Slice and bake lemon pistachio cookies! They’re perfectly crisp, deliciously buttery, and tender with a sweet and tangy flavor. You’ll love the crunchy yet tender pistachios in every bite. This one is different yet worthy of adding to your holiday cookie tray.
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❤️About This Recipe
Dessert or Snack: These pistachio cookies can be enjoyed as a dessert after dinner. Or serve as a breakfast or snack with a cup of hot coffee or tea. I just love to dip these crisp cookies in my coffee and eat them.
Super Easy To Make: You’ll need a food processor to make a simple cookie dough. Roll in a log, chill, slice and bake. Even a baking beginner can make this without fail.
These pistachio cookies don’t fall into the holiday cookies category, but it is a unique recipe to have on hand if you’re tired of the same old classic cookie recipes.
Texture & Flavor:
- Crispy texture yet have soft, tender and melt-in-your-mouth crumbs.
- Rich and buttery.
- The crunch of pistachios in every bite.
- Nutty flavors from pistachios with a nice lemony zing from lemon zest.
- Like more pistachio crunch? Roll the log into crushed pistachio then chill, slice and bake.
🧾Ingredient Notes
You’ll need 8 ingredients to make these delicious buttery pistachio cookies.
- Flour: Regular all purpose flour is used (also known as Maida in Hindi for my Indian readers).
- Corn starch (corn flour): It is added to get soft, tender crumbs in the cookie.
- Sugar: Regular white granulated sugar is used.
- Unsalted Butter: We need cold butter to make this pistachio cookie dough. So cut the cold butter into tiny pieces and put it back in the refrigerator until you prep the other ingredients.
- Milk: Since we are using a very little amount of milk in these pistachio cookies, you can use any full-fat whole milk or skim, low-fat, doesn’t matter.
- Lemon zest: It is the outer bright yellow layer of the lemon rind. Use the Microplane zester to get the zest. Make sure not to grate the inner white part of the rind, just grate the yellow part. The white part is bitter and makes the cookies slightly bitter.
- Pistachios: I have used salted pistachios that’s why no salt in the recipe and using unsalted butter.
👩🍳Step By Step Photo Instructions
1) Crush pistachios. Take pistachios in a food processor jar.
2) Run it until they are coarsely ground.
3) Make the dough in a food processor. Add flour, cornstarch, baking powder, sugar and lemon zest. Pulse it a couple of times so everything is mixed.
4) Add cold butter.
5) Cover and run the processor with a pulsing motion.
6) Pulse until the butter gets a coarse breadcrumbs-like texture.
7) Add milk.
8) Pulse again until the mixture comes together still crumbly.
9) Shape into a log. Dump the dough mixture on a work surface (or silicone mat).
10) Just pinch and gather the dough using your hands (do not knead).
11) It will come together very easily.
12) Shape into 1 ½ inches diameter of log. If coating with more pistachios then do that at this time. Spread the crushed pistachio on the surface, very lightly grease the surface of the log and roll the log into the pistachio to cover the entire surface evenly.
13) Chill, Slice & Bake. Wrap the log using plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for around 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350F (180C). Like a baking sheet with parchment paper and keep it ready.
14) Remove the wrap and cut it into slices (less than ½ inch thick). You’ll get 24 slices from this one log.
15) Arrange them a few inches apart on a prepared sheet.
16) Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes. Let pistachio cookies cool in the pan itself for 5-10 minutes and then transfer them to a cooling rack to cool down completely.
💭Expert Tips
- Always use cold butter as it gives a crisp and flaky texture to these pistachio cookies.
- Be sure to chill the log so it’s easy to cut into slices.
- You can cut into thick cookies (no more than ½ inch) and if so increase the baking time slightly.
- Drizzle or dip the cookies in melted white chocolate.
Did you try this lemon pistachio cookies recipe? I’d love to hear about it! Leave a review in the comment section below.
📋 Recipe Card
Lemon Pistachio Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup Pistachios salted & shelled
- 1 cup All purpose flour (Maida)
- 2 tablespoons Corn flour (corn starch)
- 1 teaspoon Baking powder
- 1 teaspoon Lemon zest
- ½ cup Sugar
- ½ cup Unsalted butter Cold & cut into pieces.
- 1 ½ tablespoon Milk
Instructions
- Crush pistachios. Take pistachios in a food processor jar. Run it until they are coarsely ground.
- Make the dough in a food processor. Add flour, cornstarch, baking powder, sugar and lemon zest. Pulse it a couple of times so everything is mixed.
- Add cold butter. Pulse until the butter gets a coarse breadcrumbs-like texture.
- Add milk. Pulse again until the mixture comes together still crumbly.
- Shape into a log. Dump the dough mixture on a work surface (or silicone mat). Just pinch and gather the dough using your hands (do not knead).
- Shape into 1 ½ inches diameter of log. If coating with more pistachios then do that at this time. Spread the crushed pistachio on the surface, very lightly grease the surface of the log and roll the log into the pistachio to cover the entire surface evenly.
- Chill, Slice & Bake. Wrap the log using plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for around 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350F (180C). Like a baking sheet with parchment paper and keep it ready.
- Remove the wrap and cut it into slices (less than ½ inch thick). You’ll get 24 slices from this one log.
- Arrange them a few inches apart on a prepared sheet.
- Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes.
- Let them cool in the pan itself for 5-10 minutes and then transfer them to a cooling rack to cool down completely.
Notes
- Always use cold butter as it gives a crisp and flaky texture to these pistachio cookies.
- Be sure to chill the log so it’s easy to cut into slices.
- You can cut into thick cookies (no more than ½ inch) and if so increase the baking time slightly.
- Drizzle or dip the cookies with/in melted white chocolate.
Poonam
Nice cookies
Which sugar is used here granulated
or powdered?
And can I use whole wheat flr here
Kanan
granulated sugar is used
Yes you can use whole wheat flour
Anitha
Hi Kanan,
I am looking to make Pista cookies. Could you let me know the importance of adding corn flour in this recipe? Can it be skipped?
Thanks,
Anitha
Kanan
Yes you can skip it if you do not have.
But corn flour makes the cookies more crispy