Gluten-Free Thin Mints
Looking for a healthier version of your favorite Girl Scout cookie? These Gluten-Free Thin Mints are just that! Crunchy, minty, chocolate-y, and just the right amount of sweetness! They are the REAL DEAL, while also being gluten-free, grain-free and refined sugar free!
Homemade Healthy Thin Mint Cookies
Growing up I was definitely more of a Samoa or Tagalong kind of girl. But in adulthood, my palette switched to the Thin Mints. So naturally, I had to recreate. I love being able to make my favorite childhood favorites at home, but with real, whole-food ingredients! This is no knock on the Girl Scouts and I’m all for supporting those sweet kiddos, but sometimes you just want to indulge in a long-time favorite treat but lighten it up a bit! And this recipe definitely is that.
These cookies are pretty simple to prepare, but if you are new to working with gluten-free cookie recipes we share all the tips below for how to be successful here!
These crunchy chocolate cookies are so delicious and the perfect treat to store away in the freezer for whenever your sweet tooth strikes.
Ingredients Needed
- Almond Flour
- Tapioca Flour
- Cocoa Powder
- Salt
- Butter
- Vanilla Extract + Peppermint Extract
- Honey
- Coconut Sugar
- Dark Chocolate
- Coconut Oil
Looking to substitute the almond flour? This is a common question we get. Unfortunately, we can’t offer a substitute for this as it is the main ingredient in this cookie. If you do try to replace it with another flour, please come back and share how it went for you.
Tools Needed
- Rolling Pin
- 2.5″ Fluted Cookie Cutter
- Parchment Paper
- Sheet Pan
- Essentials: Mixing bowls, spoons, etc.
Tips for Making Gluten-Free Thin Mints
It is pretty simple to put this dough together, but you must have the correct temperature butter! This recipe calls for softened butter. Others have had an issue with the dough after they try to make this with melted butter. Using melted butter will make this dough way too soft. So please, take your butter out of the refrigerator at least two hours before you plan to make the dough.
Once you have the correct butter temperature, all you have to do is add the ingredients to a bowl and mix it together–it’s that simple! The dough should be thick, but still pretty sticky. Once the dough is thoroughly mixed, wrap it in a piece of parchment and stick it in the refrigerator for at least an hour. If possible, let it sit to chill for 2 hours. Once it’s totally firm, it’s ready to roll!
How to Roll Out the Dough
This is the one tricky part about this recipe: rolling and transferring the dough to the baking sheet. But don’t worry, I’m sharing my best tips for working with this gluten-free dough.
First, make sure your dough is chilled.
Place the dough on a piece of parchment paper, and then sprinkle it with tapioca starch. Turn the dough over and sprinkle the other side with tapioca starch. Then place another piece of parchment on top of the dough. Now you are ready to roll it out! The parchment is used because it is an easy surface to remove from the cookies, and so you can transfer the dough on it in case your dough gets too warm.
The dough should be rolled out to a thickness of 1/4″.
Then, use your cookie cutter to stamp out as many cookies as possible.
Once you’ve stamped your cookies, it’s time to transfer them to a (new) parchment-lined baking sheet. If your dough is quite warm, I recommend sticking it back in the refrigerator for 15 minutes before transferring the cookies. To do this, just slide the dough directly on the parchment onto a sheet pan and into the refrigerator. Once the dough is chilled, it’s much easier to successfully move the cookie cutouts.
To lift the cookies, dust a mini offset spatula blade with tapioca starch and slide it underneath the cookie to loosen the cookie from the parchment. Use the spatula to transfer the cookie onto the baking sheet.
There is some finesse to this, but it shouldn’t be very achievable if your cookie dough is the right consitency.
To Freeze or Not to Freeze
Many people, including myself, love to freeze thin mints and eat them straight from the freezer. And that is a great way to enjoy this gluten-free version. These cookies will keep well in the freezer for up to 3 months. Store them in an air-tight container.
Don’t want to freeze them? That’s fine, but they will need to be stored in the refrigerator since they’re coated in chocolate. The cookies will keep for at least 5 days.
Watch the video:
- Gluten-Free Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
- 3-Ingredient Almond Butter Cookies
- Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Gluten Free Sugar Cookies
Paleo Thin Mints
Looking for a healthier version of your favorite Girl Scout cookie? These Gluten-Free Thin Mints are just that! Crunchy, minty, chocolate-y, and just the right amount of sweetness! They are the REAL DEAL, while also being gluten-free, grain-free and refined sugar free!
