The famous Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipe! Blended oatmeal in the cookie dough is the secret ingredient that gives these cookies just a little more texture and body. A batch of homemade Neiman Marcus cookies, full of chocolate chips and nuts, is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser any time of day.
Urban legend has it that one smitten Neiman Marcus customer agreed to pay “two fifty” for the store’s chocolate chip cookie recipe. Imagine her surprise when she was served with a bill for $250.
The store actually released a version of their cookie recipe a few years ago. While similar to this one, it contains espresso powder and leaves out one very important ingredient.
The cookies are so tender, chewy and chocolaty, that they just might be worth their price tag. Luckily, my step-mom saved the original recipe and passed it on to me to share and I’m sharing it with you.
This cookie recipe goes beyond your typical chocolate chip cookie with the addition of blended oatmeal, chocolate shavings, and nuts. The extra step of blending oats is well worth it.
Update: I’ve updated this post with a video and helpful tips and tricks to make these legendary cookies live up to the hype.
How To Make The Original Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipe At Home
Overall, this is a simple and straightforward cookie recipe. The only extra bit to perfecting Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookies is blending up some oatmeal and adding some grated chocolate.
This cookie recipe follows the creaming method, which means you’ll start by creaming butter and sugar in a mixing bowl. If you have a stand mixer, use the paddle attachment on medium-high speed.
Creaming incorporates air into the butter, which helps your cookies stay light and fluffy. Serious Eats has a great article on the importance of creaming butter and sugar when making cookies.
Tip: To bring your butter to the perfect temperature for creaming, cut the butter into tablespoons and put it in your mixing bowl. By the time you’ve assembled all your other ingredients, your butter will be ready to cream.
I like to mix together the dry ingredients (blended oatmeal, flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda) before creaming, and gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.
Mix until everything is just combined, being careful not to overmix, which can result in tough cookies. Finally, fold in your mix-ins: chocolate, more chocolate, and nuts.
At this point, you can refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes. Chilling creates even thicker, chewier cookies, as the cold dough won’t spread as much in the oven.
When you’re ready to bake, form balls with your dough and arrange on cookie sheets. I use a #40 disher to get even cookies that bake into perfect circles. If you bake a lot of cookies like I do, this scoop is a time saver and makes evenly sized cookies every time.
Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes. Don’t worry about taking them out a couple of minutes before the cookies look fully set. Resting on the hot baking sheets will continue to bake the cookies all the way through. Then, move the cookies to a wire rack to cool fully.
At this point, if you don’t eat them all straight away, the chocolate chip cookies can be frozen for several months or stored in an airtight container on the counter.
Why Use Blended Oatmeal in Chocolate Chip Cookies?
Blended oatmeal is the key to the delightful texture of the original Neiman Marcus cookies. It’s the secret ingredient that the store left out of their published recipe.
It only takes just a couple of minutes to make blended oatmeal in your kitchen. Simply add oats to a blender and pulse into a coarse powder.
While oat flour is also a form of oats ground into powder, it’s not a great substitute for the oats in this recipe. Oat flour is much more finely ground than you will achieve in your home blender. It also may change the texture of your cookies.
When choosing oats for these cookies, I always opt for old-fashioned oats, but you can substitute quick-cooking oats if needed. Do not use Instant Oats.
What Else Can I Add to Chocolate Chip Cookies?
This is an incredibly versatile recipe. The dough itself is so tasty, soft and chewy that you can play around with your favorite cookie inclusions. The recipe includes the classics: chocolate chips, chocolate shavings, and nuts.
Of course, you can easily omit the nuts if you’re not a fan. Or, you can replace them with other candies, such as Heath Bar. Coconut chips also add a nice, tropical note. One reader replaced all of the chocolate with M&M’s for a colorful take on the classic chocolate chip cookie.
How do you like to change up your Neiman Marcus cookies? Let me know in the comments, I love trying new mix-ins!
You’ll also want to try my Neiman Marcus Cake recipe!
Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups oatmeal blended
- 2 cups flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup light brown sugar firmly packed
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 12 oz. chocolate chips 2 cups
- 1 4 oz. Hershey bar, grated
- 1 ½ cups chopped nuts I omitted these
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 F.
- Blend oatmeal: Measure and process in a blender to a coarse powder.
- In a medium bowl, mix together flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and baking soda
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugars, on medium-high speed, until well light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla until well blended, scraping down sides of the bowl as needed.
- Add flour mixture; mix just until blended. Stir in chocolate chips, grated chocolate, and nuts, if using. (Optional: cover dough and chill 30 minutes – add a minute or two to the cook time if using chilled dough.)
- Roll into balls and place two inches apart on cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. (Take the cookies out of the oven 1 or 2 minutes before the cookies are cooked, as they will continue to cook on the baking pans.).
- Let cookies cool for 2 minutes on baking sheet before transferring cookies to racks to cool completely.
Video
More Candy-Studded Cookie Recipes to Bake Now
I love the inclusion of shaved Hershey’s Chocolate in the Neiman Marcus Cookie recipe. In fact, I love any cookie with an extra crunch of candy. Here are some of my favorite homemade cookie recipes with candy mixed in:
- Over the Top Lemon Drop Candy Cookies. I bet you didn’t expect lemon drop candies to make such a fun and bright cookie topping perfect for springtime!
