Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipe
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!
Neiman Marcus Cookie Recipe
Rich, chewy and soft Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookies are studded with extra chocolate and chopped nuts to make the perfect sweet treat.
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups oatmeal, blended
- 2 cups flour
- 1/2 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 1/2 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.
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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
I work at a lovely appliance store. We have several live kitchens displaying each brand in a kitchen set up. I am very blessed to be able to cook and bake and demonstrate the appliances – not to mention get the juices flowing for prospective buyers in the showroom!. I just made these cookies for our showroom guests with amazing success! I did embellish a bit by adding a little cinnamon, used less white sugar and more brown sugar equaling 2 cups, added toasted coconut and heath toffee bits. Just a wee amount of those. I baked them for 10 mins at 350 C0NVECTION. They turned out beautiful & WONDERFULLY DELICIOUS!!! Some of our guests were brave enough to ask for the recipe – which I shared, even with my embellishments. Definitely a keeper recipe.
Sounds like delicious changes. Thanks for sharing Deanie!
I’m going to make these cookies for the first time today,but I need to know if I should use milk chocolate chips or semisweet chips.
Thanks,
Amber
Hi Amber – you could use milk chocolate but semi-sweet are traditionally used in cookies.
These are really good cookies, I make them only once a year cause it requires too much work. I have to blend the oatmeal to a find flour and chop everything up. Its worth it but only once a year and I usually double the recipe. So for people that don’t like oatmeal, they won’t know you put any in them. lol
Thanks Melissa – definitely worth the extra work.
I have made these and they are delicious. However u am wanting to make double chocolate chip….do you think I can just add cocoa powder?? And if so how much do u think would be enough?
Hi Yvette – If you want a chocolate cookie dough, I would add 1 cup of cocoa powder and only use 1 1/2 cups of the blended oatmeal or you could try only using 1 cup of flour. Based on this recipe https://www.barbarabakes.com/triple-chocolate-smores-cookies/ which my family loves.
Thanks for linking to my cookies! These look amazing!
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hi barbara,
did u grind all the oats to a fine powder? i like the texture of your cookies.
I just baked these cookies using l cup whole grain flour and 1 cup all purpose and used chopped pecans. They are fantastic! Thank you.
This recipe is the ONLY one that my son uses for CCC. I like them very much too.
I made these so many years ago I can't even count! LOL They were delicious though, I completely agree 🙂
The story behind these cookies makes me want to try them more. Thanks!
Hey Barbara! Where do I send my $250 check?! Those look amazing! Thank you so much! I hope you have a great weekend!
Wow Barbara they look just like the ones they serve a Neiman Marcus good job.
Oh yum – those sound so good! I love choc chip cookies, and I bet the oatmeal gives them that extra something-something. Delicious!
I lost this recipe! Thanks for posting it! These cookies are delicious.
This used to be my favorite ccc, while I still love it, I've made many since and kind of like making all kinds. Right now the NY Times is my fave. The NM $250 is a great cookie! Yours look awesome.
Sounds like cookies that worth trying.
How funny- I was just browsing this recipe the other day in my chocolate chip cookie file… ended up choosing another one. I've always wanted to try this one too though! Will have to give it a go next time 🙂
Ive heard of these and always wanted to try them!
I've definitely heard of these, but never made them. They look really delicious!