Lunch Lady Oatmeal Cookies – easy and delicious cookie recipe from your childhood. Crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. All you need is a glass of milk and you are set! Butter, shortening, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and oatmeal. Can freeze the cookie dough for a quick treat later! This recipe makes a lot of cookies – great for parties, bake sales, potlucks, and your holiday cookie tray.
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Pin This RecipeSchool Cafeteria Oatmeal Cookies
I’ve been posting several old school cafeteria recipes lately. I had several requests for these Lunch Lady Oatmeal Cookies. I can see why, they are incredibly delicious! They may actually be the best oatmeal cookie I’ve ever eaten. Crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. The flavor from the cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg in the dough really puts these cookies over the top. Grab a glass of milk and enjoy!
How to Make Lunch Lady Oatmeal Cookies
These cookies are very easy to make. Start with mixing together butter and shortening in the bowl of an electric mixer. Add sugar and brown sugar. Mix until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla. Slowly mix in flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. Stir in oatmeal. Scoop the dough and bake.
- One cup of flour weighs 4.25-ounces. To properly measure flour, give the flour a stir to loosen it up in the container. Use a spoon and lightly spoon the flour into your measuring cup. Use a flat straight edge (like the straight back of a knife) to level off the top of the flour in the measuring cup. Do NOT compact the flour in the measuring cup.
- What kind of oatmeal do you use for cookies? I use Old Fashioned Oatmeal. You may also see this referred to as rolled oats in recipes and at the store.
- Can Oatmeal Cookies be frozen? Yes! You can freeze the cookie dough or the baked cookies.
- To freeze the unbaked cookie dough, scoop the dough and place it on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Place the cookie sheet in the freezer. Once the dough is frozen, transfer cookie dough balls to a freezer bag and store the balls in the freezer for 3 to 6 months. When ready to bake cookies, simply add a few minutes to the cooking time.
- To freeze baked cookies, allow the cookies to cool completely and place them in a freezer bag. Place the bag in the freezer. The cookies will keep about 3 months in the freezer.
- Feel free to mix in some raisins, dried cranberries, chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, toffee bits, or crushed Butterfingers.
Oatmeal Cookies from Scratch
I don’t know about you, but I don’t remember my school cafeteria serving freshly baked cookies. I would have definitely remembered a cookie this delicious! This recipe makes a lot of cookies. Perfect for a potluck, cookout, a bake sale, or the holidays. Give these a try the next time you need an easy & delicious treat! I promise you won’t be disappointed.
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Lunch Lady Oatmeal Cookies
Ingredients:
- 14 Tbsp butter, softened
- 1¼ cups shortening
- 1 cup sugar
- 1¼ cup packed light brown sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 Tbsp vanilla
- 3¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ tsp ground cloves
- ½ tsp ground nutmeg
- 4 cups old fashioned oatmeal
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- In the bowl of an electric stand mixer, cream together butter and shortening until light and fluffy.
- Add sugars and mix for 1 minute.
- Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add vanilla.
- Add flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. Mix just until combined. Add oatmeal and mix until incorporated into the dough.
- Using a medium cookie scoop, scoop dough onto the prepared cookie sheets.
- Bake for 11-13 minutes. Do not overbake!
- Let cookies cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes and remove to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Steph
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Next time I’ll leave out the clove. Very good cookie, just didn’t like clove.
Question, is this a crispy or soft cookie? Cookies look delicious and irresistible.
Again, thank you for bringing back these memories! I’m sorry your school did not bake fresh cookies but you are much younger than me. I know school lunches changed greatly thru the years. I remember oatmeal cookies, peanut butter cookies, brownies, and no bake (or boiled) cookies being served in our elementary school and jr. high. I remember brownies in high school. Those brownies-wow, were they the bomb! It was really hard to concentrate on school work when your classroom was close to the cafeteria! That was back when everything was homemade. And we were always hungry! LOL!
How could I divide this recipe in half, please? Thank you!
You can change the quantity from 4 dozen to 2 dozen – below the recipe title.
I do not use shortening, can I use veg. oil, or some other kind of oil instead of shortening? Thanks alot for your response.
Any substitutions and modifications to the recipe are up to you.
This isn’t my recipe but as someone who bakes all the time I can tell you that if you use oil instead of shortening you’re going to change the texture and consistency and you might get a runny cookie so if you’re going to do that I would add a little bit more flour and leavening agent.
Is that right? 14 T (1 stick plus 8 T of another) of butter and 1 1/4 c Shortening for 3 c flour?? Thanks!
That is right