- Triple Chocolate Milky Way Cookies have it all: three types of chocolate in one Milky Way-filled package.
- Chocolate Toffee Cookies from That Skinny Chick Can Bake pair dense chocolate with crunchy toffee in a delightfully chewy cookie.
- Oatmeal Raisinet Cookies are a big step-up from classic oatmeal raisin cookies.
More chocolate chip cookie recipes you might like:
Cherry Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Toffee Cookies, Barbara Bakes
Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies Barbara Bakes
Better than the Doubletree Chocolate Chip Cookie, Crazy for Crust
Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies, Mom On Timeout
Levain Bakery Chocolate Chip Cookies, Wishes and Dishes
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Joan Allison
Mine have been dry. I think i put in 2 1/2 cups of oats after grinding not the before grinding amount.
Melissa Griffiths
That would make a difference!
R
you DO realize this is not the recipe, RIGHT?
Melissa Griffiths
Do you have the original recipe? I’d love to see it!
Lisa
I was just thumbing through an old community cookbook published in 1993 – three island cookbook Glenn’s Ferry Idaho. This recipe was there exactly the same! It even had an introduction with how the contributer (she made it sound like it was herself) paid the 250 for the recipe when she went to the neiman Marcus cafe, thinking the waitress was saying 2.50. So she wanted to share the recipe with everyone when they refused to refund her.
Melissa Griffiths
That’s so fun, thank you for sharing your find!
Barbra
Hi, when I make chocolate chip cookies using a scoop, they never quite flatten out, they kinda remain in a semi-mound. I have watched many videos of people making them and using scoops and they flatten. Do you know what I could be doing wrong?
Barbara Schieving
Hi Barbra – a couple of things to check. Is your oven temperature accurate? Are you packing too much flour in the cup when you’re measuring your flour. https://www.barbarabakes.com/how-to-measure-flour/ I love using scoops and if I know a dough doesn’t spread much when baking, I’ll sometimes use the flat bottom of a cup to flatten the cookies slightly. I haven’t had to do that with this recipe though.
Keith
Can instant oats be used instead of old fashioned oats? Fixing to give these a try.
Barbara Schieving
Hi Keith – I haven’t tried it with quick-cooking oats but it should work as a substitute although you may need to use less since they’re already ground up a little bit. Instant oats are often pre-cooked in small packages and would not be a good substitute.
Allison
Made these yesterday for a group of men and omg did they loved them. Every single cookie was demolished. I grew up on these cookies…I remember my mom making them for me and my brother when we were young and it was a real treat! Even my picky teen who hates oatmeal snuck a few. I used an ice cream scoop so the cookies were rather large. Wouldn’t change a thing about this recipe.
Barbara Schieving
So fun to hear the cookies were a big hit. Thanks Allison!
Sandra
I used to make these without blending the oats, since I didn’t have a blender or food processor, and I always added coconut. They were pretty amazing that way. This was about 20 years ago. Now, I have a food processor, so I plan to try doing it the right way!
Barbara Schieving
Hi Sandra – congratulations on the new food processor! Coconut sounds like an awesome addition too.
R Boyd
We add toffee brickle to ours and they are delicious.
Barbara Schieving
Sounds like a delicious addition – thanks for sharing!
Jennifer Smith
Should I sift the dry ingredients?
Barbara Schieving
Hi Jennifer – you can whisk the dry ingredients together, but rarely is it necessary to sift the dry ingredients together anymore. Today’s flours are so well refined that sifting isn’t really necessary.
Jennifer Smith
Great. Thank you. Beat cookies ever!
Barbara Schieving
Thanks!
Jennifer Smith
These cookies were great!!! Why no espresso powder?
Barbara Schieving
I’m not a coffee drinker and don’t like coffee-flavored desserts, but you could certainly add it if you prefer, 1-1/2 teaspoons instant espresso coffee powder.
Jennifer Smith
So I made the original Neumann Marcus recipe that you reference but I like your recipe with the oatmeal better. This is now my official cookie recipe. Thank you!!!!!
Barbara Schieving
That’s so fun – thanks!
Jennifer Smith
Can I just use oat flour instead of blending oats?
Barbara Schieving
Hi Jennifer – I haven’t tried it. My concern is it might be too finely ground and make the cookies heavy, but you could certainly try it. Let me know if you do.
Mary
Thank you for this recipe. I really liked this recipe and followed it exactly with chilling the dough. I used my nutribullet to grind up oats. Butter I left out to room temp, it did not turn light and fluffy but I made sure to blend well. Very easy, parchment paper a must. I used ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate chips 60% cacao, they are bigger chips. I will do this recipe again.
Barbara Schieving
Thanks Mary – those Ghiradelli chips sound like a great addition!
Lisa Napier
I put in crunchy peanut butter because I didn’t have any nuts. I put half peanut butter and half butter. I also ground up a couple of white chocolate Easter bunnies that were left over from Easter. It all worked really well and the cookies were great!!
Barbara Schieving
What fun additions – thanks for sharing Lisa!