The Best Oatmeal and Nutella Cookies Recipe

These oatmeal Nutella cookies are the perfect soft, chewy, and chocolatey treat. If you are a fan of Nutella, you are going to love these delicious cookies.

Developing this recipe

Originally I thought I wanted this to be a stuffed cookie. After testing it though, I didn’t love the lack of Nutella distribution throughout the cookie. If I am going to have a Nutella cookie then I want to have Nutella flavor in each bite.

I came up with the idea of making Nutella “chocolate chips”. This turned into an involved process of loading a piping bag with Nutella, and squeezing chunk sizes on to parchment paper. Since Nutella doesn’t set the way plain chocolate does, it had to be frozen. Once mixed into the cookie dough though it quickly melted and lost its form. It wasn’t worth the effort involved. 

I landed on this final method of giving the Nutella(straight from the jar) a very quick stir into the cookie batter. Not too much that the Nutella is fully incorporated, but just a little so you have bites of still soft Nutella throughout. 

Preparing to bake

Start by gathering your ingredients and supplies. You will need either a stand mixer or handheld mixer, two baking sheets, parchment paper, a whisk, measuring cups and spoons and a rubber spatula. Optional items include a large cookie scooper.

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened.
• ½ cup white sugar
• ½ cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs (room temperature)
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract 
• 2 cups all purpose flour(can be substituted for whole wheat flour if desired)
• 1 tsp fine sea salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup rolled oats(not instant or quick oats)
• 1 cup shredded coconut (unsweetened)
• 1 cup Nutella

Notes about the ingredients

Butter

The butter should still be cool to the touch and just soft enough to easily leave an imprint of your finger. It should not appear greasy at all. Taking the butter out of the fridge 45-60 minutes before starting should be enough. If it’s very warm in the house 30 minutes should do.

All-purpose flour

For best results I do recommend using all-purpose flour. You can substitute up to half of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat flour and still get good results.

Salt

For the salt going into the recipe with the flour and baking soda, use a fine grain sea salt. If you are adding a sprinkle of salt on top of the cookie before baking, use a coarse sea salt. I recommend using a high quality salt with all your cooking and baking.

Coconut

The coconut can be substituted for additional rolled oats. I love the texture that the coconut gives and recommend using it but this is a matter of preference. Replace the one cup of shredded coconut with an additional 1 cup rolled oats.

Nutella(substitute)

There are some great homemade hazelnut chocolate spread recipes out there if you are wanting to avoid Nutella. You will find a recipe for one here.

Nutella(removed)

Okay, so if you removed the Nutella it will no longer be a Nutella cookie. However, this makes a fantastic oatmeal chocolate chip cookie as well. Leave the rest of the recipe the same and substitute 1 cup of chocolate chip for the Nutella.

Mixing the Cookie dough

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Stir together flour, baking soda, and salt in a mixing bowl, and set a side.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a large bowl using a handheld mixer, cream together butter and sugars at a medium-high speed. Beat until sugar is fully incorporated, the butter has lightened in color and is fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Add eggs and vanilla extract. Mix until incorporated and uniform in color, scraping down the side of the bowl as needed.

Add the dry ingredients(flour, baking soda and salt) to the mixing bowl. Set the mixer to low or stir, until flour is mixed in. Stir in the rolled oats and shredded coconut.

Adding the Nutella

Before adding the Nutella, scrape down your bowl one more time, ensure all the flour, oats and coconut is incorporated into the dough. Carefully dollop the Nutella on top of the dough, spreading it around as evenly as possible. 

Turn mixer to low/stir for 2-3 seconds. Just to start mixing the Nutella around but leaving areas that Nutella and cookie dough not fully mixed together.

Divide the cookies evenly into 16 balls. I did this by hand but you could also use a large cookie scoop if you have one.

Flatten the cookies slightly and place onto the lined baking tray. If desired, sprinkle each cookie with a little sea salt.

Baking the cookies

Put the tray in the preheated oven and bake cookies for 8-12 minutes, check after 8 minutes to ensure they do not over cook.  The edges will have just a hint of brown but look undercooked. Once you remove the cookies from the oven they will continue to bake. The baking time will vary based on the oven used and the size of the cookies.

Place the tray on a wire rack and cool for 10 minutes. Using a flipper move cookies from the tray to the wire rack and allow to cool completely. Store the cookies in an airtight container for 2-3 days. Freeze for longer storage.

Let me know in the comments below if you bake these cookies!

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