PURPOSE: A blast furnace operating method is provided to decrease reducing costs by effectively using reducing gas with nut cokes mixed in an ore layer. CONSTITUTION: A blast furnace operating method is as follows. Iron ores and general cokes are charged in a layer type. Nut cokes are charged with the iron ores to manufacture molten iron after the iron ores are reduced in a furnace. A catalyst group is composed of alkali metals, alkaline earth metals, and transition metals. One or more than two selected from the catalyst group is spread on the surface of the nut cokes to make catalyst-coated nut cokes.