Soft Banana Pudding Cookies (2024)

These Banana Pudding Cookies are ultra soft and studded with Nilla Wafer pieces and white chocolate chips in a banana flavored cookie dough! They are like eating banana pudding in cookie form and everybody raves about them!

Pudding mix in cookies? You betcha.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that these cookies have an actual package of powdered banana pudding in the mix. Remember when "pudding in the mix" was a thing for boxed cake mixes? Not only does it add legitimate banana pudding flavor, but it also makes these cookies extra soft, even days later.

I contemplated adding dried banana chips, but ultimately decided against it with these because I don't always love their texture and flavor. Instead, I mixed in white chocolate chips, which sort of replicate that creaminess that I love about homemade banana pudding, along with chunks of broken up Nilla Wafers to really sell that banana pudding in cookie form idea. And it totally works!

I brought these to cookie and movie night with the cousins, not totally sure how well they would be received, and everybody went crazy for them. It's such a fun, different cookie with a flavor profile that you don't always see. And they are nice and thick, but still soft without being dry or crumbly.

I'm not actually a fan of bananas themselves, but banana-flavored desserts are a totally different thing and I love them! Some of our most popular banana recipes are my Best Easy Banana Bread Recipe (seriously, this one gets visited by hundreds of thousands of people each month and has dozens of five star ratings), Old-Fashioned Banana Cream Pie, and Banana Bars with Penuche Frosting.

Recipe Ingredients

• All-purpose flour: Regular all-purpose flour makes up the bulk of these cookies.
• Sugar: A mix of granulated sugar and brown sugar to add dimension and the right amount of sweetness.
• Butter: I always use salted butter in my baking. You can even skip softening the butter if you cream the butter with the sugars for 3-4 minutes.
• Banana pudding mix: The banana flavor comes from 1 package of instant powdered banana cream jello pudding mix.
• Eggs: For binding, added richness, and flavor.
• Baking soda: This ingredient provides just the right amount of lift and spread.
• Salt: Keeps the cookies from being bland.
• Vanilla extract: A little vanilla extract harmonizes flavors in baking rather than taking center stage. It adds depth and complexity.
• Nilla Wafers: I like to break these up by hand so they don't get too small. But they do soften in the cookies, just like they do in actual banana pudding.
• White chocolate chips: I suppose you could do milk chocolate chips if you like chocolate and bananas, but I love the creaminess of the white chocolate and think it goes really well with the other flavors.

Let's make cookies!

1. Cream butter and sugar: Start out by beating the butter and both types of sugars for 3-4 minutes until they are creamy and light. Add in the eggs and vanilla extract, scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl to make sure everything gets evenly incorporated.

2. Add dry ingredients: Mix in the flour, instant banana cream pudding powder, baking soda, and salt just until combined. A common mistake people make when making cookies is to overmix their cookie dough at this point. Just let the mixer go until no streaks of flour remain, then stop and stir in the mix-ins by hand.
3. Stir in mix-ins: Add the broken up Nilla Wafers and chocolate chips, then stir in by hand using a sturdy spatula or wooden spoon. There is no need to chill the dough, but you are welcome to if you feel like it.

4. Scoop: Use a small cookie scoop to scoop out evenly sized mounds of cookie dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. I like to press a few pieces of the Nilla Wafers into the tops of each cookie at this point to indicate when people can expect on the inside of each cookie.

5. Bake: Let the cookies bake until they are set around the edges and lose the glossy sheen on the top. You don't want to overbake these cookies because they will continue to set up even after being removed from the oven thanks to the residual heat of the pan and the cookies themselves. I like to press a few additional white chocolate chips into the tops of each cookie while they are still warm.

Recipe Tips & Tricks

• Perfectly round cookies: One secret among food bloggers and gourmet cookie bakers is that you can shape your cookies to be perfectly round by using the back of a spoon to nudge the cookies into a more desirable shape as soon as they come out of the oven. It actually helps them maintain a slightly thicker center too and gives a uniformity to the cookies that makes them extra beautiful.
• To chill or not to chill?: I almost never chill my cookie dough unless we are talking about sugar cookies. But some people swear that it develops the flavor and helps the cookies not to spread as much. If you prefer to chill your dough, go right ahead. But I really don't think it's necessary.
• Parchment paper is your best friend: I love, love, love parchment paper and buy precut sheets in bulk so I always have them on hand. It makes baking so much more enjoyable because your cookies don't stick to the pan and you have less clean-up afterwards.
• Decorating: If you want an even more impressive finish to your cookies, you could melt some white chocolate and drizzle it across the top of the cookies, then sprinkle some of it with crushed Nilla Wafer crumbs for an even more sophisticated look.

Recipe FAQ's

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