Soft, chewy and festive pistachio cookies are easy to make with instant pistachio pudding mix. A little green food coloring gives them the prettiest color making them perfect for Christmas or St. Patrick’s Day!
Homemade cookie recipes are simply the best! Other melt-in-your mouth favorites include these pistachio cookies, Mexican wedding cookies and grinch cookie recipe!
Table of Contents
Pistachio Pudding Cookies
Easy pistachio cookies made with pistachio pudding mix are one of my new favorite holiday dessert recipes. Just like my recipe for pistachio bread they are festive with their Christmas green color and the pudding adds flavor and makes the meltaway cookies soft and tender!
These paired with molasses cookies, chocolate crinkle cookies and chocolate chip pudding cookies would make the perfect addition to your Christmas dessert board.
Why This Recipe Works
- Perfect for the holidays: With a vibrant green color thanks to food coloring, they are perfect for both Christmas or serve at St. Patrick’s Day along with my pistachio dessert!
- Pudding mix in cookies: Adding pistachio pudding mix makes these cookies have the best pistachio flavor as well as the cornstarch in the pudding mix tenderizes the cookies.
Recipe Ingredients
Find the full printable recipe with specific measurements below.
- Butter: Softened butter is best, not melted.
- Powdered sugar: Gives these that melt-in-your-mouth texture.
- Instant pistachio pudding mix: Adds pistachio flavor and gives them a fluffy texture.
- All-purpose flour: For structure.
- Almond extract: Compliments the nutty flavor of the pudding and is clear in color. You could use clear vanilla extract.
- Maraschino cherries: Chopped finely and patted dry. Omit for plain cookies.
- Green food coloring (optional): For darker green pistachio cookies.
Substitutions and Variations
- Chocolate chips: Add white chocolate chips to the pistachio cookie dough instead of maraschino cherries. You could use dark chocolate chunks or semi-sweet chocolate chips!
- Dipped: Drizzle or dip half of the cookie in white chocolate once cooled like I do these cherry almond cookies.
- Festive. Mix in red sprinkles instead of cherries or add dried cranberries!
- Nuttier: Remove the cherries add an extra 1/2 cup chopped pistachios.
How to Make Pistachio Cookies
These pistachio pudding cookies are easy to make and loved by everyone who tries them.
- Mix ingredients: Cream butter until light and fluffy then add powdered sugar, almond extract, green food coloring, and pistachio pudding mix and continue to mix. Next, add in your flour and mix until just combined.
- Chill dough: Gently fold in chopped cherries then wrap cookie dough in plastic wrap and place in freezer for 15 minutes or until slightly firm.
- Roll into cookie dough balls: Use a medium cookie scoop to place dough on parchment lined baking sheets. Gently flatten balls with your palm or the bottom of a cup.
- Bake: Bake cookies for 9-11 minutes or just until the bottoms are light browned. Cool on pan for 3-5 minutes before moving to a wire rack. Once cooled completely, dust with powdered sugar.
5 star review
“Wow! Just finished dusting these beautiful cookies. Ate just one as I am hoping these will not disappear before Christmas day. They are as yummy as they look. Kind of unique actually. Yay for this recipe!“
– Dan
Baking Tips
- Soften butter. A quick way to soften the butter is by microwaving the butter in a bowl for 15-20 seconds at 50% power.
- Do not over mix the dough. Once it’s combined, stop mixing to prevent a dry, dense pistachio cookie recipe.
- Maraschino cherries. Chop your cherries finely so they are not chunky. Pat the cherries dry with a paper towel before and after you have chopped them. If you don’t remove the juice it could die the green dough.
- Don’t skip chilling the dough. Freeze the dough for at least 10 minutes so it isn’t as sticky to work with. Alternately, place in the fridge for an hour or overnight. It will also help the cookies to stay nice and fluffy while baking.
- Do not over bake. You want these pistachio cookies to be soft in the middle so they’ll melt in your mouth. Remove from the oven when the bottoms are just lightly browned.
FAQs
Either works, but if you use unsalted butter you will need to some salt to the dough.
While I love the flavor of maraschino cherries and think flavor goes so well with pistachio, you can definitely make these without them. White chocolate chips and chopped pistachios are popular additions.
Thickness of your pistachio cookies will depend on the temperature of your butter as well as chilled dough. Your butter should be room temperature and give slightly when pressed with your finger (leave a small indent). Chill your dough for at least 15 minutes. This solidifies the butter so your cookies spread less while baking.
Store pistachio cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for 3 – 5 days. You can also freeze baked cookies in a freezer safe bag up to 3 months.
Yes! Shape the dough into cookie balls then flash freeze. Once frozen, transfer to an airtight bag and store frozen for 2 months. Bake from frozen adding a few minutes time or thaw then bake.
Other cookie recipes we love include this almond cookies recipe, Almond Joy cookies, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and red velvet cake mix cookies!
