Basic shortbread isn’t fussy or complicated—rather, it’s pure, simple, and downright dreamy. Shortbread is buttery and mildly sweet and sometimes, like in today’s case, crisp and tender. Though shortbread is typically made with just butter, sugar, flour, and sometimes salt—if you’re the type of person who can’t leave things alone, it’s also your chance to have a little fun.
Shortbread is the best blank slate for many different flavors, drizzles, dunks, chunks, and more. You can find many flavor variations with my wedge-shaped shortbread cookies or try today’s variation with pistachios, semi-sweet chocolate, and sea salt.
Today’s shortbread begins in our mixing bowls with butter. We’ll cream it and add granulated sugar as well as a little brown sugar for flavor..
The recipe is quite similar to these pistachio cookies. In that recipe, you use confectioners’ sugar which helps add stability and structure so the drop cookies do not over-spread. We don’t have to worry about overspreading in today’s cookie recipe because we’re baking the dough in cake pans.
And the best parts of all: the dough comes together in ONE BOWL and there’s NO DOUGH CHILLING. Chocolate pistachio shortbread is truly an effortless recipe!
Actually, the best best part about all this are the pistachios. They get all toasty inside the dough when it bakes! Finely chop the nuts before adding to the cookie dough—a food processor immensely helps with the chopping step.
The shortbread dough is crumbly. It’s texture quite similar to the dough we need for snowball cookies or almond crescent cookies. But don’t fret, that’s what you want. Press it into two lined 9-inch cake pans. We’ll cut the baked shortbread into wedges like a pizza. A butter pizza.
We’ll dress up the shortbread with melted chocolate, more chopped pistachios, and a sprinkle of flaky sea salt. So let’s really think about what you’ll get in just one of these shortbread wedges:
Shortbread upgrade!
If you’re in need of more holiday baking inspiration, here are 75+ Christmas cookies with all my best success guides, tips, and several favorite shortbread recipes—like brown sugar shortbread and lemon shortbread cookies.
See all cookie palooza recipes.
With just a few ingredients, you can turn traditional shortbread into this salted chocolate pistachio shortbread. An easy one bowl dessert recipe!
