Paleo Girl Scout Cookies: Thin Mints
Don’t be sad that it’s Girl Scout Cookie season, because now it’s gluten-free Girl Scout Cookie season, and you can partake in gluten-free Thin Mints. You can even dive into Paleo Girl Scout Cookies, otherwise known as Paleo Thin Mints.
Give thanks for this to the fabulous Tammy Credicott, author of Paleo Indulgences. Without her book, full of fabulous Paleo recipes (including a couple of Paleo Girl Scout Cookie recipes), I would not have thought of making this delicious gluten-free dessert.
Paleo Thin Mints
- 1 cup blanched almond flour
- 1 teaspoon coconut flour
- 2 tablespoons cacao powder
- ⅛ teaspoon celtic sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- 2 tablespoons vegan shortening
- ¼ cup honey
- 1 teaspoon peppermint extract
- 6 ounces dark chocolate chunks
- ½ teaspoon peppermint extract
- In a food processor
, combine almond flour, coconut flour, cacao, baking soda, and salt
- Pulse in shortening, honey, and peppermint extract until dough forms
- Roll out dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper
to ⅛ inch thick
- Freeze dough for 15 minutes
- Using a 2-inch cookie cutter
, cut out dough
- Transfer circles to a parchment lined baking sheet
- Bake at 350° for 4 minutes
- Cool completely on the baking sheets, then freeze for 1 hour
- Melt chocolate and peppermint extract in a small saucepan over very low heat
- Dip each cookie in chocolate, then place on a parchment-lined plate
- Transfer plate to freezer for 1 hour
- Serve
Makes 20 Thin Mints
Store your Paleo Thin Mints in the freezer for the best texture and crispy crunch.
These healthy, gluten-free cookies are the perfect hostess gift, housewarming present, or DIY holiday gift. Since Purim is right around the corner (February 23, 2013) you can give gluten-free Thin Mints alongside your Hamantaschen.
I love to reduce, reuse, and recycle. So when I give gifts for holidays such as Purim, I focus on making something simple, yet special, and definitely not wasteful. I place my homemade baked goods in reusable tins. You can purchase used tins for your cookies and candies at your local thrift store. Carefully scrub and de-glutenize the tins, then run them through the dishwasher. This makes a great gluten-free holiday gift, or hostess gift, and reduces waste during Christmas and other holidays such as Purim.
Here are some more paleo dessert recipes you might like to use for Purim, other gift baskets, holiday cookie exchanges or any time of year:
You might also enjoy:






Elana – I love your site and your recipes & have been following you since I first went gluten free four years ago. With this recipe though, you have made my life complete! I am GF, DF & egg-free, so many Paleo recipes don’t work for me. I am so excited about this one! Thin Mints were always my absolute favorite Girl Scout cookie, and now I can finally have them again (and feel good about what I’m eating)! Thank you SO much!
Substitute for vegan palm shortening??
Would also love to know a substitute for the vegan shortening- would coconut oil work or butter?
I have used coconut oil in place of vegan shortening with much success. I used this substitution in the Choc Chip Scones and worked beautifully. Happy baking!
I subbed coconut oil in this recipe- just softened it a bit. Worked and tasted great!
I used coconut oil too – it seemed to make the dough more oily so I ended up adding more almond flour – but it worked really wonderfully!
I made them with butter, worked out great! Sounds like either substitution works. I’m so very happy with this recipe. My husband has the real GS thin mints, and I’m having to chase him away from mine.
I’m so excited for these!! Thank you!!
Thin Mints were my absolute favorite Girl Scout cookie. I’m so excited to try these!
Oh DARN, I can’t make this recipe because i don’t have any CELTIC sea salt, I only have the NORMAL kind! Shucks!
I don’t think using the normal salt would hurt the flavor.
I didn’t even use salt and they were fine.
I will just never get over how amazing you are Elana!
any substitute for almond flour for a nut free version?
I’ve had great success using butter instead of palm shortening in her recipes.
Candice, my children and I can not have tree nuts, we use pumpkin seed flour and sunflower seed flour with great success!!! I use these flours to replace the almond flour in a lot of Elana’s recipes and they all worked beautifully!
Hi Jaime,
Please tell me where you purchase your pumpkin seed and sunflower seed flour.
Thank you!
Mia
Yay! Up next…the peanut butter (sun butter) tagalongs? I think I may use your cookie as ground work and spend some time this weekend trying to get those fatty patties in my belly. Thanks for rockin’ it, Elana!
I just have to say that I love that you said “get those fatty patties in my belly”. Just totally made me smile.
Ha! Glad I could make you smile, Tonya. In case you are interested, I think I did a decent job creating those fatty patties…
Use Elana’s cookie recipe, minus the cocoa.
1/2 cup Sun Butter
1/4 cup Honey
1/4 cup Coconut Flour
2 tsp. Vanilla
Chocolate chunks
Bake the cookies after cutting the shapes. Melt chocolate. Let cool. Generously apply butter. Paint chocolate over cookie. The first batch I did had too much chocolate (I dipped them) and not enough filling.
I haven’t had the tagalongs for years, but this did my belly wonders. :)
Is the sunbutter layer the combo of the honey/coconut flour/vanilla or just the sunbutter? And using the rest of the ingredients for the cookie? Just to clarify… I can’t wait to make them :)
Have you gotten the tag alongs to work? I’d love to see the recipe!
Elana, I absolutely love your sense of humor, in addition to your recipes, of course!