- Prep Time: 00:25
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 14 Cookies 1x
- Category: Sweets
- Method: Bake
- Diet: Gluten Free
Ingredients
- 1–1/4 cups almond flour
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tablespoon tapioca flour, plus more for rolling
- 2 teaspoons coconut sugar
- Pine fine sea salt
- 5 tablespoons butter, softened
- 3 tablespoon honey or maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
Chocolate Coating:
- 1 cup dark chocolate chips
- 1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract
- 2 teaspoons coconut oil, or more as needed
Instructions
- Add almond flour, cocoa powder, tapioca flour, coconut sugar, and salt to a bowl. Whisk together until combined.
- Add in the softened butter, honey, vanilla, and peppermint extract. Using a heavy spoon, mix the dough all together until fully combined with no visible butter streaks remaining.
- Transfer the dough to a piece of parchment or plastic wrap, and wrap it up. Chill the dough in the refrigerator for at least one hour or up to 1 day.
- Once the dough is chilled, preheat the oven and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Place the dough on another piece of parchment paper on a work surface, and then sprinkle it with tapioca starch. Turn the dough over and sprinkle the other side with tapioca starch. Then place another piece of parchment on top of the dough. Roll the dough to a thickness of 1/4″. Then, use your cookie cutter to stamp out as many cookies as possible. You can reroll the scraps to get more cookies.
- Dust a mini off-set spatula with tapioca starch, and slide it underneath the cookie to lift it off the parchment and transfer to the baking sheet. If at any point the dough is too soft to handle, transfer it to the refrigerator to firm up for 10 minutes.
- Bake the cookies for 15 minutes. Once done, transfer the cookies to a cooling rack.
- Meanwhile, over a double boiler, melt the chocolate, coconut oil, and extract together. Drop the cookie into the melted chocolate until fully coated. Use a fork to lift the cookie out of the chocolate, letting the excess drop off. Transfer cookies to a piece of parchment paper. Repeat with the remaining cookies.
- Let chill in the fridge (or freezer) for at least 10 minutes, or until the chocolate has hardened. Store in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, or the freezer for up to 3 months.
Notes
This recipe was updated in March 2017 with a slightly altered recipe and new step-by-step photos were added in March 2021.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 195
- Sugar: 11.8g
- Sodium: 46mg
- Fat: 14.1g
- Saturated Fat: 6.4g
- Carbohydrates: 17.4g
- Fiber: 1.7g
- Protein: 3.6g
- Cholesterol: 11mg
Keywords: Gluten Free Thin Mints
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77 Responses
Thin Mints are my favorite! I swear I could eat an entire sleeve of them in one sitting haha.
Omg I’m making these!!!!!!!! Well once my peppermint donuts are gone!
How many cookies do I get with this recipe?
12! It says it!
I realllly want to make these, but I don’t have arrowroot flour? Could I use xantham gum instead? I’m not gluten free so I don’t really know what the correct substitutes would be.
Omg. I could live on thin mints. Seriously, the best. My fav since childhood. It is quite possible that this recipe has made my day/week/month… and also possible it will ruin my life if I can’t stop making them… 🙂
So determined to make these that I actually printed the recipe immediately…at work (gasp!)
Just pinned the crap out of this recipe! GORGEOUS MY LADY.
OMGSH!!! So amazing looking!! I can’t wait to try them out!
Love these! I have a similar version but low carb sweeteners in there to manage my blood sugar. Yummy!
Just need to collect a few ingredients and these are becoming a part of my life. Would there be a major difference if I used cocoa powder instead of cacao powder?
Use cocoa! 🙂
Yum! So are the cookie ingredients everything except the dark chocolate and the peppermint extract? It’s not completely clear when you say “combine all cookie ingredients” – thanks!
Fixed!
OMG these look amazing! Thin Mints are actually my favorite girl scout cookie! I’m definitely making these this weekend!! Thanks for the amazing recipe. I can’t wait to try it.
These look amazing! Pinned for me to make asap!
First I love your site Lexi! Unfortunately I sometimes have a hard time recreating what u did & this recipe is the perfect example. My dough is goo. Goo, stick to your fingers, unworkable goo. Even after 4 hours in the fridge & 20min in the freezer. What gives?! What should I add to the batter to de-stickify? More almond flour? Should it be workable just out of the blender? I used butter instead of oil. Even still the dough tastes great, the piles of goo are in the oven now so I hope they end up ok. Please help! This isn’t the first time I’ve baked from your recipes & not ended up w your pictures. Paleo brownies was another flop. (Tasty but flat)
Hi Amelia! I’m sorry you had this experience. My first question/thought is when you said: “Should it be workable just out of the blender?” There is no blending involved with the recipe. Please elaborate on that part so I can further help. Also, surprised about the paleo brownies, I’ve never heard of anyone having that experience. Perhaps check the expiration on your baking powder. Sometimes if it’s old it’s not effective in a recipe.
sorry by ‘blender’ i meant my kitchen aide mixer. i’ll try the brownies again with new backing powder, i have had it a few years. my final product for the paleo thin mints are amazing! ugly but amazing!! i also had a hard time dipping in the chocolate, it was very thick…i really appreciate your feedback
they look delicious!
