These White Chocolate Pretzel Cookies are giant quarter cup-sized cookies filled with sweet white chocolate chips and salty crunch pretzels. They are easy to make, do not require refrigeration, special techniques, or equipment, and can be ready to eat in 20 minutes.
These cookies are designed to be bakery-style. They are large cookies that use a quarter cup of dough for each cookie. I love this style of cookie because there is so much to bite into. One cookie almost feels like a meal.
My two other favorite bakery-style cookies are these Chocolate Chip Café Cookies, made special with chunks and shards of chocolate, and these White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies which substitute macadamia nuts for the pretzels.
On the flip side, I’ve also developed several Small Batch Cookie recipes like these classic Small Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies, or these Small Batch Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies. Or if you’re in the mood for an oatmeal cookie, this Small Batch Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe will hit the spot.
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Why You’ll Love These Cookies:
- Giant: These cookies are double or triple the size of a typical drop cookie, using a quarter cup of dough rather than 1-2 tablespoons. There’s more chewy satisfying real estate to bite into.
- Easy To Make: They take only 10 minutes of prep and 10 minutes to bake. Combine wet and dry ingredients in ONE bowl, add white chocolate chips and broken pretzel pieces, then shape and pop into the oven.
- Sweet, Salty, Crunchy: These cookies are not just sweet, they combine three of the five tastes with sweet (sugary cookie), salty (salty pretzels and flaky sea salt), and umami (lots of butter) along with the satisfying crunch of the pretzels.
Ingredients:
Below are the ingredients needed to make White Chocolate Pretzel Cookies.
- Butter: Ensure that your butter is softened to room temperature. If you haven’t allowed the butter to soften already, no problem. Add the butter to a large mixing bowl and microwave for 1 minute at 20% power. Add 30 seconds as needed, flipping the butter over in between microwaving until softened.
- Brown Sugar: Either light or dark brown sugar will work fine. If you do not have brown sugar, use my guide to find a substitute for brown sugar in cookies.
- Granulated Sugar: This recipe calls for less granulated sugar compared with brown sugar.
- Eggs: Use large eggs, pasture-raised if possible.
- Vanilla Extract: Use real vanilla extract. If you bake somewhat regularly, it may be worth buying a large bottle of vanilla extract from Costco. This will last you at least a year.
- Flour: Use all-purpose unbleached flour.
- Baking Powder & Baking Soda: For leavening. Check to make sure neither has expired.
- Salt: To balance sweetness and bring out other flavors.
- Pretzels: For salty crunch. I use mini pretzels.
- White Chocolate Chips: It is very important to use high-quality white chocolate chips. I recommend Ghirardelli or Guittard. Higher-quality white chocolate tastes infinitely better and melts better too. White chocolate is also nice to have around the house to use for a variety of cookies or even white chocolate mousse like in this Salted Caramel Mousse Cake.
- Maldon Sea Salt Flakes: This can be expensive, but a whole box will last you at least a year if not quite a bit longer. I use them all the time, especially for sweet desserts like Crispy Salted Caramel Cookies, but also savory recipes like Green Beans with Toasted Almonds, or on the more indulgent side Grandma Pie Pizza.
To learn more about these cookie ingredients, see my Guide to Cookie Ingredients.
See the recipe card below for full information on ingredients and quantities.
Variations & Substitutions
- White Chocolate Chips: If you don’t have white chocolate chips, bittersweet, semisweet or milk chocolate chips are great alternatives. It won’t be the same cookie, but it will still taste great.
- Pretzels: You can substitute pretzels for nuts, heath bars, or graham crackers.
- Variations: Here are a few ideas for different add-ins that would work well with these cookies
- Chocolate Peppermint Pretzel Cookies: Add bittersweet or semisweet chocolate and soft peppermint candies, and pretzels
- Chocolate Caramel Pretzel Cookies: Add bittersweet or semisweet chocolate and cut up soft caramels, and pretzels
- Butterscotch Pretzel Cookies: Add butterscotch chips and pretzels
How to Make White Chocolate Pretzel Cookies
Below are the step-by-step instructions and photos for making White Chocolate Pretzel Cookies.
Note: The recipe card with instructions, ingredient list, and quantities is included further below these step-by-step photos.
Step 1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a large mixing bowl, combine the softened butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar. You can do this by hand, with a hand-held mixer, or with a stand mixer. If using a stand mixer, be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl as you go in order to evenly incorporate the ingredients.
Add the eggs, vanilla extract, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and combine.
Step 2. Add the flour and combine. If using a hand-held or stand mixer, combine the ingredients until it becomes a cohesive dough. This may take an additional minute.
Step 3. Add the white chocolate chips and lightly broken pretzel pieces to the dough and use a large spoon to combine. At this point it is better to use a spoon than a hand-held or stand mixer which are more likely to break the pretzels into smaller pieces.
Expert Tips:
- Break up the pretzels by placing them in a plastic baggie and lightly breaking up the pieces with a rolling pin, meat hammer, or large mug, or skip the plastic baggie and use your hands to break the pretzels up.
