I load these buttery, rich keto white chocolate macadamia nut cookies with ChocZero chips and chunky macadamia nuts, only 1.4g net carbs. They're completely egg-free and hold together with just butter, almond flour, and a 30-minute chill.
I grieved white chocolate macadamia nut cookies when I went keto. Like, genuinely missed them. The buttery chew, the pockets of melty white chocolate, the crunch from the nuts. I spent a solid year trying to recreate them, and this is the version that finally made me stop looking.
The big thing people notice is that there are no eggs in this recipe. That’s on purpose. Almond flour and coconut flour already have enough protein and fat to bind when you get the butter ratio right. Adding an egg made them cakey in my testing, not chewy. The 30-minute chill is non-negotiable though. Skip it and the butter spreads before the edges can set, which is how you end up with a greasy, fragile mess.
For the white chocolate chips, I use ChocZero exclusively. I’ve tried Lily’s and Bake Believe, and here’s the honest truth: ChocZero is the only one that actually tastes like white chocolate, not just sweet wax. Lily’s are fine in something like my keto almond flour chocolate chip cookies where regular chocolate carries the flavor, but in a cookie where white chocolate is the star, the chip quality matters more than anything else. Bake Believe melts flat and disappears into the dough during baking, so it's out here too.
One variation I want to mention: a reader tried swapping the monk fruit for a brown sugar substitute and reported a deeper, more toffee-like flavor. I’ve since tested this myself and it’s a legitimate upgrade if you like that bakery-style warmth. The spread stays about the same since brown sugar subs behave similarly to monk fruit granular.
Baking cue that saves every batch: pull them when the edges just start to turn golden and the center still looks underdone. I know it feels wrong, but they firm up on the pan during the 3-5 minute rest, so trust me on this one. If the center looks done in the oven, you’ve already gone too far.
Here they are cooling on the rack: soft in the middle with lightly crisp edges.
Chopped macadamia nuts go in with the white chocolate chips at the very end of mixing.
A Swap for the Almond Flour
Sunflower seed flour can stand in for the almond flour. It bakes about the same way and measures cup for cup, so swap it straight across.
Two Ways to Chill the Dough
You do not have to chill the dough in one big ball. Scoop and flatten the cookies first if you like, then put the whole tray in the refrigerator for the 30 minute rest.
If you want to make the dough ahead, it keeps in the refrigerator for 4 to 5 days.
How to make white chocolate macadamia nut cookies without eggs
The technique here is simpler than most keto cookie recipes because there's no egg to worry about. Sift the almond flour and coconut flour together first. I know sifting feels unnecessary, but it breaks up the clumps that make almond flour cookies dense and gritty. Cream your softened butter with monk fruit until it's fluffy, not just mixed. That air incorporation is doing the work that eggs would normally do.
Fold in the ChocZero white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts by hand. Overmixing at this stage pushes the chips to the bottom. Then refrigerate for a full 30 minutes. I've tried 15 and it's not enough. The dough needs to be firm enough that you can roll it without it sticking to your palms.
Press each ball flat on the sheet. These don't spread much on their own, so what you shape is close to what you get. Bake at 350 for 6-8 minutes. The visual cue is edges barely golden, center soft and slightly glossy. Let them sit on the hot pan for 3-5 minutes before moving them. That carryover heat finishes the bake without drying them out. If you want a single cookie fast, try my keto chocolate chip cookie for one in the microwave. And for a more structured dough, my keto sugar cookies use a similar no-egg approach with a roll-and-cut method.
The BEST Keto White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies Ingredients
Step by Step Instructions
1
Sift dry ingredients
Sift or whisk together almond flour, coconut flour, and salt in a small bowl. Set aside. Sifting the flours creates a fine, delicate texture.
2
Cream butter and sweetener
Cream together butter, monkfruit and vanilla extract in a medium bowl using an electric mixer.
3
Mix it all
Slowly add in dry ingredients while mixing. Mix until combined. Mix in the white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts. Refrigerate dough for 30 minutes to allow flavors to meld together and prevent the butter from spreading while baking.
4
Roll and flatten
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pinch off a tablespoon of cookie dough or use a cookie scoop and roll into a ball. Place ball on a parchment lined baking tray and press down flat to form a cookie shape. Repeat with remaining dough, spacing around an inch apart.
