The famous “$250 Neiman Marcus cookie recipe” is absolutely packed with chocolate chips, chocolate chunks, oatmeal and chopped pecans. Are they worth it? Absolutely! This recipe makes a huge batch of what are possibly the best cookies in the world.
Why You’ll Love These Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookies
- They are chunk-a-licious! These cookies don’t just have a few chocolate chips here and there. They have chunks and chips and nuts and oatmeal. They’re loaded in every bite!
- Many recipes have you running the oatmeal through a food processor or blender to grind it up like flour. Not this one. You get plenty of rich oat-ey flavor and the added texture of whole rolled oats. Delish!
- A little touch of cinnamon (our secret ingredient) will make your Neiman Marcus cookies stand out as THE BEST!
- This recipe makes about 50 cookies, perfect for parties, cookie exchanges, the holidays and potlucks.
- And both the dough and the cookies freeze extremely well so you can make some now and have some later too!
True Story: I made these cookies to bring to my last lecture of my Masters to celebrate with my classmates. A guy got down on one knee & proposed after trying them. They are that good! And dipping them in chocolate & adding the chopped nuts makes them next level! Thanks so much for this great recipe; it’s gone into the cookie rotation for sure (and by that I mean I’ve exclusively been making these cookies, lol)!! -Melissa
How I Got This Recipe
Of course, we eat these Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookies all year round (every chance I get actually), but truth be told they forever changed my holidays.
I was married at Christmas. It was a magical time. There weren’t a lot of Christmas gifts that year, but there were a lot of wedding gifts. And somewhere among them all… there was this one gift… a cookie tin + a little recipe card taped to 2 cookie sheets- painstakingly typed and spaced with a manual typewriter.
This gift was from a new friend, newly married herself. And, quite honestly, the cookies in the tin were the best I had ever eaten. They were my first encounter with the (in)famous Neiman Marcus cookies.
Is the Neiman Marcus Cookie Myth True?
I was thrilled to get this “exclusive” secret recipe. You know, the one around which the stories swirl of the unfortunate customer who was charged $250 after tasting the cookies and asking for the recipe in the department store’s cafe. Of course, the story ends with the outraged customer vowing to get even by freely sharing the expensive recipe with as many of her friends as possible.
The story isn’t a bit true. But it makes the cookies all the more fun. And receiving the recipe the year I got married was like a secret handshake welcoming me to the club -the club of grown women among whom secret recipes circulated, whose kitchens churned out holiday meals and treats to the delights of their friends and families. I was now entrusted as a keeper of the marvelous sought-after cookies.
And marvelous they really are. …Which makes me obligated to share too… Like our own secret handshake, you and I… Welcome to the club.
Recipe Ingredients & Overview
I’ll walk through an overview of ingredients & steps in these next sections along with helpful tips!
Look for specifics at the end of the post in the recipe card.
This recipe can be found in various places around the Internet. This is my take on the version that was shared with me.
Ingredients
- butter
- brown sugar
- granulated sugar
- eggs
- vanilla
- flour
- oatmeal (old fashioned rolled oats)
- baking powder
- baking soda
- salt
- cinnamon
- semi-sweet chocolate chips
- semi-sweet chocolate chunks
- chopped pecans (or walnuts)
How to Make Neiman Marcus Cookies
Mix the Wet Ingredients. Using a hand held or electric mixer, cream butter and both sugars. Be careful not to over beat the butter here. This will leave you with flat cookies. There is lots of mixing left to come! Mix in eggs and vanilla just enough to combine.
Mix the Dry Ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon. Add to wet ingredients and mix just until incorporated.
One at time add in the chocolate chips, the chocolate chunks, then the nuts. Add this point, I switch from the paddle attachment to the dough hook on my stand mixer to mix in these last ingredients. This cookie dough gets really thick, really fast.
Scoop and Roll. Use a cookie scoop to evenly scoop out the dough and roll 1 inch balls and space them out on a cookie tray. The cookies will spread a little, but not much if you have not over-beaten your butter.
Bake. Bake 9-10 minutes. Let cookies cool on the pan 1-2 minutes to set before moving them to a cooling rack to cool completely.
NOTE: To make sure all the chunks and chips and nuts are evenly dispersed, I always use a heavy spatula to fold in the sides of the dough several times after I mix as well as I can with the stand mixer. If you don’t have a stand mixer, I recommend doing this step completely by hand. A hand mixer is not enough to handle this deliciously chunky cookie dough.
Extra Special Serving Suggestions
For a plate of cookies that is just about impossible to pass up and a presentation that is worthy of the name Neiman Marcus, I often take half of the total number of cookies baked and partially dip them in melting chocolate.
