Name: Million Dollar Cookie Recipe
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 9 min
Total time: 9 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 1 cup salted butter, softened to room temperature; 1 cup dark brown sugar; 1 cup white sugar; 2 large eggs; 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract; 2 cups all purpose flour (9.6 oz); 2 1/2 cups old fashioned oats, ground in a blender; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 1/2 teaspoon salt; 12 ounces semi sweet chocolate chips (2 cups); 8 oz milk chocolate Hershey bar, coarsely grated; 1 cup chopped pecans (optional)

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This million-dollar cookie recipe has been filling cookie jars and happy mouths for decades! Blended oats give the cookies great texture, but a secret ingredient – grated chocolate – gives them a boost of yummy chocolate flavor.

There’s no chill time, so you can have delicious chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven in about 30 minutes!

stack of neiman marcus chocolate chip cookies

NEIMAN MARCUS COOKIE MYTH

I was in college in the early 1990’s when the urban legend of the Neiman Marcus cookie was going viral. (Well as viral as things could get without social media, just email chain letters.) 😉

The story was that a woman ordered a cookie at a Neiman Marcus cafe and liked it so much that she asked for the recipe. Her waitress told her it would cost her “two fifty”, so she agreed. When she got the credit card bill in the mail later, it was for $250, not $2.50 like she assumed. So to get even with the store chain, she decided to share the cookie recipe with everyone she knew.

It was never true, but boy did it sound good. And that cookie recipe spread like wild fire. I remember getting the chain letter and trying the cookie recipe for the first time way back then.

The recipe has gone through several adaptations, but I’ve had the original recipe with blended oats and grated chocolate bar in my recipe book for decades.

Of course, with inflation, now they are million-dollar cookies instead of $250 cookies – haha!

Even though Neiman Marcus has stated that the story was just a myth, the million dollar cookie recipe is definitely worth trying!

How to make million dollar chocolate chip cookies:

CHOCOLATE BAR – Coarsely grate the chocolate bar onto a plate; place it in the fridge.
OATS – Measure 2 1/2 cups of oats, then pulse them in a food processor or blender. You don’t want it to turn into a powder, just coarsely pulverize it.
Heat oven to 375°.
WET INGREDIENTS – In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugars for at least two minutes. Beat in the eggs and vanilla.
DRY INGREDIENTS – Add the ground oatmeal, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Stir a few times, then add the chocolate chips, grated chocolate, and nuts. Stir until combined.
FORM – Roll the cookie dough into balls and place on large baking sheets that have been lightly greased or lined with silicone liners. Flatten slightly.
BAKE – Bake cookies in a preheated oven at 375 degrees for 8-9 minutes. Press a few chocolate chips on top of the cookies while they are hot.
COOL – Let cookies cool on the pan for a few minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Cooled cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for about 5 days before they start to dry out. For maximum freshness, you can wrap them individually in plastic wrap.

You can also freeze the cookies for 4-5 months. I like to store my cookies in heavy duty freezer bags because you can squeeze out the air as you remove cookies.

PRO TIPS:

Measure the oats before blending them. You should end up with approximately two cups of ground oats. If you blend them before measuring, you will end up with dry cookies!
It’s easiest to grate the chocolate bar if it is at room temperature, but you need to chill the grated chocolate while you make the dough.
For pretty bakery style cookies, reserve some chocolate chips to press on top of the cookies when they come out of the oven.
If you use unsalted butter, add an additional 1/2 teaspoon of salt to the dough.

VARIATIONS:

Switch up the flavor of the cookies by using milk chocolate chips, chocolate chunks, white chips, or even butterscotch chips.
In place of the optional pecans, you can use another type of nut, or even shredded coconut.

million dollar cookie with a glass of milk in the background

MORE COOKIE RECIPES:

Yield: 4 1/2 dozen cookies