5
Bake and cool
Bake at 350 degrees for 6-8 minutes or until the edges of the cookies begin to brown slightly. Remove from the oven and let cool on the baking tray for 3-5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
Nutrition
Per serving: 1 cookie
Calories
135
Fat
12.7g
Protein
2.2g
Total carbs
4.3g
Net carbs
1.4g
Nutrition is an estimate calculated from the ingredients listed. Brands vary, so check labels if you track closely.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are my cookies falling apart?
I've had readers ask me this a few times, and it almost always comes down to cooling. These need to rest on the hot baking sheet for a full 3-5 minutes, then cool completely to room temperature before you pick them up. The butter re-solidifies as they cool, which is what holds them together. If yours still crumble after full cooling, try reducing the butter by a tablespoon. My batches have always held together, but overly soft butter can throw off the ratio.
Can I use a brown sugar substitute instead of monk fruit?
Yes, and I actually recommend trying it. A reader tipped me off to this swap, and when I tested it myself, the cookies had a deeper, almost toffee-like warmth that regular monk fruit doesn't give you. The spread and texture stayed about the same. Use a 1:1 brown sugar substitute (I like Lakanto Golden). It doesn't change the bake time.
How do different keto sweeteners affect cookie spread?
I've noticed this firsthand. Erythritol-based sweeteners (like Swerve) produce less spread and a slightly crisper texture. Allulose makes cookies spread more and stay softer, almost gooey. Monk fruit granular lands in the middle, which is why I use it here. If your cookies are spreading too thin, your sweetener choice might be the reason. I'd stick with monk fruit or erythritol for this particular recipe.
Can I freeze the dough, and how should I store baked cookies?
I freeze the dough all the time. Roll it into balls, flatten them, and freeze on a sheet pan until solid, then transfer to a freezer bag. They bake straight from frozen, just add 1-2 minutes to the bake time, and the dough keeps for about 3 months. Baked cookies go in an airtight container at room temperature and stay good for about a week. The texture holds up better at room temp than in the fridge, where they get too firm. Past a few days I put parchment between layers so they don't stick, and for longer storage I freeze baked cookies wrapped individually. They thaw in about 20 minutes on the counter.
Can I leave the dough in the fridge overnight instead of just 30 minutes? Annie, your recipes are the ones I always come back to, I just want to get these right.
Made a full batch for my neighbor’s birthday, one of her friends has an egg allergy, so I watched her read the ingredient list. When she got to the end and realized there were no eggs, she just popped one in her mouth. The butter and 30-minute chill hold these together better than I’d expect.
That reaction is why I kept testing the egg-free version. The egg version came out cakey, not chewy – not what I wanted at all. Hope her friend took some home, Beth.
Monkfruit in a cookie was my hesitation, because I’ve had that cooling aftertaste tank a whole batch before and when white chocolate is already doing a lot of sweetness work I figured the combo would just be too much, so I kept putting this off for like two weeks even though I had all the ingredients sitting in my pantry. I finally made them on a Sunday afternoon just to get it over with, and I genuinely cannot find the aftertaste in these, not even a little. Whatever the butter ratio is doing here, it buries it completely, which is not my experience with other keto cookie recipes I’ve tried lately. The macadamia chunks are doing more than I expected too, so much nut fat already in there that the whole thing reads like a real cookie, not that sad substitute energy you get when you’re just kind of tolerating a snack. Second batch is chilling in the fridge right now.
135 calories pulled me in. Mine needed closer to 10 minutes though, still pale at 8, so check your oven. Texture once cooled is somewhere between shortbread and a real cookie, which I mean as a compliment.
Gritty almond flour cookies put me off keto baking for years. This coconut flour base is different. Chilled the dough 30 minutes, pulled them at 8, and they firmed up into actual cookies.
The gritty texture thing is almost always the almond flour brand. This one uses both, just a quarter cup coconut flour, but that ratio absorbs differently and changes the whole feel. Pulling at 8 was right. Mine look underdone when I take them out and they finish setting on the hot pan. Wait the full three to five minutes before lifting or they’ll fall apart.
Figured white chocolate macadamia was a keto casualty, the kind that only exists as a memory of airport snack shops and gas station bakery cases. Tested these last weekend out of stubbornness. The butter-to-almond flour ratio does something the other keto versions I’ve tried don’t, that slightly dense, weighty crumb. Four stars because nostalgia is a hard judge. But these are genuinely better than a few full-sugar versions I’ve had. Didn’t expect to say that.