For even more variety, I sprinkle finely chopped pecans on half of the dipped cookies. This gives me 3 gourmet looks with just one recipe and is always a decadent showstopper at cookie swaps and parties.
Storing Or Freezing
These cookies will last about a week if stored in an airtight container.
If you don’t want to bake all of the cookies at once (about 50-ish cookies total), you can always spoon leftover cookie dough onto plastic wrap. Twist the ends closed and form the dough into a log. Wrap it several more times with more plastic wrap and then aluminum foil, and freeze. Simply unwrap and slice from frozen log to bake.
You can also freeze baked cookies. To thaw and eat, sit them out on the kitchen counter, but keep them wrapped until they come to room temperature.
Want to give your own special cookie recipe gift like the one I received? Here’s what I recommend:
More Classic Cookie Recipes
- Best Ever Cinnamon Raisin Oatmeal Cookies
- Soft Peanut Butter Cookies
- Perfect Coconut Cookies with Pecans
- Fudgy Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
- Thumbprint Coconut Macaroons
Neiman Marcus Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter room temperature
- 1 cup brown sugar packed
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 ½ cups oatmeal (old fashioned rolled oats)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 9 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chunks
- 1 ½ cups chopped pecans
Instructions
- Heat oven to 375℉. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
- Using an electric mixer (I use a stand mixer), cream room temp butter and both sugars together. Mix in eggs and vanilla just until incorporated. Don't over mix.
- Whisk together flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder and soda, and cinnamon in a separate bowl. Add to wet mixture a little at a time and, again, mix until just combined.
- Fold in one at a time- chocolate chips, chocolate chunks, then nuts. The dough will be really thick and chunky, so for this step I switch my mixer paddle to my dough hook to make mixing easier.
- Using a cookie scoop, scoop out the dough and roll into balls and place on cookie sheet about 1 inch apart.
- Bake 9-10 minutes at 375℉. Don't over bake.
Nutrition
This recipe was first shared here Dec. 5, 2017.
Oh, this is too funny!!! These $250 cookies have been my long-standing cookie recipe since Jr. High!! We have carried them to the Starlight Symphony for years. 😉 Except mine is double your amounts – it makes a gallon ice cream bucket full. Perfect for a crowd! Ha! And I blend the oatmeal. And use part semi-sweet chocolate chips and part chopped Hershey kisses. And many, many years ago, I wrote “optional” beside the pecans. And never made it that way because I didn’t want nuts in my precious chocolate chip cookies! Now I probably would enjoy it. =)
Your pictures are wonderful! And I love the idea to fancy them up by dipping half in chocolate! Fun!!
Aren’t they just the best!? And the story that goes with them just makes the recipe even better! But girl, you gotta add those pecans! Haha! And of course, we’ve been making the same “secret” cookie for 20 years! Who else? #twinsseparatedatbirth
Of course we have made the same
recipe for years without knowing it! I am quite certain we were separated at birth! ❤️❤️ I expect nothing less!! I am just teasing you. All in good fun!
What type of oats
Sue, I use Old Fashioned Quaker Oats. I hope you love these cookies!
The infamous cookies. I heard this story years ago but didn’t realize it wasn’t true. It does make a really good story to pass along with a really good recipe. I am so going to have to try these and pin them to my Christmas board. Happy Anniversary. Visiting today from Grace Girls. Have a Merry Christmas.
Thank you so much, Jaime! This is just a fun recipe all the way around. I hope you enjoy them. Merry Christmas!
This Neiman Marcus Cookies are the best ever, I used to make these and now you have inspired me to make them again! Hope you have a fantastic week and thanks so much for sharing with Full Plate Thursday.
Merry Christmas
Miz Helen
Miz Helen, aren’t these just the best?! I am so glad that you will be making them again!
True Story: I made these cookies to bring to my last lecture of my Masters to celebrate with my classmates and a guy got down on one knee and proposed after he tried them. They are that good! And dipping them in chocolate and adding the chopped nuts makes them next level! Thanks so much for this great recipe, it’s gone into the cookie rotation for sure (and by that I mean I’ve exclusively been making these cookies, lol)!!
WOW! Melissa! This is the best! So… we all want to know- did you accept? And congratulations on your Master’s degree. Woohoo!! That’s big! I guess these cookies should come with some kind of warning. “So good you could get a proposal!” LOL! What a great way to cap off your Master’s study!
I am just tickled you love these cookies. They are crazy delicious, and now you have one of the best stories to go with them! LOVE IT!
Delicious