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Pistachio Cookie Recipe
Video
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter ,softened
- ½ cup powdered sugar , more for sprinkling on top
- 3.4 ounce package instant pistachio pudding mix
- 1 ⅔ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons almond extract
- ½ cup maraschino cherries , chopped finely (see note)
Optional: green food coloring
Instructions
- Beat the butter in a large bowl with a mixer, until fluffy. Add the powdered sugar, almond extract and pudding mix and beat until combined. Add food coloring now if you prefer a darker green. Next add in the flour and mix until combined.
- Gently mix in the chopped cherries into the dough. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and place in the freezer for 15 minutes or until slightly firm. Alternatively you could refrigerate the dough for an hour, or overnight
- Preheat oven to 350°F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Take a medium scoop or about 1 1/2 tablespoons of dough and roll into a ball. Gently flatten dough balls with your palm or the bottom of a cup. Place cookie on the cookie sheet and repeat with the remaining dough.
- Bake for 9-11 minutes. Remove from the oven and let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet for 3-5 minutes. Once completely cooled sprinkle cookies with dust with powdered sugar.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition provided is an estimate. It will vary based on specific ingredients used.
Did you make this recipe? Don’t forget to give it a star rating below!
This recipe was originally a guest post by The Girl Who Ate Everything.
Categorized as: American, Christmas, Cookies, Desserts, Holiday Cookies, Kid-Friendly
Jamielyn Nye is the founder and recipe creator at I Heart Naptime. She is the author of the I Heart Naptime Cookbook and shares easy family-friendly recipes and desserts for every occasion.
These cookies are awesome. They are very much like shortbread so if you like sweet cookies, you will not like them. Also, I chill the dough overnight so maybe that helps to bring out the flavours more. They do NOT taste like sand.
My only complaint is that they do not spread like in the picture so you have to sort of form them in the shape you want.
Love at first bite. This year’s favorite
I’m so glad you liked these! Thanks for your comment! :)
I made these this evening and they didn’t taste good at all. I kept thinking maybe I left out an ingredient but I didn’t! They tasted like sand as the woman above said. I’m not sure what I did different from everyone who said they were so good. I am also a seasoned baker as well. Not sure what went wrong!
I made these cookies with Andes creme de menthe baking chips because I already baked another cherry cookie and wow, they look and taste like mint chocolate chip ice cream!
Yummy, sounds delicious!!
I think Katie must have forgotten something, like maybe the butter? These cookies are delicious with an abundance of flavor and creamy goodness! I just may eat them all by myself!!!!
I made these tonight and they didn’t flatten :( not sure what I did wrong but now I have 2 dozen cookie balls
Correction: Won for best looking. (But my friends would say best tasting!)
Best cookies ever!! I wanted to make these for a cookie exchange, but made a “trial” batch first to see. OMG…..I ate almost all of them in 3 days. Needless to say, these made the cut.
I found this recipe this past week through pinterest and was excited to try it out this past Sunday. I followed this recipe to a “t” and saying that I am extremely disappointed is an understatement. There was no taste in the batter, and I gave it the benefit of the doubt and baked a dozen as a test and they were flat, disgusting, and tasted like sand. Thinking maybe I didn’t freeze the batter long enough, I let it sit in the freezer for another 45 mins, did a test run again and the same results. Hoping to get it to work, I froze it for about 3-4 more hours and the same results. I am hoping that no one else attempts this recipe! I am well seasoned baker and can make anything from a traditional Black forest cake, homemade cannolis, to a simple few ingredient cake that you would die for.. Maybe you forgot an important ingredient in the recipe listed!
I am not a baker. I also followed the recipe exactly. I tried to eat one fresh out of the oven, but felt it was too buttery. I let them sit for a day (some in a plastic bag in the fridge, some just on the counter in a plastic bag) and BAM–> AMAZING! My office had a bake off and I won for best tasting !!!
I was wondering if you could use candied cherries. No concern about juice then.
Can this dough be frozen for a couple of weeks to bake at a later date?
Can’t wait to try! I love anything pistachio! I’m not a fan of cherries so I’m wondering if craisins will be a yummy replacement. Also chopped up pistachios & white chocolate chips sound good in them too! Okay, I’m getting a little crazy!
I just baked these cookies tonight and they turned out wonderful! I followed the recipe exactly and made 3 batches! Each batch yielded exactly 2 dozen cookies! Thank you so much for such a great recipe! :)
I just got finished making a batch of these cookies and not only are they festive and fun looking, but they are delicious! I don’t think they will last long…I’m going to have to make another batch before Christmas. Thanks for the awesome recipe!
Can’t wait to try these. They’re being added to my 2013 Christmas goodie gift baskets! Love the colors.
These look so yummy! I’ve made pistachio pudding cookies before, but never thought to add cherries. Pinning and trying!
How many cookies does this recipe yield?
These look so good! Can’t wait to try them. Thanks for sharing! xo