Four stars from a nostalgic cookie memory? That tracks. The butter ratio is genuinely tricky. Without eggs, it’s doing all the binding, so a little off either way and you could tell.
White chocolate chips melt fast in a warm kitchen. I started pulling the ChocZero chips straight from the freezer before folding them in, they hold their shape through mixing. You actually get chip pockets in the finished cookie instead of white streaks.
My husband doesn’t eat anything ‘diet’ but ate a third of these without asking a single question. The butter and macadamia ratio makes them taste indulgent, not healthy.
They spread. No eggs in the dough, it’s almost pure butter, so without that cold it just pools on the pan. I tried skipping it once out of impatience and got flat greasy discs.
My daughter picked every macadamia off the top before taking a single bite. She had no idea they were keto and I wasn’t saying a word. Mine spread flatter than I wanted but honestly the flavor didn’t care.
Ha, she found every last one. For the spread, did the dough sit out before baking? Even 5 minutes at room temp makes a difference. And yeah, the flavor doesn’t care what shape they’re in.
Wasn’t sure what would hold them together without eggs. The 30-minute fridge chill is apparently the answer. Not quite the same as a regular cookie, but the closest I’ve gotten on keto.
Toasted the macadamia nuts in a dry pan for 3 minutes before folding them in and can’t go back to untoasted. The nuttiness cuts through the white chocolate in a way that makes these taste way more layered than the ingredient list would suggest. Also found that chilling the dough closer to a full hour instead of 30 minutes made a real difference in how well they held their shape coming off the pan. Worth the extra wait.
I’ve made these probably eight or nine times now. The chill time matters way more than I expected. First time I skimped on the 30 minutes, they spread out flat and I had no idea why. Once I started doing the full chill (sometimes 45 minutes if I’m not rushing), they come out thick, crispy edges, soft center. The ChocZero chips don’t melt out the way regular chips do, so you get actual pockets of white chocolate in every bite instead of just a hint of flavor. Started keeping them in the freezer around batch three and that’s become a thing. They firm up almost like shortbread and I find myself eating them straight from the freezer more often than not.
The shortbread thing surprised me too the first time. They’re almost a different cookie frozen. And yeah, ChocZero is the only chip that actually stays put in these instead of bleeding into the dough.
Browned the butter instead of softened. These went from good to something I can’t stop thinking about. That nuttiness against the ChocZero chips is worth the extra 5 minutes and cool-down. Still need the chill, still holds together, but they taste totally different.
Started toasting the macadamia nuts before folding them into the dough a few batches back. Seven minutes at 325, let them cool completely before mixing in. The flavor difference is real enough that I won’t skip it now. The bitterness mellows and they pick up this almost caramel-adjacent quality that plays off the ChocZero chips in a way the raw nuts just don’t. Also figured out that portioning the dough into balls first, then chilling them on the sheet, works better than chilling the whole bowl and scooping from cold dough. Harder to get even portions that way. Flat cookies weren’t a huge issue for me before, but the portioned-first method keeps the edges from spreading unevenly.
Seven minutes at 325, cool completely. Need to try this. Raw macadamias are almost too mild in a white chocolate cookie, the caramel note would fix that.
Toasted the macadamia nuts for a few minutes before mixing them in and it made such a difference, that deeper nuttier flavor comes through in every bite. Also pulled mine at 6 minutes flat and let them finish on the pan (they looked underdone but they set up perfectly once cooled).
I made these today. I didn’t have any white chips so I used what I had which were Lilys Salted Caramel chips ( my favorite chips!). My cookies didn’t come out as nice or as perfect as yours. They were a little dry and then when they were done baking, they were a wee bit greasy. I let the cookies cool for about 3 hours ( maybe longer) because I didn’t want them to fall apart. ( They didn’t 🙂 ) Having said all that, I finally had one and WOW are they ever good! It didn’t fall apart, they weren’t greasy, they were melt in your mouth perfect! The combination of macadamia nuts and chocolate chips is such a delicious combination. Thank you so much for a yummy recipe and FINALLY …one that doesn’t include eggs So thank you for that as well!
Lily’s Salted Caramel in these sounds really good actually. The greasy/dry thing before cooling is pretty normal with almond flour cookies, they need that full rest to set up. Glad they came around!