OMG, these look wonderful! I am a former Girl Scout, so I have quite a bit of history with selling and consuming these cookies, particularly the Thin Mints and the Savannahs. I am on Weight Watchers and was wondering if by any chance you know how many fat grams, protein, carbs and fiber is in them? I don’t want to go out and buy some of these ingredients and then come to find out I won’t be able to have them. Thanks!
I made these tonight! The end product was delicious but the making of them was a bit difficult. I had the same goo problem. I wasn’t getting a dough. After an hour in the fridge I put it in the freezer. I was able to cut out a couple of cookies before it got gooey again. I would freeze it about 10 more minutes and do the process over. I cooked them about 12 minutes then stuck them back in freezer until I was ready for the dipping part. The cookies are really good once said and done. I’m hoping to find a way to keep the dough from getting and staying gooey. Maybe I will leave sweetener out next time. But overall they are delicious!!
I just made them again and my batter is not liquidy at all! My tip: don’t melt the butter. It should be softened and cold.
The recipe has been revamped to work the gooey dough issue people have had! Enjoy!
Hi!
Sounds DELISH and I can’t wait to try these! Do you happen to have the nutritional facts for this recipe (calories per serving, etc.)?
Thank you! =)
I’m confused, does the dark chocolate have sugar in it or is it an unsweetened kind? If so, what sweetens the chocolate?
The cocoa powder? Unsweetened. The chocolate to melt? Dark chocolate. The cookies are sweet.
I was so excited to try these since I can practically inhale thin mints! I made them vegan by substituting EnerG egg replacer. I also had the same issue of having a gooey mess before rolling out the dough (it was looking great until I added the sweetener – then it turned to mush). About 5 minutes in the freezer was enough to cut the shapes, and then another 5 in the freezer so I could lift them off the parchment paper onto the pan. They’re cooling now…I too am worried that just melted chocolate will be too thick to dip the cookies – I’ll probably add a little coconut milk to the chocolate to make it a little more dunkable. Can’t wait to try the finished product!
I just made them again and my batter is not liquidy at all! My tip: don’t melt the butter. It should be softened and cold.
Hi I actually made the paleo brownies and had the same problem with the flatness just checked my baking powder and it says October 2014. Any suggestions ?
My batter was very liquidy if that helps
I just made them again and my batter is not liquidy at all! My tip: don’t melt the butter. It should be softened and cold.
Sorry should have clarified I meant the brownie batter was liquid?
Hi Lexi,
Your site is fabulous. I want to try all of these recipes! I’m wondering where you get your ingredients? Whole foods? What would you suggest for those of us who are money conscious?
Thanks!
Ali
Where did you find the cookie cutter? It’s perfect!
Does it have to be almond flour? I’m allergic and I was wondering if there was a substitute.
Could you use coconut oil instead of butter? I’m newly paleo & haven’t been using butter at all, but these look too good.
What brand of cocoa powder did you use?
I like Penzey’s!
Thank you so much for the response! I know there is a huge difference in cocoa powders out there.
I used the Herseys Cocoa Natural Unsweetened
Can I substitute the butter with coconut oil?
could I substitute coconut flour for almond flour? Thanks!
No that won’t work unfortunately!
What kind of cookie cutter did you use?
I’ve just made these cookies and had the same problem with gooey dough. I sprinkled almond flour on each of the sheets of parchment paper so the dough wouldn’t stick so badly. Next time I make these, I’m going to try this: roll the dough into a log (like old-fashioned icebox cookies) and freeze it. Then slice off cookie-sized slices and bake, without having to roll the dough.
Made these today. Love them! I had the gooey dough problem too… Added more almond flour as a fix.
The recipe has been revamped to work the gooey dough issue people have had! Enjoy!
I can’t have tapioca, would arrowroot work for this recipe as a thickener?
Thanks!
It should be fine!
When it says tapioca, is that the tapioca pearls or the flour? These look Absolutly delicious btw can’t wait to try them!
Flour!
