Get ready for cuteness overload — my reindeer noses recipe is here to win your heart! Part cookies, part candies, completely yum, they are beyond easy to make and the perfect Christmas cookies activity to make with kids!
You may have seen other versions of reindeer noses recipes that use Hershey Kisses, but my recipe utilizes an even yummier, caramel-filled candy: Rolo’s! Or you can shake it up with M&Ms, Reese’s Pieces, chocolate chips — that’s another great thing about this chocolate cookies recipe. The possibilities are endless!
Kids and grown-ups alike will love this festive treat! Let’s get baking!
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What I Love About Reindeer Noses Recipe
This reindeer noses recipe is perfect in every way, from the ingredients to the steps to the taste!
- Three simple ingredients
- Done in ten minutes!
- Great for kid bakers
- Salty-sweet perfection
Recipe Notes
Reindeer noses recipes come in many shapes and forms, from their other name of Rudolph noses to featuring a variety of delicious candies. Feel free to get creative with this recipe! That’s part of what makes this such a fun activity to do with kids — there’s no wrong way to make your reindeer nose cookies!
Ingredient Notes
With three simple, easy-to-find ingredients, there’s not much room for error with my reindeer noses recipe! But I still have some quick and dirty pointers for you home chefs.
Why Rolo’s? Many reindeer noses recipes use Hershey Kisses (or even caramel Kisses). But I chose to use Rolo’s because of one simple reason: it’s easier! The flat top of the Rolo candies makes the perfect cradle for the M&M. Plus, that sweet kick of caramel is unmatched!
M&Ms: To make these reindeer noses into iconic Rudolph noses, you’ll want to use red M&Ms. Don’t want to sort through your bag of holiday M&Ms for just the red ones? Luckily, you can buy a bag of entirely red M&Ms on their site!
Pretzels: One way I love shaking things up with this already deliciously salty-sweet recipe is by swapping out the traditional pretzels for my new favorite snack, pretzel crisps! These give a flatter base for your Rolo too while still giving a great crunch and a salty pop.
Storing Tips
Simple to make, simple to eat — and, you guessed it, simple to store! There’s nothing this reindeer noses recipe can’t do!
Can You Freeze This?
You can, but you don’t need to! Chocolate covered candies are notorious for having an excellent shelf life at room temperature. Even if you do freeze them, they’ll actually have the same life as at room temperature: up to a full year!
Make Ahead Tips
These treats come together in less than ten minutes, which means any make-ahead prep would actually add time to the process! The best tip I can give is to buy that bag of wholly red M&Ms to save you the time of picking through the colors. Though I do love having all the extra green M&Ms lying around to snack on!
How Long Can You Keep This?
Like I said above, this reindeer noses recipe is one of the many great chocolate-covered candies recipes that do really, really well stored at room temperature. Up to a full year!
But! Be sure to store your candies in an airtight container. Your pretzel components can still get stale if exposed to the air, so protect the crunch as long as you can!
Recipe Variations
I told you these treats are variation friendly! Let’s dive into the possibilities:
Can I Add Peanut Butter?
One step beyond this reindeer noses recipe is my reindeer Nutter Butter treats! Still a great project for kids plus that yummy addition of peanut butter. Or go for traditional with chocolate peanut butter cookies — they can even be made into sheet pan friendly chocolate peanut butter bars!
Can I Add Almonds?
Almonds are a holiday staple! Add some when your Rolo’s are soft or go full almond cookie with almond crescent cookies and almond shortbread cookies. Both are great for dipping in hot cocoa!
Can I Make This Recipe More Italian?
It isn’t Christmas without Italian cookies, especially my Italian Christmas cookies recipe! Packed with homey flavors, you’ll dream of holidays past with every bite. If you want a deeper, richer flavor profile, my Italian fig cookies will take you to a magical place where Christmas meets Fig Newtons. Yum!
Can I Turn These Into German Christmas Cookies?
German Christmas cookies are iconic for a reason! Everyone loves lebkuchen, German gingerbread, but my favorite is springerle — a delicate celebration of the classic holiday flavor, anise!
Can I Turn These Into Butter Cookies?
Bring on the butter! Christmas butter cookies crumble in all the right ways! And if you want to keep the kids in the baking process, cream cheese spritz cookies and chocolate spritz cookies are both super fun to make and extra delicious to eat.
Reindeer Noses
Ingredients
- 1 Bag Rolos
- 1 Bag Holiday M&M's
- 1 Bag Pretzels
Instructions
- Preheating oven to 170 degrees or the lowest setting on your particular oven. (my ovens lowest setting is 225 degrees and my Rolo's were ready at the same time as the original recipe directed.)
- Meanwhile, unwrap Rolos and separate M&Ms.
- Cover a cookie sheet with a Silpat or parchment paper and place pretzels in rows. Top each pretzel with a Rolo and bake for 4 minutes or until the Rolo is soft.
- If you're making these with kids, remove the warm pretzel/Rolos to a room-temperature surface. I made mine on the cookie sheet. Push one red M&M (M side down) into each nose. Let your completed noses sit out until they have hardened.
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More Chocolate Cookies Recipes…
Want to bring more chocolate to your holiday treat tray? Your reindeer noses will look awfully lonely all by themselves, after all!
- Chocolate Cake Mix Cookies – Buy the cake mix, make cookies! Easy peasy.
- Chocolate Meringue Cookies – Delicate and fluffy and CHOCOLATEY.
- Chocolate Macarons – A French classic.
- Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies – Let the kids help!
- Chocolate Shortbread Cookies – Perfectly dense and buttery!
Conclusion
I hope you and your baking helpers had the best time making these reindeer noses! If you made them, did you hold one up and take a picture with your own Rudolph nose? Let me know in the comments!
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[…] give credit where credit is due, neither are my own creation. A big thanks to Plain Chicken and Gonna Want Seconds for amazingly creative Christmas […]
I’ve been making these for years, and never heard them called reindeer noses, that’s so cute! I’ve always used all the holiday colors without separating them. (Red, green, white), but I didn’t know they represented Rudolph’s nose. It makes more sense now haha. We’ve also used the spring colors for Easter. I guess we could just use the pink and call them bunny noses 😂 Another good variation is to use a pecan half on top of the rolo, rather than tge m&m. Yum!
Sunnie, I love the idea of bunny noses!!
these are so cute will make with my kids