White Chocolate Chai Cookies are thick, soft, chewy cookies packed full of flavor. Warm chai spices, toasted nuts, and white chocolate chips come together for an easy one-bowl, no-chill cookie recipe you'll make again and again. Perfect cookie for the holiday season or any time of year.
Be sure to try Big, Thick Oatmeal Craisin Cookies and Brown Butter Peanut Butter Cookies next!
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Chai spice white chocolate chip cookies are insanely delicious.
They're soft and gooey with a chewy texture, and the aromatic spices and buttery white chocolate contrast beautifully into a practically-perfect-in-every-way cookie.
The toasted nuts add warm flavor and crunchy texture, but if you prefer chai cookies without nuts, just skip them and add more chocolate chips!
Looking for something less spiced but just as delicious? Check out my fellow blogger friend's Chewy White Chocolate Chip Cookies!
You’re going to love these
- Simple one-bowl, no-chill cookie recipe with simple ingredients
- Thick, soft cookies that are chewy on the inside and crispy on the outside
- Delicious flavor combo of sweet white chocolate, toasted nuts, and warm spices
- Easy recipe to adapt to your tastes -- skip the nuts, add chocolate chips, tweak the chai spices ... up to you!
Ingredients
Unsalted butter. Use room temperature butter, which is cool to the touch and leaves an indent when you press your finger into it-- not soft and squishy.
Sugars. Brown sugar adds moisture and rich molasses flavor, white sugar makes them brown and crispy.
Eggs. Use room temperature eggs to ensure all the ingredients blend cohesively together.
All-purpose flour. To keep from adding too much flour, which can make the chai cookies dry, measure flour with the spoon and level method: spoon flour into a measuring cup and drag a knife across the top to level it off.
Homemade chai spice blend. Cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cardamom, allspice, and black pepper add warm fall flavors to these delicious cookies.
Cornstarch. Cornstarch makes chai cookies soft and tender and keeps the batter from spreading.
Nuts. Almonds and hazelnuts are my two favorite nuts for chai cookies -- toasted to bring out their nutty flavor. Macadamia nuts, walnuts, pistachios, or pecans would also be delicious. Or skip them and add more white chocolate chips!
White chocolate chips. White chocolate goes exceptionally well with chai spices -- like the milky part of chai tea.
Substitutions
Chai spices. Maybe you like coriander in your chai. Or you don't like cloves. Feel free to create your own homemade chai spice mix.
Mix-ins. Swap out the white chocolate chips and/or nuts with milk, dark, or semi-sweet chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, raisins, dried cranberries, cherries, or blueberries, or shredded coconut. Just keep the total mix-ins to 2 cups.
How to Make White Chocolate Chip Chai Cookies
Step 1: With an electric mixer on medium speed, cream the butter and sugars together in a large mixing bowl until fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Mix in the eggs until fully incorporated, then the vanilla extract.
Step 2: Sift in the all-purpose flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cardamom, allspice, pepper, salt, and cornstarch. Mix the flour mixture into the sugar mixture until just combined. The dough will be very thick. Don’t overmix.
Step 3: Mix in the nuts and white chocolate chips on low speed until just combined.
Optional: Chill the dough for 30-60 minutes.
Step 4: With a cookie scoop, portion dough into rounded 2-3 tablespoon balls. For craggy tops, roll cookie dough balls into a loose ball, rip the ball in half, and press the two halves together with the torn sides out. Place dough balls on baking sheets lined with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
Step 5: Bake cookies at 400 degrees for 7-9 minutes or until the tops are golden brown. Let chai cookies rest for a few minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer them to a wire rack.
For gooey, oozy cookies, let them sit for about 15 minutes before digging in. For thick, dense white chocolate chai cookies, let them cool all the way.
Serve chai cookies with a warm cup of tea, hot chocolate, or a tall glass of milk.
Expert Tips
- Toasting the nuts is optional but highly recommended. Place nuts in dry skillet over medium heat 2-5 minutes until fragrant and lightly browned. Immediately remove from pan. Cool and chop.
- If you don’t have a large strainer or sifter, whisk the dry ingredients in a large bowl before adding them to the wet ingredients.
- Room temperature butter isn’t soft and squishy — it should slightly give when you press on it.
- Chilling the dough isn't necessary to keep white chocolate chip chai cookies from spreading. For thicker cookies with more intense flavor, chill the dough for 30 minutes to 1 hour.
Recipe FAQs
Store chai spice cookies in an airtight container or zip-top bag for a couple of weeks.
Yes. Wrap baked chai cookies individually in plastic wrap then place them in a zip-top bag. Store cookies in the freezer for 8-12 months.
You bet! You can keep your chai cookie dough in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to four days before baking. Very cold cookie dough won't spread as much, and the cookies will be very thick. Let the dough sit at room temperature for 15 minutes before baking. If the first batch is thicker than you like, slightly flatten the dough balls.
