Paleo Thin Mints [VIDEO]
Looking for a healthier version of your favorite Girl Scout Cookie? These Paleo 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, dairy-free, and refined sugar free!
Girl Scout season is here… and if you are visiting my website you are likely avoiding the adorable little girls outside of the supermarket. It’s been a long time, I mean a long time, since I have eaten one. Although they are delicious, I am happy these types of flours and sugars are out of my life. But let’s be real for a minute, I totally want a cookie! 
Growing up I was definitely more of a Samoa/Tagalong kind of girl. As I grew up my palette switched to the Thin Mints. So naturally, I had to recreate.
These would be really good crumbled on top of a bowl of a thick vanilla protein smoothie. Just saying!
Watch the video:
Paleo Thin Mints [VIDEO]
- Prep Time: 45 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 14 1x
Ingredients
- Dry Ingredients:
- 1 cup + 1/4 cup blanched almond flour
- 1 tablespoon tapioca flour
- 1/3 cup good quality cocoa powder
- Dash himalayan sea salt
- Wet Ingredients:
- 5 tablespoons grass-fed butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
- 3 tablespoon raw honey
- 2 teaspoons coconut sugar
- Chocolate Coating:
- 1 cup dark chocolate
- 1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract
- 2 teaspoons coconut oil, or more as needed
Instructions
- In a bowl combine dry ingredients followed by wet ingredients. Make sure the butter is softened and at room temperature before adding it in. Use a fork to mix the dry and wet ingredients together until the butter is well incorporates and you have formed a pliable dough.
- Roll the dough into a ball and wrap it in parchment paper. Place the dough in the refrigerator and let chill for 30-45 minutes.
- While dough is chilling, pre-heat the oven to 350 ℉.
- Once dough has chilled, place it onto a piece of parchment paper. If the dough is soft, sprinkle additional tapioca flour onto the parchment before placing the dough onto it.
- Place a second sheet of parchment paper over the dough. Using a rolling pin, roll out dough until it is 1/4 inch thick. Make sure not to roll it any thinner. Thin dough will very be hard to lift. Use an off-set spatula to make the dough easier to lift.
- Use a cookie cutter to cut out cookies and gently lift them with a spatula to place them onto a sheet-tray lined with parchment paper (if dough is very soft roll it out and place it back into the refrigerator for an additional 10 minutes).
- Bake for 15 minutes.
- Remove and let cool completely on a cooling rack.
- Over a double boiler, melt chocolate and coconut oil. Once melted, add in peppermint extract. You can add more extract to taste, if you want the cookie to be extra minty!
- Using a spoon, dip cookies into the chocolate until fully coated and place back on the parchment paper. If the dipping chocolate is thick, add additional melted coconut oil to thin it out! Let chill in the fridge for at least 10 minutes, or until the chocolate has hardened.
Notes
- As tradition goes, store thin mints in the freezer!
- Just like meringues, a warm kitchen will effect the dough and cause it to be harder to deal with.
- Updated March 2017: recipe altered slightly to perfect.
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
What is your favorite Girl Scout cookie?
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78 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.
The recipe has been revamped to work the gooey dough issue people have had! Enjoy!
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!!!!
This is a fantastic read! A very informative blog, I wanted to try paleo diet, and I think you’ve cover everything I needed to know. I hope it works for me. I am excited to get started with this new lifestyle.
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!
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!