So I have attempted these twice now and each time they are just flattening out like cow pies. They taste fine but don’t have the shape and are really crumbly. I have melted the butter first to help mix faster, it almost seems like I am using too much butter or not enough flours. Any ideas?
OMG! These are so unbelievably amazing!!! I’m really surprised people are having an issue with the batter, I have made these twice now (yea they’re that amazing) and didn’t have any problems. They definitely satisfied my thin mint craving without making me feel awful! I cannot thank you enough for this recipe; you made it much easier to resist the two boxes I bought for my boyfriend that are sitting in the cupboard!
I cannot wait to make these, but I’m confused about the tapioca. Is it a powered tapioca or a pudding?
Hi Lexi! Love your blog and your recipes! Excited to try this one 🙂 Quick question – what type of dark chocolate do you use for the coating? I am sensitive to both dairy and cane sugar, and unfortunately most dairy free chocolates that I’ve found are sweetened with cane sugar, so I can’t use them for dessert recipes that call for melted chocolate. Any suggestions?!?! Thanks!
How about Enjoy Life? Have you tried them? Or I love Pure7 http://pure7chocolate.com
Could you tell me what kind of tapioca I need? Starch beads I have no idea. Thank you.
Tapioca flour: http://amzn.to/1THFj9Y
It’s sold at mostly all grocery stores for about $3!
I’ve made these at least 3-4 times now and my entire family loves them. However they don’t come close to looking perfect like yours, is there a secret to applying the chocolate coating.
Can a nut-free flour be substituted here? Like cassava flour?
Probably! I’ve never tried Cassava so I can’t promise the same results. Let us know if you try it!!
I was wondering the same thing!!!! Did you try the cassava?
We haven’t yet. Stay tuned!
I made these and they turned out great! Thank you for the recipe!
Can I sub arrowroot powder for the tapioca flour?
Probably, but I haven’t personally tried it so can’t say 100%!
So I just went ahead and used arrowroot powder 1:1 for the tapioca flour and it worked out perfectly! These are delicious cookies!
★★★★★
Awesome! That’s great to know!!
These were awesome!! I rolled them into a log and sliced instead of rolling out and cutting with a cookie cutter. Easy!
★★★★★
Love it!!!!
Sorry Girl Scouts! I just made a double batch of these cookies and just let me say…OMG. I don’t know how she does it but I love coming to Lexi’s Clean Kitchen? Never made a recipe we didn’t like, and these are “real food” recipes, as my husband calls them. Great job, Lexi, and thank you so much!!!!!
PS, after reading some of the reviews, I used the top to my cooking spray for the cookie cutter and just used small plastic things to dip. The melted chocolate will cover any matks
How long do these last in the freezer? Sorry if I missed it somewhere 🙂
Planning on making these ahead, for my sisters bday!
Hi. Are the ingredients measured out in American cups? If yes is it possible to have them in grams or ounces as they look amazing! Thank you?
Yes, they are in American cups! We will put it on our list to retest in grams. Thanks!
LCL recipes are my FAVORITE…. but this recipe was beyond disappointing.
First off, the dough was so sticky, I found myself needing to add tapioca flour to the original recipe. Additionally, it never truly set up in the fridge so I felt the freezer for 1 hour would be better. It did make it a little easier to handle but was still so tricky. (Mind you, I recreate LCL recipes often and I’ve never had this issue before)
After 4 different tries (needing to add tapioca flour and allow the dough to rest time after time), I was finally able to roll it out. Measured 1/4 inch thickness as recommended. Baked for 15 minutes as per the instructions. Now typically, when I follow most of your recipes, I find myself needing to add bake time (as my electric oven seems to work a little slower than gas.). No big deal. Removed these cookies at exactly 15 minutes and after allowing them to cool, realized they were all black and burnt.
Basically… I used way too many high quality ingredients for this big of a mess up so to say I’m disappointed is the least of what I’m currently feeling.
This recipe should be adapted. **also adding- I live in NY and literally shut off my heat this morning and opened my kitchen windows as much as they’d go, to maintain a cooler atmosphere since I know a hot kitchen doesn’t help. Nothing worked with this recipe, for me.
★★
Hi Jaclyn! We appreciate you and so happy you often use LCK recipes. We took this comment seriously and headed back into the kitchen to retest these. While I am so sorry something went wrong on your end, but this recipe works as written. While I was testing them again, I went ahead and took new photographs of the process of making them to be more helpful in the future and added additional tips for having this recipe be successful for others! We appreciate you taking the time to share your experience, and I’m happy to troubleshoot with you further about what could have gone wrong on your end. Feel free to shoot me an email: [email protected] or comment here and we can chat!