Yes! Scoop the cookie dough into portions, place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, and freeze them. Place the frozen cookie dough balls in a zip-top freezer bag. Freeze white chocolate chai cookie dough for up to 3 months.
Yes. This cookie dough is thick and, when baked from frozen, won't spread much during baking. Thaw chai white chocolate chip cookie dough in the refrigerator.
Before baking, let the dough sit at room temperature for 15 minutes. Cold dough will result in very thick cookies. If desired, slightly flatten the dough balls into a puck before baking.
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📖 Recipe
Chai Spice White Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup room temperature butter
- 1 cup brown sugar
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 3 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon cloves
- ¼ teaspoon ginger
- ¼ teaspoon cardamom
- ¼ teaspoon allspice
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 cup toasted almonds or any kind of nuts
- 1 cup white chocolate chips
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars together on medium speed until fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Mix in the eggs until fully incorporated, then the vanilla.
- Sift in the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cardamom, allspice, pepper, salt, and cornstarch. Mix until just combined into a thick dough. Don’t overmix.
- Mix in the nuts and white chocolate chips on low speed until just combined. Optional: chill dough for 30-60 minutes for the most intense flavor and thickest cookies.
- Preheat the oven to 400. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
- Portion dough into rounded 2-3 tablespoon balls. For craggy tops, rip the ball in half, and press the two halves together with the torn sides out. Place dough balls 2 inches apart on cookie sheets.
- Bake for 7-9 minutes or until the tops are golden brown.
- Let the cookies rest for a few minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack. For gooey, oozy cookies, let them sit for about 15 minutes before digging in. For thick, dense cookies, let them cool all the way, or about an hour.
Notes
- Room temperature butter should feel cool to the touch and slightly give when you press on it. It shouldn't be soft and squishy.
- Toasting the nuts is optional but highly recommended. Place nuts in dry skillet over medium heat 2-5 minutes until fragrant and lightly browned. Immediately remove from pan. Cool and chop.
- If you don’t have a large strainer or sifter, whisk the dry ingredients in a large bowl before adding them to the wet ingredients.
- Chilling the dough isn't necessary to keep the cookies from spreading. For thicker cookies with more intense flavor, chill the dough for 30 minutes to 1 hour.
- The ideal internal temperature of these cookies is 175 to 185.
Do you pack the brown sugar when you measure it?
Yes
I bake with gluten free flour, which may be why they didn't spread out at all and just remained in the original ball shape I put them on the cookie sheet. Also, I didn't see any instructions concerning how large a scoop of cookie dough. So, expecting them to spread a little, I measured out 1-1/2 ounces per cookie but wound up with twice as many as you said the recipe would yield.
Hi, Debbie, thank you so much for your note! I haven't tried these with gluten-free flour, but I understand that can happen when making that substitution. I wonder if pressing them down a bit is the way to go when using gf flour? About the portions, thank you so much for mentioning that. I used a 2-inch scoop (I think it's actually an ice cream scoop) to portion out the dough. I'll be sure to add that note so it can help others. Thank you, Debbie, for your helpful comments!
Amazing. I can't have regular chocolate so I'm always on the lookout for recipes with interesting flavors that don't use chocolate. I also love chai but can't normally drink it due to the caffeine in the tea. This cookie solved both problems.
I've made these cookies twice over the last week since I found it and they've turned out great both times. I tweaked the recipe a little bit the first time and even more the second time and my tweaks worked well.
The first time I added ground black pepper to the spice blend since black pepper is often used in chai. I also added finely diced candied ginger tot he cookies to lean into ginger flavors. They were great and did not at all seem like they had too much ginger or off-putting black pepper flavors.
I just made them the second time tonight. I let out the hazelnuts only because my nephew is in town and he is allergic to nuts. In order to get some nutty flavors into the cookie I browned half the butter then bloomed freshly ground spices in the butter right when I took it off the stove. I let the butter cool and added it to the creamed butter and sugar right after adding the eggs. I was concerned that it might alter the final texture of the cookie but it didn't seem to change that at all.
I did cook them at 375 today because they browned overly fast the first time. This time I added extra white chocolate chips on top of each cookie after shaping it. Those chips browned nicely in the oven which starts to get hints of butterscotch I to the cookies.
They were a hit both times. I'll be coming back to this recipe over and over again for sure. Very well might be my new favorite cookie. I'll likely keep all my current modifications and maybe try a few new ones, though I think the batch today was nearly perfect.
Steve, Thank you so much for sharing this! I'm so glad these cookies fit your needs. And I am always thrilled when someone takes a recipe as inspiration to make their own creations. It's how I look at recipes, too. I love, love, love the black pepper tweak! And the browned butter sounds incredibly delicious. Isn't it lovely what happens to white chocolate when it gets a little caramelized? Thank you, again, for sharing this with me. It's so much fun to read about your unique changes.
just curious if you can substitute margarine for the butter ? these look sooo good 🙂
Hi! Great question! I've never made them with margarine, but you should be able to substitute it in equal amounts. Good luck and let me know how it goes :).