(That you’re Jewish makes your blog the best! Shabbat Shalom.
I was thinking that EXACT same thing! By the way, I have 2 Girl Scouts and I’m a troop leader, and we don’t even eat the cookies since they are so unhealthy!
Omogosh these look fabulous and I love the ingredients!
Thin Mints are my fave GS cookies! It just happened, I began my Whole30 on the month of GS cookie sales :( Thanks to you, I will be able to get my fix, of course, after this month. Love your recipes!!!
be still my heart …
Oh, you’ve done it again! Cannot wait to try these. My favorite cookie. I wonder if you have any idea how much you have enhanced the quality of my life with your recipes…….. Thank you!
Thank you so much for this recipe! I am looking forward to trying it.
Wonderful. These cookies are so tempting. I am going to give a try. :)
any substitute for almond flour for a nut free version?
Thanks for the wonderful recipe, I have a grain free girl scout thin mint recipe on my site but it was when I was still using dairy free butter and sugar! I love your ingredients, thanks again!
Cassidy
I wish I saw this sooner :- ) Oh, well .. I already purchased a box of thin mints to support a colleague’s daughter. Next year I’ll know better.
Monica
I made these and found the honey flavor to be distracting….. has anyone tried anything else in it’s place? I can’t do agave syrup though…. maple syrup??? Not sure if that would go with peppermint either.
I used yacon syrup with great success.
I’m going to try organic brown rice syrup in place of honey.
Have you tried a different varieties of honey? I find light coloured honey, such as acacia honey, works better in recipes where you don’t want a honey flavour
I’m so excited that you posted this recipe because it led me to your Paleo Samosas recipe!!
Thank you so much for the recipe! My whole family loved these. I am lazy and didn’t freeze the dough or roll them out. I just made little balls and flattened them out on my baking sheet, they came out imperfectly shaped, but tasty just the same.
I’m so glad you said this, I was just thinking I’d like to try these but am way to lazy for rolling and cutting :)
Thank You Elana!!! I made these today and they are as good as I remember the originals being. I did use coconut oil instead of the palm shortening and I used peppermint oil instead of extract. They are fantastic! My daughter is gluten and dairy free and has been for the past 5 years. This is her first experience with Thin Mints and I’m sad to report that she LOVES them and I’m going to have to share them with her. :)
YUM! Making these today! BUT, substituting Creme de Menthe flavoring instead of peppermint to get the real girl scout cookie flavor..bought it last year to make healthier whole wheat thin mints before celiac came to the house and now paleo…….mmmm!
Elana,
I just made them; they smell delicious!! We’ll taste once they come out of the freezer! Can’t wait!
What suggestions do you have for dipping the cookies in the peppermint chocolate? I dipped them in the pan (on low heat) on a fork; some cookies broke in the process and many bent (but then straightened out back on the pan.)
Thanks for educating us,
Shari in NC
I just used my fingers. It was warm, but not uncomfortably so, and darn, I had to lick my fingers when I was done.
These are so good! I substituted coconut oil for shortening and also xylitol plus 1/4 cup water for the honey to make them even lower sugar. I did need to freeze the dough about 30 minutes before rolling out and they were still pretty fragile but I got them up with a thin spatula… They seriously take just like I remember thin mint cookies (which I’ve dreamed about for years) tasting! Thanks Elana!
These were absolutely delicious! Thank you so much for sharing. A top-notch substitute, for sure. I had a hard time transferring them to the cookie sheets, but I probably waited too long after taking them out of the freezer. I also just spread the frosting over the tops of the cookies rather than dipping them in. So tasty!
Elana, I’m going to try your two desserts – paleo thin mints and the cc scones. My wife is trying hard to be Gluten Free; plus 2 of her kids have health reasons to avoid gluten. I think having an awesome baked desert will be a lot of fun. I like to bake and if I can show up with a thoughtful and tasty dessert, I’ll be back in the running for cool food guy.
Elana, these were fabulous. I used hazelnut flour in place of almond, and coconut oil instead of shortening. So good! Thank you!
OH Geez! Now I’m in trouble! These are one of my favorite indulgences. Now I can make them whenever I get an emergency Thin Mint craving! ;)
my husband’s birthday is next week and he asked for these instead of a cake…sooooo excited. THANK YOU!!!!
Please continue to support my petition to Encourage the Girl Scouts to sell a gluten free cookie
http://www.change.org/petitions/encourage-the-girl-scouts-to-sell-an-allergen-free-cookie
Signed!
This looks amazing–it makes me feel better about Girl Scout cookie season :)
Hi I am very very new at not being able to eat any grains. so I have been searching for recipes. So anyway I wanted to make the Simple Bread which I down loaded from your site. I fallowed it just like it said etc. there was not enough liq. to make any kind of batter. so I just wasted two and a half cups of almond flour. was there a miss print in the recipe or what. We live on a very fixed income so I can not afford to waste food. please let me know if the recipe is wrong of what, it is so simple to make up but it won’t turn out. Ginger
These look amazing! Can you substitute butter or Earth’s Balance instead of shortening? Also, instead of almond flour can you use a GF blend?
Thank you!
My daughter is a Girl Scout and also has a severe gluten allergy. She is out selling her cookies but can’t have even one. She remembers thin mints from her ore allergy days a d misses them. I made these as a surprise for her. She LOVED them! Thank you so much for making a little girl feel like a Girl Scout.
These look absolutely delicious! The kids will love these & so excited to try this recipe, not to mention, all the ingredients are healthy & organic:) Thank you!