minutes!

If you are bored with chocolate chip cookies and you need something chewy and loaded with flavors, try my twist on the amazing Italian pistachio cookies.

I make my pistachio cookies with pudding mix, real pistachio ground nuts, brown sugar, vanilla, and white chocolate – this is what I call the best cookie!

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• A large batch is ideal for parties, gifts, or a personal stash of delicious sweet afternoon snacks. They turn out not overly sweet.
• One of my favorite flavor combos. These cookies are nutty and chocolatey, with a touch of vanilla. It is a true celebration of different textures, flavors, and colors. Creamy center, chewy texture, crunchy nuts, and white spots of melting chocolate – I’m telling you these cookies are absolutely delicious!
• The best gift for friends who love pistachios.
• Also a great treat for St Patrick’s Day: it has a green color, pistachio taste, and pistachio flavoring. Or For Christmas to work as Grinch Cookies.

Cookies Ingredients Notes

• Unsalted butter softened at room temperature. Salted butter can mess with the balance of sweet and salty, but if you only have salted one, use it and skip the added salt. Try the mix and adjust the sugars if it is too salty for your liking.
• Granulated sugar and Brown sugar – yes, we need to use both. Molasses usually add a chewy texture while granulated white sugar adds crispiness when it is baked. I would not replace granulated sugar with powdered sugar or confectioner sugar in this recipe.
• Egg, room temperature.
• Vanilla extract or almond extract. You need pure natural extracts, or vanilla bean paste for better flavor.
• Green food coloring gives the cookie dough a pastel green color. If you don’t want coloring, you can simply leave it out, it adds no flavor.
• All-purpose flour or almond flour (which is also completely gluten-free). If you’re obsessed with pistachios, you can even use pistachio flour. The more flour you add, the thicker and denser your cookies will be (and the longer it will take to bake them).
• Pistachio pudding mix (1 box) adds so much concentrated pistachio flavor! It can easily substitute the real nuts in the recipe but I still love to add chopped pistachios for texture. We also owe the perfect creamy texture of the center to this pudding mix. Jell-o will work just fine. Note that you don’t need to prepare the mix beforehand, we will use it in dry form.
• Baking soda will also contribute to crispy edges and soft texture. No baking powder is needed.
• Salt – a basic ingredient in baking recipes to balance the sugars. Using salted pistachios can replace the added salt too.
• White chocolate chips add sweetness, creaminess, color, and chocolate flavor. It doesn’t have to be chips or strictly white chocolate though, you can use dark chocolate chips milk chocolate chips, or even one chopped chocolate bar. However, white color works best in this wonderful recipe.
• Chopped pistachio pieces. You can use raw pistachios and roasted pistachios (it is easy to roast them at home). I use unsalted pistachios but if you like the play of sweet and salty, you can use salted roasted pistachios – really yummy with lightly salted ones, but sometimes I just want sweetness. They can be finely chopped or you can make bigger chunks for more crunch. If you have shelled pistachios, allocate some prep time to open each and chop, or get your family involved.

Kitchen Equipment

• Baking tray or cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or silicone mats
• Stand mixer or electric mixer.
• Large bowl, medium bowl.
• Measuring cup.
• Cookie scoop (medium) to easily divide the dough and form nice little dough balls.
• A rubber spatula works best for combining the dough ingredients and scraping the sides of the bowl.
• Wire rack
• Plastic wrap or freezer bags for storage.

How To Make Pistachio Pudding Cookies

1: Make The Cookie Dough

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Line the baking sheets with parchment. Set aside.
3. Combine the softened butter, sugar, and brown sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat butter on medium-low for 2-3 minutes to emulsify the sugar into the butter.
4. Mix in the egg, vanilla, and food coloring. Don’t overdo the food coloring, a little goes a long way. The dough/cookies should be pale green.

2: Mix In The Pudding

1. Slowly stir in the flour, pudding mix, baking soda, and salt, mixing until smooth. The dough will be thick.
2. Add the chocolate chips and pistachios and beat well on medium speed until well mixed.

3: Scoop Cookie Dough Balls

1. Use a cookie scoop to portion the dough into tablespoon-sized dough balls.
2. Roll between your hands to smooth before arranging on the prepared baking sheets. Be sure to give them about 2” between them. Cookies spread while baking so you need to leave some space, otherwise they will stick to each other.
3. The dough doesn’t require chilling.

4: Bake The Pistachio Cookies

1.  Bake in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes or until the edges and the bottom are lightly browned.
2. Let the cookies cool for several minutes on the hot baking tray before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
3. If serving immediately, you can lightly dust the cookies with icing sugar.
4. Once cooled, they can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature.

Storage

Cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days at room temperature, or frozen for 3 months in a ziplock bag.

You can thaw them on the counter at room temp for 2 hours or warm them up in a microwave.  

You can make the dough 2-3 days ahead and store it in the fridge tightly wrapped.

Substitutions & Variations

• You can sprinkle some flaky salt on top of the baked cookies if you love a sweet and salty combo.
• Italian cookies. Italian pistachio cookies are closer to almond biscotti and for that recipe, you will need to pulse the nuts in a food processor and mix pistachio and almond meal to prepare the dough. You will then mix it with sugar, vanilla extract, lemon zest, honey, and egg whites and bake at 350F for 15 minutes.
• Lemon pistachio cookies can be made with lemon pudding and extra lemon zest for a little acidic crunch in every bite.
• Christmas pistachio cookies can benefit from chopped red Maraschino cherries or dried cranberries.
• To make extra creamy cookies, you can beat cream cheese with butter for the dough. Sour cream, coconut cream, or Greek Yogurt also make the softest cookies.

Tips For Making The Best Pistachio Pudding Cookies

• The size of the scoop can affect how many cookies you will get. The bigger the scoop, the fewer and chubbier cookies you will make. If you use a small scoop you can almost double the amount.
• Only use instant pudding mix for this recipe.
• Baking time can vary depending on the type of oven you have. Usually, the pistachio cookies bake in around 15 minutes, but watch the oven closely, do not open the door often, and make sure they don’t turn dark brown (aka burn).
• If you are making a few batches, cool the baking sheet under ice-cold water before scooping the fresh dough balls!
• Butter takes around an hour to soften and warm to room temperature so plan accordingly.
• Do not cream the butter for too long otherwise, you will end up with flat cookies.
• If you have leftover raw pistachios, I highly recommend trying to make homemade pistachio butter. It is addictive. 
• Change up the flavors of this pistachio cookie recipe using different pudding mixes. 
• For thicker cookies try chilling the dough for a little bit, at least 30 minutes. Then portion the chilled dough to bake. You might need to bake for an additional minute. But you will still have soft chewy cookies in the end.

If you love this cookie recipe, you’re going to love these other cookies too. Please click each link below to find the easy, printable recipe!

More Great Pistachio Recipes

Pistachio Muffins

Pistachio Cake

Dark Chocolate Pistachio Truffles

Cranberry Pistachio Cookies

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