- Mix the chocolate chips and pretzels into the dough with a large spoon. This prevents the pretzels from getting broken up any further. You want larger pretzel pieces in the dough, not crumbs.
Step 4. Use a quarter-cup measuring cup to portion out ¼ cup of dough. Shape the dough into rounds with flat bottoms on tops so that they resemble small hockey pucks.
Bake at 350°F for 10-12 minutes. The cookies are done when you start to see the edges of the cookies becoming lightly brown in 1 or 2 spots. Remove from the oven and immediately add flaky sea salt to the tops of each cookie.
Recipe Tips:
- Overly Soft Butter: If the dough gets too soft, you can refrigerate the dough for 15 minutes to firm up the butter before shaping or baking.
- Scrape down the bowl: If using a hand-held or stand mixer, scrape down the sides of the bowl as you go. If you want to learn more, see this post on mixing cookie dough by hand versus with a mixer.
- Add Toppings: Consider adding a few white chocolate chips or pretzel pieces to the top of each “hockey puck” round of dough before baking. That way you see more of the mix-ins after baking.
- 8 Cookies Per Sheet: Use 8 rounds of dough per baking sheet, for two sets of 8, or 16 cookies total.
- Add Flaky Sea Salt After Baking: Add flaky sea salt immediately after the cookies come out of the oven. That way you can cover more surface area (rather than before baking) and it will stick to the still-warm cookie.
White Chocolate Pretzel FAQs
Any small hard pretzels will work for this recipe. I use the mini traditionally shaped pretzels, but small pretzel sticks or squares will also work.
The pretzels should be lightly broken, just enough so that they are easy to incorporate into the cookie dough. They should not be crushed into fine crumbs. You want nice large pieces to bite into.
I recommend Ghirardelli or Guittard white chocolate chips. They are relatively easy to find at a regular grocery store, Target, or Whole Foods and they are much better quality than the store brand. They taste entirely different and so much better than store brand.
When baked right away the pretzels will not become soggy in the cookie dough. However, if the cookies sit on the counter for a few days the pretzels will start to become stale. They are best eaten within 1-2 days.
The baking time will vary based on your oven and the baking sheet that you are using. The cookies are done baking when they are ever so slightly brown on the edges. Look for a light brown spot on the edge of any cookie. Then remove them from the oven. It may be difficult to tell the coloring of the cookie while they are in the oven, so at the 10-minute mark, pull the baking sheet out of the oven slightly so that you can look at them in the light of your kitchen.
How to Store and Freeze
- Store: To store the cookies, wrap them in plastic wrap or place them in a gallon-sized Ziploc bag. The baked cookies do not need to be refrigerated. Try to remove as much air as possible from the gallon-sized bag (if using) this will help the pretzels in the cookies stay fresher longer.
- Freeze: To freeze the cookie dough, place the shaped rounds of dough in a gallon-sized freezer bag. Shaping the dough before freezing makes it much easier to take the cookies out of the bag, thaw, and bake (rather than needing to shape the frozen dough after taking it out of the freezer).
Here are more cookie recipes that you may like:
If you tried these White Chocolate Pretzel Cookies or any other recipe on my website, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below. Thanks for visiting!
White Chocolate Pretzel Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup brown sugar
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 ½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup pretzels
- 1½ cups white chocolate chips *high quality brand
- Maldon sea salt flakes
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the softened butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar. Then add the eggs, vanilla extract baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Add the flour and combine.
- Add the pretzels to a plastic baggie and crush with a rolling pin. Stir the crushed pretzels and white chocolate chips into the dough.
- To form the cookies, press the cookie dough into a shallow quarter-cup measuring cup. Turn it upside down on a baking sheet and if needed use a knife to scoop the dough out of the measuring cup onto the baking sheet. If needed, press the dough back together with your hands to form a nice quarter cup-size round of dough on the baking sheet. The rounds of dough should resemble mini hockey pucks with flat bottoms and tops.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes.
- Remove from the oven (the cookies should be lightly browned in one or two spots on the edges) and immediately sprinkle with flaky sea salt before the cookies cool so that the salt sticks.
Notes
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- *Be sure to use a high-quality brand of white chocolate chips such as Ghirardille or Guittard. They can be found at regular grocery stores, Target, or Whole Foods.
- Break up the pretzels by placing them in a plastic baggie and lightly breaking up the pieces with a rolling pin, meat hammer, large mug, or even just your hands.
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- Mix the chocolate chips and pretzels into the dough with a large spoon. This prevents the pretzels from getting broken up any further. You want larger pretzel pieces in the dough.
- If the dough gets too soft, you can refrigerate the dough for 15 minutes to firm up the butter before baking.
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- Shape the dough into small hockey pucks and place 8 to a baking sheet.
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- Consider adding a few chocolate chips or pretzel pieces to the top of each “hockey puck” round of dough before baking. That way you see more of the mix-ins after baking.
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- Add flaky sea salt immediately after the cookies come out of the oven. That way you can cover more surface area (rather than before baking) and it will stick to the still-warm cookie.
- The cookies are best eaten in 1-2 days as the pretzels will start to become stale after a few days.
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